Worst was either the pink horsey t-shirt that was clearly designed with a tween in mind(I’m 29 and it was two years ago)… or the frilly apron with horse print for the lower half. I enjoy cooking (and am a mess) but I am not about frills! 
[QUOTE=Jealoushe;8958260]
Last year my bf at the time got me a really nice pendant and sweater…which I thought was a nice gift. Until I found out he got his ex gf the same thing…the same day, at the same stores…and thus began the trail to me finding out he was cheating on me with her.
This year I am returning the favor to him…he goes to trial on the 12th and I am the key witness - enjoy your life in prison, Merry Christmas…which also happens to be his Birthday :)[/QUOTE]
What??? You have to share the details, come on don’t leave us hanging!! 
I’m the same way and have received very nice leather wallets that happen to be pink, my least favorite color, from a family member two years in a row. I don’t even carry a wallet!
One year my Mom, who knew better, gave me a pink and green ruffled equitation blouse. It looked like cotton candy vomit. Luckily, it was too small — or I would have had to wear it at least once to pacify her before I BURNT it. It was too tacky to even donate to the GoodWill. I returned it and got 2 nice flannel western shirts, much more my style.
Lots of interesting reading here! Good bump.
As for my dumbest gift:
A relative gave me a ceramic vase/planter: horse head motif of mare and adoring foal. Ceramic is black - very shiny - so shiny that you can’t even make out that it’s a pair of horrendously stylized horse heads that lack any features.
The thing looks like a lumpy, evil mass of polished coal slag.
I always wanted a dog, a cat, and a horse. Got all of them as a small child, none at Christmas, so I never asked for anything else until I was old enough to want a car. Didn’t get the car at Christmas either. I never got “bad” presents at Christmas and I never wanted all the material things my sister wanted (and got each Christmas).
So I never had the depression that a lot of my friends say they had when they did not get what they wanted at Christmas.
I love the lights, the singing/caroling, and all the parties during the holidays.
I am loving this thread… how is this my first year finding it?!
Some of these ‘gifts’ are making me laugh out loud (I’m at work, so then I unsuccessfully try to cover it with a cough or something)
Some of the stories are downright tragic – many of you, if these stories are indicative of your growing up, your families, your step parents, in-laws, and spouses. Then I am SO sorry, and so hugely grateful and appreciative of my family!!
When I was a horsecrazy 7yo, all I wanted was Breyers or brushes to use on the riding lesson horses. I was NEVER a doll kid or a girly-girl (never owned a single Barbie). My grandmother made me a 4-foot high soft doll that was supposed to be my new “sister”. I was obligated to drag that thing around with me everywhere, dressed in my old hand-me-downs, whenever we spent time with her.
I, too, have the obligatory collection of ugly-thing-with-horse on it, given by well-meaning, non-horsey relatives (clothing, art, ceramic mugs, figurines).
I’ve never had truly horrible horse presents, though one year my mom gave me a whole John Lyons training kit thing complete with miniature traffic cones…. Not really useable in my H/J barn. And DH once gave me a set of pleather open front jumping boots – like the layers of plastic were already separating when I opened the wrapping…. Sigh.
But my family and friends MEAN WELL! What is wrong with the people who deliberately are mean and/or insulting to kids?! And I don’t understand spouses who don’t give anything…… I mean, not that I would divorce my husband over a gas-station-figurine, but I would seriously question his love and respect, and a future together without those….
My favorite Christmas present story is mine…. We had an OLD TV –like huge in all three dimensions, fuzzy screen so you couldn’t read credits, grandma’s house old.
Our new cable package had HD programming and we had a newish Blue Ray DVD player, so I wrapped an HDMI cable and put it under the tree. When he unwrapped it, I acted all excited that we could watch high def shows now…… he just shook his head and was like, “oh, honey….”. He looked so sad telling me that the cable wouldn’t work because the reason we had a fuzzy picture was not the cable, but the TV…. I assured him that the Best Buy Salesperson had assured me that this cable would work… oh, but there was another component, an adapter or something, that I’d forgotten to include with the cable…… so I ran upstairs and brought down the huge LED flatscreen that I’d really gotten him for his Christmas present! The joke was on him, since he really believed I was that much of a technological idiot.
one of my uncles gave me many years ago one of these little Espressomachines which you heat up on the stove. Well I wasn’t a coffee fan then but in fact I used it. Well next christmas, I got another Espressomachine. 
I was polite and did t say anything, but then the next year, I got the 3rd one… I assume he bought dozens of them and gave them to everyone until he used them up The last one I refused though…
[QUOTE=ASB Stars;8958679]
OMG! :lol: :lol: :lol:
You MUST share the rest of the story- as best you can. This is just too good! :yes:[/QUOTE]
I will post the story next week…after the trial. Don’t want to jeopardize anything in the mean time!
Mine isn’t horsey related…I actually NEVER get horsey gifts aside from my COTH SS gift, and that’s a bummer because I ask for horsey gifts all the time!
Mine is a best/worst combo. It was the last gift. A little box under the tree from my boyfriend. A little…square…box…and the entire family was excited and just couldn’t wait for me to open it. We had been dating 3 years at this point and I was starting to get restless (still am…) and thought, OMG it’s a ring! It’s a ring! Yay! Ring! My heart was pounding out of my chest as I opened the gift. A small jewelry box…one that a ring would come in…Lift off the sleeve…and there staring back at me are a pair of beauuuutiful diamond earrings. The most expensive piece of jewelry I have ever owned, but not exactly what I was anticipating. A wonderful GREAT gift that I still cherish and Love, but totally gave me false hope in thinking he wanted to make me his wife.
