Since we're on the Christmas kick...what were the things you got for Christmas that you wish you hadn't recieved ...or that you were absofuckinlutely astounded to get. Did granny get you that aweful plaid shirt from PickandSave or did mom get you clothes that had no socially redeeming qualities or did someone get you a car for Christmas? James

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Answers

Okay. I'll go first. I've never gotten a damn thing for Christmas ever ever ever that I really really wanted! Period! I never got a surf board. I never got that Pendleton shirt in the 9th grade I wanted so badly. I never got laid by Margaret Crutchfield in the 10th grade for Christmas. I never got any film or paper. I never even got any snow!!! I never got anything I ever really wanted for Christmas. But really, I've gotten over it. Dripping Tears

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Probably the Christmas gift that floored me the most was when most of my family got together and bought me my first 35mm SLR camera, which I still have and use to this day. I was absolutely knocked out and overwhelmed at the generosity. I think I was a freshman in high school, maybe, and it was by far the coolest thing I ever got. One year I really, really wanted an electric slot-racing set and my dad got it for me. I didn't play with it enough, but I was deeply grateful that he would do something like that for me just because I asked.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

oh, the misery, the tears.... the christmas I spent in London, I was just out of college and it was my first time living away from home. Mom sent me a huge xmas care package that I got way before xmas and had to put it under our very expensive charlie brown tree that we had bought on the street corner. I sat and looked at the presents every nite. Finally, xmas eve arrived and we all tore open our presents. We were 4 american girls away from our familys for the holiday and all teary...but the tears really started to flow for me when I opened the gift from my mom....some kind of rabbit/angora/fluffy pink loose knit sweater with poofy shoulder pads and soft white kittens cavorting on the front. I had already bought the leather biker jacket and gotten all my hair cut off by this point...I donated the sweater to Oxfam before I left england.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

My mother always bought me stupid presents. One year -- when I was, like, 17 -- she bought me a bunch of troll dolls. I never, ever expressed even the slightest interest in (or tolerance of) troll dolls. I smiled and pretended I was grateful, because I would never hurt someone's feelings for a gift they've given me.

Last year she sent me a denim shirt with TWEETY FUCKING BIRD on it (see here). I thanked her; it is a comfortable shirt, but I would never wear it without my coat buttoned up over it. I was talking to my brother about it and he said, 'When she told me what she got you, I reminded her that you're not nine years old anymore.' She did always have a thing for giving me gifts that would be better suited to a child.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Dear James, From your other posts, I have deduced, that you have never gotten any snow because we both live in a freaking desert, if you're anywhere near San Diego. I've thought about going up to a cabin in the Cleveland forest somewhere for a snow fix.

I really have never gotten anything I didn't like. My daughter's dad's family is really different thought. All the (adult) kids bash their gifts as soon as they open them. I saw this every year for like eight years, ingrats. They do it when they get presents for anything.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

One year, in a gift exchange at work I got a package of cheap paper napkins. That sucked, especially since I had brought in a nice gift.

The worst all-time gift was one my husband got in a work gift exchange. It was a giant pine cone that had been Liquid Papered on the tips, with some bells on ribbons attached to it. Aside from it having no obvious purpose, it was damn ugly. It wouldn't have even made a good cat toy. He was so pissed off because he brought in a good bottle of wine or something decent like that.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

My fucking mother in law got me a couple of cookbooks once, because she was horrified that we hadn't had a proper turkey dinner that Thanksgiving- you guys, we were two broke-ass college students with a baby, all by ourselves that year because our car had broken down...again and we couldn't drive to my mom's, and she went off on *me* for cheating her son out of a turkey dinner. She also used to deliberately send Michael (my son) inappropriately babyish gifts- pink and purple bunnies on Easter, clothes 2 sizes too small, puzzles for toddlers - all this *after* specifically asking us what he might like. Until Mike went off on her and told her we'd rather receive nothing at all instead of her passive agressive attempts to make us feel like shit.

Beey-otch!

