Worst gift you've ever been given by a family member

[Anonymous]

My aunt gave my cousin one of our grandmother's old teeth with a gold filling in it.

[Anonymous]

MIL gave us a used vinyl office chair for our wedding. We didn't even have space for an office in our apartment.

[Anonymous]

I wanted some artificial flowers to decorate my horse jumps. My mom got bags and bags of them....used, from the local cemetery cleanup, and gave them to me for my birthday. Hey, they worked, except the ones with like "MOM" and "DAD" on them, and the price was right. We still laugh about the cemetery flowers, though -- maybe not a special occasion gift next time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I go by my middle name. So when I was married to her son my name was

First name Middle name. Her sons last name


As in I dropped my maiden name. Everyone knew this.


Three years in a row she got me monogrammed crappy jewelry with middle name. Maiden name. Married name.

Ha. This reminds me of my FIL, who (generously!) bought all his kids/ILs/grandkids tickets to a resort a short plane ride away when we all visited him in his home country.

The night before we were set to leave, we printed out boarding passes and I said, "Uh oh."

My name is, basically, Ellen Suzanne Smith-Jones.

I was born with a hyphenated name, and never took my husband's name (Smith is my mom's last name, Jones is my dad's). My husband's last name is Garcia.

My mom is also Ellen, so everyone has called me Suzanne since birth, though anyone who knows me the least bit well is aware it's my middle name.

So, again, my legal name, matching my passport and driver's license, and appearing on every plane ticket is:

Ellen Smith-Jones

My FIL bought the ticket for:

Suzanne Garcia

An understandable mistake. I had only been married to his son for 18 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I go by my middle name. So when I was married to her son my name was

First name Middle name. Her sons last name


As in I dropped my maiden name. Everyone knew this.


Three years in a row she got me monogrammed crappy jewelry with middle name. Maiden name. Married name.

Ha. This reminds me of my FIL, who (generously!) bought all his kids/ILs/grandkids tickets to a resort a short plane ride away when we all visited him in his home country.

The night before we were set to leave, we printed out boarding passes and I said, "Uh oh."

My name is, basically, Ellen Suzanne Smith-Jones.

I was born with a hyphenated name, and never took my husband's name (Smith is my mom's last name, Jones is my dad's). My husband's last name is Garcia.

My mom is also Ellen, so everyone has called me Suzanne since birth, though anyone who knows me the least bit well is aware it's my middle name.

So, again, my legal name, matching my passport and driver's license, and appearing on every plane ticket is:

Ellen Smith-Jones

My FIL bought the ticket for:

Suzanne Garcia

An understandable mistake. I had only been married to his son for 18 years.

It was still a generous gift, and I wasn't highly offended! And I get how this could be confusing, but in addition to not knowing/caring/remembering anything about my actual name, he never even double-checked before booking the tickets (it wasn't a surprise gift). And he comes from a country where everyone goes by a nickname-- which is often a totally normal, distinct name with no relation to their legal name. (Imagine people named James Peter Johnson regularly going by Robert or Paul.) Including his own kids.

We got to the airport very very early, and thanks in part to the commonality of nicknames in the country, per above, it ended up working out okay in the end.

[Anonymous]

My dad gave my stepmother $200 to purchase a special Christmas gift for me as I would be spending Christmas with them that year. Stepmom used the money to purchase for me a pair of green rubber boots and a robe (we lived in a warm climate where no one wears boots). I wasn’t upset by the gift, because I knew my stepmom didn’t like me, but I did feel a bit sad after watching my half siblings open all their gifts for over an hour. When I returned to my mom’s house and showed here the gifts I received, she was furious. My mom thought that the boots and robe looked used or regifted and cheap. My mom was so hurt by the gift, that she promptly called my dad to give him a piece of her mind. That was the last time I ever spent Christmas (or any other holiday) with my dad and his new family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dad gave my stepmother $200 to purchase a special Christmas gift for me as I would be spending Christmas with them that year. Stepmom used the money to purchase for me a pair of green rubber boots and a robe (we lived in a warm climate where no one wears boots). I wasn’t upset by the gift, because I knew my stepmom didn’t like me, but I did feel a bit sad after watching my half siblings open all their gifts for over an hour. When I returned to my mom’s house and showed here the gifts I received, she was furious. My mom thought that the boots and robe looked used or regifted and cheap. My mom was so hurt by the gift, that she promptly called my dad to give him a piece of her mind. That was the last time I ever spent Christmas (or any other holiday) with my dad and his new family.

Curious, PP ... how is it that you knew your SM had $200 to spend solely on you? Did your dad tell you that? If so, shame on him.

This reminds me of the gifts I got from my stepdaughter who was in her early 20s and working at the time. One was a bar of soap that came free with purchase. Another was a 3-pack of socks, with one pair missing. Then she really stepped up and bought me a necklace with the most horrid green and brown stones in it (think 70's shag carpeting colors.)

So it goes both ways.

[Anonymous]

...Vagisil powder in an Easter basket, along with assorted personal hygeine products. Thanks Mom! Following year (when I was 14) I got racey lingerie.

...I was a regular bather at the time, in case you were wondering.

I'll scoop up my award on the way out, thanks.

[Anonymous]

My sister got a used cheese grater from our dad's new wife. Plus the continued gift of her asking every time she comes over how she likes the new cheese grater. "I haven't needed to grate cheese" is the constant response.

When my sister first opened it and looked perplexed, our dad's wife said 'you don't have a cheese grater'. 'we do' (sister shows her) 'I didn't know where it was'. So basically she couldn't find our cheese grater in our home, remembered that random fact at christmas and decided to get herself a new cheese grater and give my sister her old one.

