It can be low effort, passive-aggressive, insulting or derogatory towards your convictions.
Most of you didn’t get me anything at all last year!
Missmatched socks.
Not just socks. Missmatched, ugly socks !
Life.
I knew my marriage didn’t have much left in it when for my birthday my wife gifted me a bag of candles that had been half eaten by the kids.
I feel bad for the kids, those candles must have been waxy and disappointing.
We had an optional secret santa in 5th grade, meaning no kid was forced to participate if they didn’t want to. It ran the month of December, you were supposed to give 1 gift a week. The first week I got nothing. The second week I got a single marble. The 3rd week I got a single pencil. The 4th and final week I got a tin of Royal Dansk Danish butter cookies. As a 5th grader, it was the biggest fucking letdown, especially when all the other kids were getting candy, toys, etc, every week.
my mother got me a desk light and then immediately stole it for her quilting because it was full spectrum white
I got it back years later when the thing holding it up had gotten so loose you needed to duct tape it
Store bought pudding, no clue what I was supposed to do with that.
Eat. That’s what you usually do with pudding. /j
A fruit roll up. Some time a few months before christmas, my sister and I were fighting over the last fruit roll up in the box. She got it initially, but I got it in the end. She put it in several boxes Matryoshka style, added weight making it seem heavier, wrapped it, and put it under the tree. Imagine my surprise, after going through several layers to find that fruit roll up. Worst. Christmas. Ever.
At least it was thoughtful.
I asked my Aunt for R.E.M. at the height of their popularity. She gave me an old REO speedwagon album that had none of their hits on them. All in all, that’s the worst, so i’ve done very well.
Got the same crappy t-shirt several years apart from the same person.
The gift of world peace. It was granted to me in lieu of the PS2 I wanted by my fairy godmother. Needless to say I held my breath until she finally relented, and took it back. She gave me a PS2 and I close the curtains and put on headphones a lot when I’m at home.
This isnt technically a present, but my girlfriend stored a christmas present in the loft of the garage over my car. She accidentally dropped it while getting it down to give it to me and put a ski through my windshield.
aww, kinda cute
Older brother wrapped up his old dirty shoes for me for Christmas.
He thought it was hilarious.
Pizza baking sheets. They didn’t fit in my oven.
A paella pan. I don’t like paella.
A coffee grinder. It just doesn’t grind coffee beans to the right size.
A random Italian cookbook. I have a chefs degree. I’m well down with basic Italian cooking.
See, I cook every day. Twice. And on occasion I love to cook for friends but that also means I’m over poor quality cooking stuff. I’ll buy my own gear. Most people think they do me a favour but I just have useless stuff piling up over the years. I’m grateful to get gifts but last year I just told people right a way that if they want to give me cooking related gifts I would be equally happy with some special sort of salt of some fun ingredients to cook with. Those things don’t last as long but it would make for a much better gift for a food enthousiast.
Yeah, it gets that way when people know something major you do. The amount of lame chemistry shirts and such is far too high.
I know they mean well, and I definitely appreciate it. But it does get a bit old.
same. Don’t buy me electronics. I’m too much of a snob to use what you bought. Either stick to the Christmas wish list we all agreed on, or keep the receipt.
All the computer mice, headphones, and keyboards…
The connector cable it comes with will spend 10,000x as much time in my hand than the item you intended to give me.
When I was younger and foolish, I agreed to help my boss feel a staffing void for a month and a half, which involved at least 20 hours of extra work. I was on salary, so of course it was unpaid overtime. My boss gave me a bonus of $50. That alone is kind of messed up, but my boss should have given me a raise, because it was the end of the year and that’s when raises ought to be given, and instead of giving me a raise they gave me that $50 bonus.
I took the money, but I immediately lost all respect for my boss and stopped caring about that job. It was a good lesson, though. Don’t work unpaid overtime, and expect your boss to shaft you, because they can take home the money that ought to be going into your wallet, if you let them.
