Contest alert — The gift that keeps on giving …
I haven’t done a contest in a while. And hey, it’s Christmastime. So let’s do a contest. I’ll give away the following:
1) Copy of Karma Girl and T-shirt
2) Copy of Hot Mama and T-shirt
3) Copy of Jinx
How to enter: Just leave a comment on this post telling me about the worst or best Christmas/Hanukkah/birthday/other present you’ve ever gotten. I’ll draw the winners on Wednesday and announce them on the blog.
So what’s the worst Christmas present I’ve ever received? An olive tray.
Yes, Virginia, there are things called olive trays. You use them to serve olives at parties. They are long, skinny dishes, just wide enough for olives and nothing else. It still boggles my mind that someone, somewhere, decided to create a dish just to serve olives — and that I ended up with one of them.
Why was this a bad present? For starters, I hate olives. Hate ’em. Hate ’em. I can’t stress that enough. The tray itself was fairly harmless, sturdy white ceramic. The only problem was that it was an olive tray — which meant you could only put olives in it and nothing else. It wasn’t even wide enough to put Hershey kisses in, unless I lined them up just so.
Of course, the person who gave me this had no idea that I didn’t like olives, which is why she also gave me a jar of olives to serve in the tray. Sigh. You know it’s a bad present when you tear the paper off the box and start hoping that it’s really an umbrella inside.
So what happened to the olive tray? Well, every year at my newspaper, we gather up all the items people have sent us (we can’t accept freebies), hold a silent auction for the newspaper staff to bid on whatever they want, and donate the money raised to our Santa Pal charity. The olive tray got donated to the cause. And someone at the newspaper actually bought it. I don’t know who or for how much, but it went home with someone that year.
Still, I think about the tray every Christmas — and how people reacted to it. My boss at the newspaper was practically crying with laughter when I brought the olive tray in for the action and told her that I’d gotten it for Christmas. Several folks looked at me and said “Um, that’s different,” in strained voices. Other people looked at me like I was making up the whole story — like I’d actually bought the tray for myself. Sigh.
What about you guys? What’s the worst present you’ve ever gotten? Share in the comments for a chance to win. Or just to vent. 😎
33 Responses to “Contest alert — The gift that keeps on giving …”
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One year, my motherinlaw gave us a wall hanging that was covered with orange and blue beads and feathers. We did not know which end you were supposed to hang it from. It was hideous.
Hi Jennifer! My best gift was the first year of being married. For Christmas, hubby got me a dishwasher and it really gets put to use 🙂
My hubby’s grandmother likes to give presents. One year I got this pair of fuzzy black mittens. Like, FUZZY. It could’ve been a dog. It wouldn’t be so bad, except that it also shed. Oh, and don’t forge t the fuzzy hat! The orange fuzzy hat. Which goes with my skin tone like acid on paper. =) Thank goodness for family, eh?
One of the worst presents I got was a polka dot t-shirt from my mother-in-law. First of all, it was one of the granny style ones, super baggy with floppy sleeves almost down to my elbows. After Christmas I began seeing other people in the family and realized she got the same exact shirt for my sister-in-law, herself and if I remember right, her 90 year old mother. 😮
Wall hangings? Fuzzy gloves? Yikes. And I thought my olive tray was pretty bad. :joker:
I have a good runner-up present too — I once got a man’s manicure set for Christmas. That was another time when I really hoped it was an umbrella instead.
Why can’t people just give gift cards or better yet cash for Crimmus? Either one of those would be infinitely more useful than some of the stuff you guys have mentioned — and some of the stuff I’ve received over the years. :rolleyes:
I am going to desperately try to list ONE of my worst Christmas presents. First I will write them all and then pick the most apalling. This is all in one Christmas! I had a boyfriend who was possibly the worst boyfriend ever. He was all about self improvement oh wait MY self improvement. That is better. One Christmas he bought me full spectrum light bulbs. No lie. Why? Because I could fully appreciate the full spectrum of color in my home if I had full spectrum light bulbs. I was like…wha? Truly so astounded I could not even fit another consonant into the word what. He also gave me a root beer making kit, a journal making kit (because I like to write — key word is like to write NOT like making my own journals…I was never a kit girl. He also blessed me with a little shark vac for my car so I could keep it clean. Note: I was not bemoaning keeping it clean.
By the way…I asked him for perfume. He refused to give me perfume because I asked for it.
Wow…a bit of a rant.
Thanks for entering me!