Me- got nothing/not a problem.

The whole thing makes me laugh. So gross/cheap. My sister now use 'cheese grater' as code for just about everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dad gave my stepmother $200 to purchase a special Christmas gift for me as I would be spending Christmas with them that year. Stepmom used the money to purchase for me a pair of green rubber boots and a robe (we lived in a warm climate where no one wears boots). I wasn’t upset by the gift, because I knew my stepmom didn’t like me, but I did feel a bit sad after watching my half siblings open all their gifts for over an hour. When I returned to my mom’s house and showed here the gifts I received, she was furious. My mom thought that the boots and robe looked used or regifted and cheap. My mom was so hurt by the gift, that she promptly called my dad to give him a piece of her mind. That was the last time I ever spent Christmas (or any other holiday) with my dad and his new family.

Curious, PP ... how is it that you knew your SM had $200 to spend solely on you? Did your dad tell you that? If so, shame on him.

This reminds me of the gifts I got from my stepdaughter who was in her early 20s and working at the time. One was a bar of soap that came free with purchase. Another was a 3-pack of socks, with one pair missing. Then she really stepped up and bought me a necklace with the most horrid green and brown stones in it (think 70's shag carpeting colors.)

So it goes both ways.

My dad told my mom when she called him. And after the call he mailed my mom a check to buy me a new gift.

Years later my dad confided in me that my stepmom has always been jealous of me.

[Anonymous]

Well, these bad gifts are the gift that keeps on giving because we're all laughing at the comments, lol. I come back every few days to laugh over the new postings.

[Anonymous]

In my family webbed toes run genetically down my mom's side of the family. One year for Christmas in the early 2000s my mom got me several pairs of toe socks. There is no way I could ever wear them because my toes are webbed, just like hers.

One year for my birthday, my grandmother made me a lovely hand embroidered jewelry box. She had stitched my name on the top, except it wasn't the right name. It wasn't just a misspelling, but she clearly had misheard my actual name for all 10 years of my life.

(This was in the days before internet so we mostly kept in touch with a weekly long distance phone call and annual visits. It was entirely possible she'd never seen my name in writing.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My aunt gave my cousin one of our grandmother's old teeth with a gold filling in it.

So many questions...What’s the story behind the harvesting of the tooth? Why was your aunt in possession of it? What did she say when she gave it to your cousin? I assume the gold filling was the gift. Did she expect your cousin to take the tooth to a jeweler and have them melt down the gold, even though there couldn’t have been enough of it to make anything with it? What did your cousin do with the gift? Does your family still talk about it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dad gave my stepmother $200 to purchase a special Christmas gift for me as I would be spending Christmas with them that year. Stepmom used the money to purchase for me a pair of green rubber boots and a robe (we lived in a warm climate where no one wears boots). I wasn’t upset by the gift, because I knew my stepmom didn’t like me, but I did feel a bit sad after watching my half siblings open all their gifts for over an hour. When I returned to my mom’s house and showed here the gifts I received, she was furious. My mom thought that the boots and robe looked used or regifted and cheap. My mom was so hurt by the gift, that she promptly called my dad to give him a piece of her mind. That was the last time I ever spent Christmas (or any other holiday) with my dad and his new family.

Curious, PP ... how is it that you knew your SM had $200 to spend solely on you? Did your dad tell you that? If so, shame on him.

This reminds me of the gifts I got from my stepdaughter who was in her early 20s and working at the time. One was a bar of soap that came free with purchase. Another was a 3-pack of socks, with one pair missing. Then she really stepped up and bought me a necklace with the most horrid green and brown stones in it (think 70's shag carpeting colors.)

So it goes both ways.

My dad told my mom when she called him. And after the call he mailed my mom a check to buy me a new gift.

Years later my dad confided in me that my stepmom has always been jealous of me.

Your father has serious boundary crossing issues. If my husband had conversations like this about me with his ex-wife AND his daughter he'd be looking at divorce number 2. No wonder second marriages have such a high failure rate. No one with children should ever get remarried.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dad gave my stepmother $200 to purchase a special Christmas gift for me as I would be spending Christmas with them that year. Stepmom used the money to purchase for me a pair of green rubber boots and a robe (we lived in a warm climate where no one wears boots). I wasn’t upset by the gift, because I knew my stepmom didn’t like me, but I did feel a bit sad after watching my half siblings open all their gifts for over an hour. When I returned to my mom’s house and showed here the gifts I received, she was furious. My mom thought that the boots and robe looked used or regifted and cheap. My mom was so hurt by the gift, that she promptly called my dad to give him a piece of her mind. That was the last time I ever spent Christmas (or any other holiday) with my dad and his new family.

Curious, PP ... how is it that you knew your SM had $200 to spend solely on you? Did your dad tell you that? If so, shame on him.

This reminds me of the gifts I got from my stepdaughter who was in her early 20s and working at the time. One was a bar of soap that came free with purchase. Another was a 3-pack of socks, with one pair missing. Then she really stepped up and bought me a necklace with the most horrid green and brown stones in it (think 70's shag carpeting colors.)

So it goes both ways.

My dad told my mom when she called him. And after the call he mailed my mom a check to buy me a new gift.

Years later my dad confided in me that my stepmom has always been jealous of me.

Your father has serious boundary crossing issues. If my husband had conversations like this about me with his ex-wife AND his daughter he'd be looking at divorce number 2. No wonder second marriages have such a high failure rate. No one with children should ever get remarried.

^ BTW, your mother is a sh!t-stirrer. You yourself say you weren't upset by the gift yet she became "furious" and made a big stink about it. What she should have done is taught you to remain polite no matter what kind of crappy gift someone gives you. Then she should have dropped it.