At a swap held by a dog club I’m in (a lot of us have horses, too) I got a tape measure. Another year I got a tacky tea candle thingy. This year it was a tacky $5 throw blanket, starting to pill and fuzz while in it’s original packaging! I have yet to bring home any of the gifts, I give them away or leave them on the table for someone else. (I make nice big double layered fleece blankets and the same person ends up with them most years!). It is sort of fun to see what terrible thing I get!
[QUOTE=ElementFarm;8960267]
My grandmother made me a 4-foot high soft doll that was supposed to be my new “sister”. I was obligated to drag that thing around with me everywhere, dressed in my old hand-me-downs, whenever we spent time with her.[/QUOTE]
I love your TV story, but can I just highlight how weird and creepy that doll thing is!?!?
Worst one I got was a gift swap item. PSA: the heaviest is not always the best. It was a resin red glittery high heel shoe wine bottle holder. One: when I drink wine, we kill the bottle, it’s not going to be displayed on a tacky shoe holder. Two: I don’t do glittery red high heel anything. It will either get regifted or go to Goodwill.
I can’t remember if I posted this before or not…but my ex MIL, gave me 7 pairs of underwear each with the day of the week on the crotch AND AND….a single wrapped tampon in each pair. The tampon was in it’s wrapper but wrapped with a red ribbon (appropriate I guess).
Nothing says festive joy like a tampon. And yes, surely everyone lifts their skirt to read their crotch to find out if it’s Monday or Tuesday before you put a date on a cheque. Bless her. It wasn’t badly intentioned…it was just weird. Opening it in front of all was weird too. It makes me laugh now quite a bit. Time has mellowed that experience.
My current (recently dearly departed) MIL was fond of the 5 gallon pails of Channel #5 from the Florida Flea Markets. The real stuff of course. No doubt. Just in the industrial sized version. Oh and the tee shirts from Florida…lots of gold and HUGE clam shells over each breast. Florida has a lot to answer for.
:lol::lol::lol:Umm…you win Willy. You got awkward, horrible, funny, weird, and annoying all included. The underwear thing, I always thought undies with names of the week were so weird! Like oh no, I got the wrong day for my undies!
And they were grannie panties too. Great big bloomers. That makes it worse somehow. LOL Guess they had to make sure the embroidered words would fit.
I told this story to a co worker who didn’t think it funny or weird at all. Her Mum puts boxes of Tampax in all the girls’ stockings. WTF? I guess I do not get the festive connection at all. Even with a ribbon on them they don’t scream Merry Christmas to me.
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As a teen I had undies with the day on them. One time in gym a girl pointed out that I had the wrong day, and I pointed out to her that I forgot to change. :lol: Oh my, I can still see the look on her face!
I’ve received worthless or stupid gifts, but nothing too bad. And the really perfect gifts make up for those anyway.
My daughter has been a horse girl since she was born and the entire family knew it except apparently my now ex s-I-l. she gave my horse loving daughter this very ugly clown doll-looked like a Home shopping Network find. Yuck!
I haven’t received any truly horrible gifts but my mom has a penchant for either replacing things I don’t want replaced, or buying me things that are kind of what I asked for, but not really.
She’s given me cell phone cases for the past couple years. I LIKE mine. Sure, it’s old and falling apart, but it works and has an extra pocket for my money, and, with much cursing and crunching of fingers years ago, I added snaps to keep it closed. It works, so I keep it. I have 3 of them still sitting in their packages.
Then she gets me pajamas every year. I know mine make me look like a homeless person, but I’ve told her over and over that they’re comfortable and I don’t want to replace them. Hell, it’s only me and the cats here, so who cares. Every year, more pajamas. They still have the tags on.
Then she likes to do the thing where she asks what I want and I say “Black Outback Trading Company packable rain coat”, so she gets me some weird Frog-togs brand raincoat that fits really weird and feels like it’s made of tarps. I like the outback one because I have one and it works. It’s not waterproof anymore after a decade of wear, so I wanted to replace it. Went out and bought one myself and the frog-togg thing is somewhere in the back of a closet.
The next year I say “LL Bean superwarm long down coat” so she spends a month researching and bought something kind of like it, but not the same (and probably double the price). I’m a cold weenie and freezing the minute it gets below 70, so the one she got me is just not warm enough. Went out and bought the Bean coat the next month, best couple hundred I ever spent.
She has a rule. Nothing for the horse. So I’d end up with a purse I never took the tags off of, and off buying new blankets for myself. Love her to death, but the “almost-but-not-quite” (and usually costs more than the actual thing) and the “replacing-I-told-her-I-didn’t-want-to-replace” thing drives me up a wall. This year I put a bunch of stuff into a wishlist on an online store and sent her that.
I LOVE getting useful things. One year I got a pitchfork (of the very expensive brand that I love, all forks need carbon fibre handles) from my boss, and a garbage can full of TC Senior from a friend. One of the best gifts I ever received was a box of house-stuff from my boss, including, but not limited to: Toilet paper, garbage bags, laundry detergent, cleaning stuff, paper towels, etc etc. Useful stuff FTW!
This probably doesn’t count, but worst gift was from a Yankee swap. The gift was supposed to be in the $20 range. I brought a very nice gift basket and I got a Garfield calendar. I mean, really, if you can’t think of something, just buy lottery tickets and put them in a box.
I got mad last Christmas and declared 2016 a no gift year. Convinced the family to ski and go out for dinner instead. I am looking forward to not feeling like a grinch after receiving a thoughtless gift.
