I asked some friends for the strangest/weirdest/worst Christmas presents they’ve received and I got some interesting answers:
*Answers have been edited for clarity and length*
When the thought was there:
- “An ex boyfriend gave me a diamond Eiffel Tower necklace junior year of high school that was too long. I am Italian and he’s Irish. He also gave me 10 boxes of mac and cheese with it.”
- “Last year my dad got me this school organizer with binders and notebooks but they were mini so I couldn't fit any papers in them.”
- “I got croc slippers with fur in them when I had asked for UGG slippers.”
- “One time my parents tried to give me a nice camera for Christmas but when I opened the box it was empty. Like completely empty, even they were shock, I was the only one without a Christmas present. And it took like a month for me to get the camera.”
- “A shirt I already had. It was from my little sister who said she could “picture me in it.” Wonder why! She also had gotten one of the flattened clothes boxes from the store but couldn’t figure out how to make it form a box so she put the shirt in between the flattened box parts and wrapped it.”
- “I got a half eaten box of chocolates. I think the person who gave them to me didn't know that and they still don't know.
- “I once received a women's shirt (I’m a guy) because they liked the saying on it and I immediately threw it out when I got home.”
When the group gift exchange goes wrong:
*For those who are confused, ‘white elephant’, ‘grab bag’, and ‘yankee swap’ are all synonymous*
9. “My mom got a bag filled with free bags of coffee you get in hotel rooms in a grab bag once.”
10. “My uncle brought a talking Jesus doll to our family white elephant. My Great Uncle Mike who is a Jesuit Priest didn't quite see the humor in it.
11. “One year in our family Yankee Swap, someone, I don’t remember who, gifted this huge piece of African Art. It was hideous and from then on our annual Yankee Swap has a strict ‘No African Art’ rule'."
12. “I got a pineapple from a white elephant.”
When the family tries their best:
13. “One time my parents bought me a water pick when I was 11.” For those who don’t know, a water pick goes for about $100 on Amazon and is advertised as “Our most popular water flosser with 90 seconds of water, pressure settings, and a three-year warranty.” Definitely at the top of the wish list of an 11 year old.
14. “My grandma gave 8 year old me a DVD player when I asked for a CD player. I didn’t have a TV.”
15. “So my aunt is like 45 and she always liked my cousin better than me, so every year she'd give super bad presents. But we'd each get the same thing, like matching snakeskin purses or something. But one year she got my cousin a computer and gave me a crisp $5 bill.”
16. “An old tee shirt with a sharpie drawn sunflower on it with the sentence ‘you’re a sunflower’ written under it - given to me by my dear aunt who is cheap and didn’t want to get me an actual shirt.”
17. “I gave my brother a bag of Tostitos chips like two years ago.”
18. “A sweater with a llama on it from my aunt when I was 16.”
19. “My parents gave me a printer for Christmas when I was 10, but it wasn't really a printer for me it was for our entire family. My siblings got iPhones. We still have the printer. In hindsight, it was a very practical purchase on my parents’ part. “
20. “My parents gave me a projector when I was like 8. I'm not sure what they thought I would use it for, and I'm pretty sure we've never even taken it out of the box.”
21. “My mom got me a fish once but she didn't realize that our water needed to be purified for the fish to live in or the minerals in it would kill him so by the time Christmas Day came my fish was already dead so my mom gave me a dead fish.”
22. “It was a Hairspray the movie soundtrack CD from my "grandmother" sent to me on December 12 with a card that said, "Since you're a Christmastime baby this is a joint Christmas/birthday gift. Happy birthday Kelsey" Two things: 1) My name isn't Kelsey 2) My birthday is in June.”
23. “I got my brother a cheese knife that has a huge smiley face carved into it. We taped a penny onto it because when you give someone a sharp gift, you have to attach good luck."
24. “My Grammy gave me a package of string cheese once.”
25. “When I was little, my aunt was in college and would use her college cash card to buy everyone presents. So five-year-old me would get a lot of sale XXL items that I would ‘grow into’. I’m 19 and to this day everything she got me could be a dress.”
26. “My daughter got me a plastic thumb wrestling game. It looked like a little boxing ring and there were two holes in the bottom where you were supposed to put your thumb. She then sat on it the next day and crushed it. Not a big loss.”
27. “My brother got me one of those jumbo pens that said ‘uncle’ on the side. Then told me it's because I'm that awkward member at family meals??? He was also 8 at the time."
When you wish they just hadn’t:
28. “One time my mom put dog poop in a forever 21 bag."
29. “The sex talk on Christmas eve of 4th grade. With stick figures.”
30. “I once received hotel soap”
31. “I got a solar-powered Queen of England, she waves at you and my mom banned her from the house but I snuck her in anyway”
32. “One of close friends in elementary school gifted me a little machine (I think it was a pencil sharpener) that you had to fill with water for it to work. Once I got it home I saw that there was a weird liquid all over the box. I soon realized that she had re-gifted it to me and that her brother had filled it with maple syrup. Needless to say it ended up in the trash.”
33. “A portrait of myself from my childhood."
34. “Coal.”
35. “I received a NFL mouth guard for the female, 8 year old, non-football playing me.”
36. “When I was five and my little sister was just a year or so old, my dad gave my little sister a bag of coal to scare me into being good. She was too little to understand and I was terrified.”
37. “I got a beanie with moose having sex on it. The best part is my dad did not see anything wrong with the hat.”