Oh my gosh, I LOVE olives.
I would have eaten that whole damn jar in like three seconds.
YUM.
You know, I really don’t think I’ve ever gotten a bad Christmas gift. I like pretty much everything.
I think the worst was when I KNEW what I was getting. I was really happy, but the surprise was ruined.
The worst present I ever got was two pair of thong panties from my mother-in-law the second Christmas my husband and I were married.
Fun contest. :joecool: My worst gift: circa early 90s, I received a hideous macrame thing that I suppose was to be a decorative gift? I was not impressed.
the worst present (new present) i’ve got was a book!! imagine getting a book as a present which is wonderful and shows that they know the way to my heart and then the book being something that i would never read, which shows that they soooo don’t know me!! 🙂 it’s this horrible feeling of getting something you love and not liking it one bit! and as you’ve guessed the best gift i’ve ever got were also books, books from my wishlist, now that i call a perfect gift, either than or a bookstore giftcard!
The worst gift I got…your going to laugh about this but its the truth…is an M&M’s jar. Don’t get me wrong, I am opened minded and the jar was a nice glass jar and festive looking. But the problem was, there were colored candy crumbs at the bottom of the jar but no candy. My aunt or uncle had eaten the candy. LOL Now I don’t know about you but I’m thinking it’s pretty sad when you cannot just go to the store and buy some more M&M’s to fill the jar back up. Oh well.
The best gift I received was many years ago from my Grandmother, it was a book and it was Dune by Frank Herbert. To this day I have no idea how she figured it to be a perfect gift because I am pretty sure she hadn’t even heard of science fiction.
Mother-in-laws really don’t give the best gifts, do they? Mine gave me a sweat suit with a cutesy saying on it probably the second Christmas that my husband and I had. I was only twenty at the time and even now, I haven’t resigned myself to cutesy sweat suits. LOL and no offense to those who wear them.
Deidre
Earrings. Silver earrings. Fake silver earrings. Ugly fake silver earrings. That was the worst present given to me, EVER. The fact that it was given to me by my best friend at that time made it worst. I told her a whole month before Christmas that I cannot wear any type of earrings at all, except 99.999% gold. I have kept on reminding her every few days. I knew she didn’t have money to buy expensive ones, so I told her not to. But, no. She didn’t listen to me, after I spent a whole hour telling her that if I wear any other types of earrings, I would get an infection.
Hmm… the worst present I’ve ever received was a gag gift: a box of Denture cleaner! One of the best was probably the year I only had one present under the tree: a huge box. Come Christmas morning I discovered that it was filled to the top with tons of individually wrapped gifts! One of my other favorites was when my then boyfriend got me a medium sized box that had packing peanuts inside, then another box surrounded with tissue paper, and another with Christmas tinsel, and another with gravel and the final box contained a small choker.
My ex-boyfriend gave me a really young kitten on my birthday!!!
I am scared of animals, even butterflies. I just smiled at him and wondered how well does he know me anyway. I returned the gift to him, I didn’t know what to do with it.
:mmachine: (I just had to use the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo!) This contest is so awesome!! All of the prizes are great! And these stories are pretty awesome too. Just think people, those crappy gifts were so crappy that they made bloggers all over the world laugh out loud.
I’ve gotten some wonderful gifts over the years – for my 16th birthday I was surprised with a car that had a huge ribbon on top (I paid half and it took me three years but that made me take better care of it. My parents were smart.), I got engaged on Christmas Eve and the best was when my first son was born on Dec. 22nd and we came home on the 24th.
The bad ones were funny but not horrible. Most of them were for our wedding. We got a funky, metallic, starburst clock that had no numbers and you couldn’t even really guess what time it was. I’m sad to say we regifted it to a college friend who’s wedding we didn’t even go to. (I didn’t take the plastic wrap off though so it wasn’t used. Probably still hasn’t been.) We did get a little blue trench coat that my grandma handed down to our small kids. It had never been cute but it was very sweet of her to give a gift to the kids. We took some funny photos with all the kids and then we mailed it to my brothers home for his kids. We only explained where it came from once and it was never talked about again because the game was on! They also took some good photos and then returned it to us, in the bottom of our clothes hamper the next time they visited. We returned it to the back of my nephew’s closet on a hanger, they returned it in the bottom of a bag of hand me down clothes, back to them under the bed, back to us inside the fold out couch, to them in with the pool toys, etc. until my youngest brother had kids. We had to include him in the fun but he just didn’t get it the way we did. It’s never come back. That I know of. Hmmm…
Sorry I babbled but this was fun. I had forgotten about some of this stuff. Thanks for your contest and your great books and happy holidays everyone! :joecool: (I love Joe Cool too.)
