gifts that you hated as soon as you unwrapped it - as a kid

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/6103/
The ghostbusters popper gun shot styrofoam cylinders for a distance of about 6 feet. I remember hating this gift and acting all proper when I received it anyways... I wanted to take it back so bad, but that wasn't an option.

(if you search retrojunk.com you might find pictures of the toy you are looking for)

i hate to say this about my dear departed grandmother but she would bring me some fugly clothing as gifts sometimes. sorry grandma.

aunt got me a cheap Florida Marlins tshirt and Florida Marlins wastepaper basket. I've always lived in Illinois and have expressed zero interest in any sports squadron based in or near Florida. At the time, I didn't even have much of an interest in the sport of baseball itself. Or in wastepaper.

Wanted this:

http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/85/awestriker/awestriker_title.jpg

But got this

http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/84/stinger/stinger_title.jpg

And totally flipped out. I was a spoiled brat.

there was a good criminal intent episode about a guy who went nuts cuz he was still bitter after several decades that his dad didn't get him the model car kit he wanted for his bday.

(dad got him cheaper model car kit, son realized that dad didn't really care about son's interests)

chess borad when my bros got electric cars
cardboard cut out of myself for bar mitzvah

cardboard cut out of myself for bar mitzvah

hahaha. what a terrible gift.

i told my mom i wanted electronic gadgets (i.e. gameboy, walkman, etc.). i opened present: an electric razor. she thought i'd love it. what?!

Oh man my first boyfriend would ask for CDs every year for Christmas (ie 'new Tool CD' or other albums) and his dad would buy him CD cases. As in packages of empty plastic cases in which one can store CDs. I found this out when I asked him why every other thing on his Christmas list said 'NOT CD cases!' His dad was really, really cheap, and his dad is also kind of my hero. (For dozens of reasons, not just that one.)

When I was 19, last holiday I was living close enough to spend w/my immediate family, 'Santa' put a pubic hair removal kit in my stocking. This did not make me CRY, but I am getting all flashback discomfort just thinking about this. (Especially since my mom is a huegs prude and also since I know she has pubic hair & thinks bikinis are weird.) She said she got it on clearance and you could probably use it for your legs.

Thanks, Santa???

From an aunt and uncle one Christmas:
http://www.made-in-china.com/image/2f0j00nBAEmQGdnUktM/Drill-Bits.jpg
I was six.

I'd be pretty pissed if I got urethral sounds for xmas

Let us not speak of the Jumper Of Humiliation... Oh all right then.
Family Christmas at a relative's house, handing out the presents, he hands me a present, which I open. It was a jumper, and it was also immediately apparent to me that it was too bloody small. I try to be tactful:

relative: "Go on! Put it on!"
snoball: "Errrrrr... no, that's OK, I'll wear it later."
relative: "Go on! Put it on!"
snoball: "I'll try it on when we get home.
relative: "Go on! Put it on!"
snoball: "But I'm allready wearing a jumper..."
relative: "Go on! Put it on!"
snoball: "Ohhhh kaaay theeen..." (puts on jumper, polite silence as everyone realises it's far too small)

For the sake of "not ruining Christmas" or some such shite, I wore this jumper for the whole of that Christmas Day, looking like a total lemon. It's funny now, but these kind of incidents are completely embarrassing when you're 14.

Haha, I thought I'd gotten some crappy gifts, but a pube remover?! Or an electric razor for a girl??!! Wtf?!

This thread makes my aunt's fondness for garish faux-Peruvian tat seem pretty cool.

Though I was a bit unimpressed when my Gran gave me a packet of Post-It notes for Christmas, but hey, I guess it's about the only Christmas present I've ever had that I'm still getting use out of several years later. (This is mainly because I use maybe two Post-Its a year, so a pack of ten blocks is going to last me quite some time.)

red combine harvester

Haha, I thought I'd gotten some crappy gifts, but a pube remover?! Or an electric razor for a girl??!! Wtf?!

mother's failed attempt trying to be hip?

I hate getting gifts anyway, so i hated most of 'em instanly. One classic example is the time my mom gave me a stupid board game, on purpose to irritate me, I immediately gave it to my sister, who discovered 50$ (or something) hidden in the box. heh :)

i remember getting some noisy laser gun at christmas, from a rich friend of the family. He was still in the room while I was firing it and generally over-using it. After about half an hour it broke, to which he groaned and offered to get a replacement.