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Oh I know about the mother-in-law gifts...I got dishtowel sets every year, sometimes with matching pot holders, and twice I got cookbooks. One banner year she actually gave me a set of (hideous) dishes. My xhusband got neat gifts like games and comfy sweatshirts (which I appropriated). I got a "Mane n' Tail" shampoo and conditioner set one year-you know that shampoo designed for horses? Everyone pretended not to notice that the bitch all but called me a horse.

Best holiday gift ever is the little camera my now boyfriend/then best-friend gave me. It's tiny enough to carry in my purse all the time and takes great pictures and is our constant companion on our adventures.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

I'm cracking up laughing at all your bad gift stories -- keep them coming!

My older brother worked at Odd Lots when he was in high school, and every employee got a gift from the stock at Christmas; they gave him some women's perfume, like Gloria Vanderbilt or something. HAH!

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

My name is unisex and I had a great Aunt who never, ever remembered that I was a girl. I got train sets, GI Joe dolls, toy cars, etc. My mom would always try to send her our school pictures right away so she would figure it out, but apparently that didn't help.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

I had a very wealthy great-aunt. She would give us shirts made by Bill Blass, so you know they weren't cheap. But they were usually very fugly and were in styles that someone in their 40s would wear.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

I have a great aunt who is pretty crafty, so we usually get something every year that she made, except for my brother. Every year she gives him the Farmer's Almanac. We aren't sure why she decided to give him the Almanac the first year, and why she thought it was such a great gift that she felt the need to give him this same gift year after year. It has become a joke now, when mom gets the package in the mail with our gifts she'll call my brother and tell him his new edition of the Farmer's Almanac is waiting for him. I don't think he even bothered to take the wrapping paper off this past year's edition.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

My maternal grandmother sends every one of her kids and grandkids a card for his/her birthday. And in each card is a single wrapped stick of Wrigley's gum with the recipient's name written on the wrapper. She's been doing this for more than 30 years for all of us and I think if she were to ever stop we'd all die from grief. :-) The bad part is she buys her gum in bulk once every three years or so - by the time you get your stick it's as stale as King Tut's fake beard.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Meanwhile Back in the Desert Island

Archive اردو أخبار اخبار خبرﯾﮟ Archive كيا اب بهى موجوده جنگ ﻛﮯ صليبى هوﻧﮯ ﻣﻴﮟ شك ﮨﮯ

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2003

one time i gots some pickled eggs for xmas and i dont lick pckled eggs and then i gor nitted socks that wre itchy and a book fromone of my step daddies on how to pleaze a man!!!

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

I already mentioned the scary hippie shawl.

My mother KNEW I'd hate it, probably because it was given to her first and she hated it first. ;)

I didn't even have the ribbon off the box when she started chanting "I KNEW you'd hate it!!" I said I didn't even know what it WAS yet, how could I hate it? Then I took the lid off the box and there was a giant hairball inside. Yikes!

So I asked what it was again, hoping it wasn't a sweater or a purse or a pillowcase or something. It wasn't. It's a triangular loose-knit (crocheted?) shawl with foot-and-a-half-long fringe. It's made out of lovely yarns, too. There's the burlap cord, the itchy mohair in olive green, the cobweb fragile off-white acrylic and the poo-brown scratchy polyester cord with little decorative loops yanked out every millimeter.

It is the single most hideous gift I have ever seen in my life. And it isn't even all that warm. My CAT won't even get near it. People point at it and laugh when they see it, which hasn't happened since I took it down to the basement and stuffed it in the "for the charity shop" bags.

I got a hideous red leather purse shaped like a fish one year, too. It was also from my mother. I think she hates me or something! Since when did I ever express a desire for a purse shaped like a salmon? Give me a Kate Spade or a knock off thereof any day. I think Wal*Mart has some nice plain $5 black purses, Mom. That'd be much cooler. Actually, she just has a weird sense of humor/style. Her own purse is a woven raffia monstrosity with a fish-on-a-cord inner pocket. It's falling apart and she loves it to bits. Go figure.

I also already mentioned that we get boxes of "holiday container" Kleenes every year. I don't get that many colds, so I have fourteen boxes of Santa Claus themed tissues. Note that I'm REALLY into Santa, too.