So many bad presents, I just don’t know which one to choose. The snowman and Santa sweater vest, the jar of old olive oil with stale spices, the shirt that was about three sizes too small… I think I will have to say that the WORST gift that I have ever been given was the velvet color in poster. I guess it wouldn’t have been so bad if I weren’t 26 years old. It was the sort of present one would give to a ten year old girl. I was appalled! In a good way, of course. I try to never turn my nose down at a gift, but still… something age appropriate would have been nice.
My worst gift received was a holiday themed sweatshirt. While I guess it was technically cute in a holiday themed over decorated way. It was 2 sizes too big and a style I never wear. That much glitter just does nothing but get on my skin and make me itch.
:ww: worse gift hmmm…I’d have to say it would be a sweater with
:ww: worse gift hmmm…I’d have to say it would be a sweater with a christmas theme..sounds nice in theory..but it was hideous..glittered snowflakes and textured fabric layered in the front. If i was a kid i would have looked adorable…but being a grown women wearing that ..a big no lol
my step-mother gave me that gift..
One year I got an electric blanket for a twin bed and I had a queen bed…go figure why I hated it….
One year the inlaws gave me a 3 foot tall resin goose meant to be displayed on your porch. The kicker was it had an outfit for every month to dress it in.
All of you with those ugly Christmas sweaters — they’re the new hipster thing, ya know! People have ugly holiday sweater parties! Usually there are cookies, which makes it better.
The worst presents I ever got were from my ex-boyfriend. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t break up with him right then and there. He bought me a sweat suit and leather bumpers for my water bed. Not a track suit, but just the Hanes kind that are $20 total. I was waiting for a ring, that didn’t happen and now I’m grateful.
I also had my ex-husband get me an epilady one year. Do you remember those? The hair removal system that RIPPED the hair out of your legs!
Luckily my presents have gotten better.
Happy Holidays.
I don’t think I’ve ever had any really bad Christmas gifts — at least not on the level you describe.
My best Christmas presents have probably all been books. I suppose particular favorites that stand out have been the first three DARWIN AWARDS books.
When I was in college and taking 22 hours of coursework my senior year, my then-boyfriend and now-husband stopped by and visited me after everyone of my exams. I guess I was so stressed at the time that it took one of my classmates to point out what my husband was doing: he was bringing me a small Christmas present after each of my exams! He bought a nice ink pen in my favorite color, he gave me a relaxing poster of a tropical island sunset, he gave me a book, and so forth. In a way, it was a sort of Advent presents for my exams…counting down to Christmas and the end of a tough semester!
Wow, that was a long time ago and I still remember!
Its actually the present that keeps on happening–each year my mom’s father and stepmother send me a giftcard to Sephora, the make up company. Except I don’t wear make-up (why wreck what natural beauty I have?). I send a letter each year thanking them kindly for the gift, but that I have no use for it. Its been 5 years now XD
I keep hoping each year I’ll get the book certificate instead, but sadly…well there is always this year right?
Worst gift…..for christmas not to long ago, I received spagetti (dry noodles)….get out of here, dry noodles! What?
Thanks
Darby
darbyscloset at yahoo dot com
Happy Holidays! In December of 1985, my boyfriend brought me an adorable white bear. It was two weeks before Christmas! I had been dating him for 3 years.
The bear was adorable. He finally had to tell me to look closer at the red ribbon around the bear’s neck. On the back of the ribbon hung my engagement ring from him! That is the best gift I have ever received. We were married the following May and celebrated 22 years of marriage! Thanks, Cindi
:snoopy: The best Christmas present ever was a pony. The worst was a self-help book gifted from someone who had NO experience in the subject area. :rolleyes:
Thanks,
Kim
😥 one year when i was little i got a set of cars! and i hate cars and i wanted a barbie instead =(
:snoopy: :woodstock:
one year i got chocolate…which isn’t too bad but i am allergic to chocolate and everyone knows that! and the worse thing is that it also came with a fruitcake! eww!
:joecool: My worst Xmas gift was from my husband (now EX husband!). He gave me brakes for my car– all wrapped up in christmas paper– the ACTUAL brakes! I cried all day I was so mad!