My response to him, much to my parents utter astonisment, was "Don't bother, it was rubbish anyway"

I love the electric razor present. I mean now when we're adults, yeah, it'd be an awesome present. It's funny how adults get to a point where they totally forget their own childhood, so their mindset exists totally within this grownup world where you'd expect every male to appreciate an electric razor, even a 10 year old one.

When I was 12 I had told my dad I wanted a skateboard. Two years later, my dad tells me he's going to buy me a skateboard for Xmas, I am now 14 and don't want a skateboard any more, I think I wanted some handheld computer game thingy so I asked for that. I got a skateboard, not only that but the cheapest crappiest skateboard I've ever seen (not surprising cos I think skateboards are quite expensive, but still). Pretty sure he only bought it so I would then pass it down to my half-brother when he got a bit older (he tried pulling that with some space lego, I claimed I still played with it)

it was a lady remington and it was pink. i think it was my mother's way of not wanting to continually spend money on disposable razors/shaving cream. i can see an adult male being psyched about an electric razor - i think my sister gave her husband one for chanukah one year, but as an adult lady, i do not think it's something i'd get psyched about unwrapping. maybe it's the childhood scars, though.
xpost

he tried pulling that with some space lego, I claimed I still played with it

:) very recognizable.

totally off-topic but I regret all the stuff i sold on flea markets just to get a little cash. 5$ for 3 years of game console computer magazines seemed nothing. (Including the one edition were they published a fan letter I wrote)

I wear a medium shirt. Every shirt I've received as a gift from the extended family in the past 20 years has been XL or something.

Also Pearl Harbor DVDs, Gilligan's Island Reunion DVD, Wayne's World soundtrack... I hate to sound like a brat, but really, I would really prefer nothing compared to the crap I get.

They say it's all done in the spirit of giving, but I counter that yeah, but we're giving away crap here.

One of my wife's friends gave her the "Pearl Harbor" DVD one year MANY years ago. It is still unopened as far as I know.

Also Pearl Harbor DVDs, Gilligan's Island Reunion DVD, Wayne's World soundtrack... I hate to sound like a brat, but really, I would really prefer nothing compared to the crap I get.

OTM. I ask my mom not to buy me stuff every year and every year she buys me stuff like. . . Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. I can't even remember the last time I played regular Trivial Pursuit. And I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan anymore.

Conversely, one of the greatest things my parents ever gave me was Star Wars Monopoly!

Oh man, I know this is not as a kid, but I think the worst gift I've got as a grown up was from John's mom (my mother-in-law). It was the first Xmas I spent w/him, and we'd been dating maybe three months. She gives me this shirt that says "I have the pussy, so I make the rules," which is so vulgar and crass and misandrist and fucked-up and, man...I hid it in the back of my closet for two years (not even on a hanger, just behind linens & stuff I never touched), until one day I figured it had been long enough I could throw it away.

wtf!

Abbot, the gifts you've received are astonishing

She didn't even give him a matching shirt that said something like

<--------------
HER BLACK EYE
c/o ME, HER BOSS

Karma will b-slap me given all the awesome shit I used to get for Xmas (like I Took A Lickin' From A Chicken, LOL) so the following list is more in absurd appreciation more than disgust. Thank you relatives close and distant!

- Anne Murray greatist hits (I was 9! WTF!)
- olive green wool scarf (hello I lived in L.A.)
- picture screws
- Wacky Tacks (kids' tacks from Pic n Save)
- free coupon to swim in Duck Pond near Marina Del Rey (second to Salton Lake for pollution)

My grandparents gave me a "Splash" Cabbage Patch Kid (ie one that was plastic instead of cloth, with cornsilk hair instead of wool, and could be taken in the pool/bath). I actually asked specifically for the one that had long hair and a cute bathing suit, but the one they got had a gross bowl cut and a bathrobe. I hated it. But I played with it every day we stayed with my grandparents so they would think I liked it.

God I sound like a spoiled brat don't I. I suppose I was.

Oh and also for my 21st my notorious re-gifter of an adorable grandma (other side of family) sent me, from across the world, a 4-inch-high, empty, wire birdcage. Uhhh...??

One of my wife's friends gave her the "Pearl Harbor" DVD one year MANY years ago. It is still unopened as far as I know.

DAD: You don't like it?
ME: Um.
DAD: But I thought you liked American history!

A bathmat when I was 14.

I can actually understand what my dad might be thinking about every year when he opens his Christmas present from me. See, I always get him something with a golf theme. He doesn't play golf. But on the other hand, he never says what he wants, either.