But you haven't lived until you're given second-hand gifts that a not-especially-artistic third grader has made for their teacher. I don't know these children and I've only ever taught Sunday School (fifteen years ago!), but I suppose I COULD put that brass "Number One Teacher" ornament on my non-existent holiday tree.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

My mother has absolutely no clue when it comes to getting me presents. None. She'll get me like a white sweater with an elastic-type cuff at the bottom and applique on the front. God love her. She tries.

My mother's sister always comes for Christmas with her family, and I love her dearly, but she has horrific taste. Thankfully, the awful gifts are usually aimed in my mother's direction, and not my own. My favourite from last year was a ceramic fountain with cherubs and coloured flowers all over it that plays a variety of instrumental greats, such as "Love Me Tender", "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head", "Canon in D", and "Somewhere My Love". My hysterical laughter was kept in only by my sheer horror and thankfulness it wasn't mine. Oh, did I mention it had a motion/sound sensor? My father conducted experiments on it all afternoon to see how far away he had to be and still make it come on. Ah, family. :)

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Susan--I feel your pain. :)

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

the most unusual gift I ever got was a beautiful wig from my man. This was during my wig faze when I would scour the garage sales for cool wigs to wear over my then boyish short hair. He wanted me to have a nice new wig and spent big bucks at a specialty wig store for a long deep auburn wig.....I love it.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

One year, when I was 16, I got A LOT of pink gifts. I have never liked nor have I EVER given the impression that pink was a colour I liked. I'm not a feminine female. Yet my parents got me a pink clock radio/phone, various other pink stuff and an aunt got me a sweatshirt that was white with pink splotches on it that were made out of a plasticy material. The sweatshirt was reversable too! It was awful. Another aunt got me flannel pajamas that were full bodied and had pink teddy bears all over it and even a pink bow at the top! Ug My step-grandmother got me really big underwear. Pink and beige. That was a sad year. I really think people were trying to tell me something but I'm afraid to know what it was.

The following year everyone got me black things because they realized they'd screwed up the previous year and maybe if they got me something black, no matter what it was, it would be okay. I got a horrible black elastic belt with a gold butterfly buckle. The kind of belt meant to go over your clothes. Hideous. I also got black stockings that were a lacy, floral pattern.

My brother always says that my taste is so easy to figure out because if you come to my place it is FILLED with stuff that is in some ways almost an advertisement for what I like. My taste has not changed much since I was 15. I think some people just don't see clearly.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

Ah, I have My Dumb Dad to thank for some particularly special gifts... gifts that reveal his utter lack of knowledge about me and my likes/dislikes. So Dad, thank you for the 1) sea-foam green old lady nightgown with embroidered flowers, 2) the appliqued puffy kitty sweatshirt, 3) the chintzy gold ring (I never wear gold), 4) the "beaded and VERY cute" kitty purse-

Need I go on?

Aunt Bev usually gets me so-so gifts... but what cheeses most is that she is very careful to tell you how EXPENSIVE it is and how much TROUBLE it was for her to get it. I mean, geez, Aunt Bev, the glasses are lovely and go with our china... I'm not offended that they were $14.99 at Ross... so don't try to convince me that you got them at Nordie's for over a hundred bucks, okay?

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

I think I remember more of what I DIDN'T get than what I got... like in junior high, I wanted a curling iron so so so bad and, what did I get? A Holly Hobbie commemorative plate. But then there is the time my grandma gave me one of those "Laugh-In" style shortie dresses with matching panties - I think they were called "Sizzlers" (I went to a Catholic school, fer godsakes!) - of course, this was the same grandma who squirreled away Jack Daniel's in old shampoo bottles. Or, what about people who heard you comment once, back in '74 how much you loved John Denver and, at 38, give you a "Sunshine on My Shoulders" poster? Or, because I love my cat, think I would love a subscription to "Cat Fancy" magazine? Now, more than anything, I love gift certificates so I can go get what I really like. I feel like Christmas is really in January for me - sales and inventory clearances mean even more value.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000