The clear signal of course when someone opens a gift and dislikes it - the repeating of the name of the gift

"oh you got me a label-maker"

-Seinfeld

lol "oh you got me a mini golf desktop set"

not really "hated", more "sorta thrilled by but simultaneously baffled as to how i'd ever find it useful": a unicycle

it's still around somewhere

things my brother did with my cardboard cut out self at my bar mitvah party:

1) set it up in a stall in women's restroom
2) waltzed with it on dancefloor

I can't really hate on the one gift I received that really hated (red hillbilly pajamas with a butt flap at age 14) because of the circumstances surrounding it (my brother was in a coma and my parents couldn't shop anywhere but the hospital gift shop for fear of being far away when he either woke up or passed away).

I really didn't like them, though.

You're not supposed to find a unicycle useful, silly.

I have always longed for one.

OTOH, I had a great-aunt who once sort of steered me away from the rest of the family to give me a gift. I think I saw this woman six times in my entire life before she died a few years ago. This was one of those times.

She gave me a present. It was this plastic car that you could flip up the top and see the exterior. It was about six inches long, pretty big for a toy car. Not shabby at all, especially coming from someone I hardly knew.

"OH, you hate it don't you? I knew I was getting the wrong thing. I can take it back for you, I kept the receipt. I just had no idea what I was supposed to get for you. Just give it back to me..."

I had to talk this woman into the fact that I would actually play with it and that it was a thoughtful gift (I was maybe 8 or 9 at the time?) So there's an example of getting a good present and still having to deal with a bunch of passive-aggressive mumbo-jumbo.

I'm in an irrationally good mood, and the following url is YouTube folklore at this point, but it bears repeating

...only for the comments.

febsta555 (13 hours ago)
u suck

MovieMakerAkatsuki (3 days ago)
LMFAO WAS THE GIRL HUMPING THE BOX

ismashU (1 week ago) Show Hide 0
lol kid says "OMG NINTENDO 64 ROMOTE CONTROL CAR!"

hockeycorey1296 (1 week ago)
get a ps2 jesus

hockeycorey1296 (1 week ago)
these kids have no frends,they need to get a life and get outta video games,u guys r retarted i mean seriously,it was about 46,000 years old my brutha. you shud get a life.....ps:peanut butter is kickasss!

caitlyn7117 (1 week ago)
NOW WE CAN PLAY THE GAMES FROM BLOCKBUSTER! LOL lmaso

unicycles are awesome, in theory. but putting in the time to learn, say, a musical instrument strikes me as being way more rewarding in the long run.

i suppose the fact i have one is enough. status symbol.

get a ps2 jesus

FFS everyone knows that JC rocked the Dreamcast back in the day... (xpost)

The clear signal of course when someone opens a gift and dislikes it - the repeating of the name of the gift

I wonder what people say when they're really thinking "this present sucks but I can ebay it..."?

Christmas 2000, my Aunt and Uncle gave me a St. Louis Rams vs. Tennessee Titans Super Bowl program, despite the fact that the game had taken place nearly 11 months earlier, and that I didn't like football. During the same Christmas, my grandma bought me Free Willy 3 on VHS, which included a plastic orca medallion necklace. I was 17.

On some parallel world, my parents and sister are typing on a thread about all the dumb gifts I've given them throughout the years (a few years ago I got everyone rechargeable batteries), so I guess it all evens out.

The clear signal of course when someone opens a gift and dislikes it - the repeating of the name of the gift

This happens a lot on camera, but I never witnessed this, nor have I done this. Awkward looks, though, are universal for this.

this shirt that says "I have the pussy, so I make the rules,"

red hillbilly pajamas with a butt flap

I'm wearing both of these items right now.

please tell us that you're not wearing the PJs back to front...

clothes of any sort.

My dad got me an ashtray once, I was 11 and asthmatic. He also got me a furry leopard print seat belt cover which would have been embarrassing to use if only we had a car, or had any family members with a car, or ever used any transport that wasn't a bus or a train.

Over the last three or four years, my mother has been giving my husband and I a really odd collection of small novelty lights. Like, a clip on light that is supposed to be super bright, and one with magnetic feet that you plug into a usb port, a book light shaped like a little person, mini mag lights. I have no idea why she does this. I don't really hate them so much as am very puzzled by them. We keep them all in a basket on a shelf, because I guess you never know.

I remember getting a load of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff one Christmas, just after I had gone off the show completely and wanted nothing more to do with it.

A few years later, my brother bought me the notorious "game" Rise of the Robots (awarded 3% in a Sega magazine at the time) for Christmas, and when I tore off the wrapping paper I yelled "Oh my God!" in utter disbelief. Didn't mean to, of course....