It can be low effort, passive-aggressive, insulting or derogatory towards your convictions.
My mother told family I was into geology which I wasn’t, so for my ninth bitrhday I got books about rocks and the hugest fucking hammer.
The hammer felt a little bit cool until I tried it and it was completely useless on the granit which is the only rock in the region, the only thing happening was leaving marks on the stone and shoot mini splinters in the eyes. Totally unuseful for anything else.
Like this but bigger (in my memory, i was only 9), and also cheaper (black head, cheap wood handle):
As a kid I was fascinated by the chunks of rotten rock that would come off of a granite boulder in our backyard. My dad however did not appreciate that I used his nice hammer to smash it. I eventually stopped when I ran out of rotten chunks and found out how hard granite really could be.
I saw a horrible gift get thwarted by a game shop owner who thankfully gave a shit. 40ish year old woman was shopping for her son, “oh Superman 64? Is that a good one?”
Dude didn’t mince words. Told her flat out it was the worst game on the 64
A sack of potatoes and cat litter.
From my mom who usually shops year round for Christmas to save the hassle of buying at the end of the year.
My siblings got stuff that they wanted and could use and I got… Those two things in a very flimsy laundry basket.
She did not approve of my girlfriend and probably me living with her.
They weren’t even wrapped.
So one year my sister an I save up for a game cube. We had Kirby air ride, a few controllers, a few Zelda games, we were happy campers.
Christmas rolls around and the first thing I unwrap for christmas? Halo: Combat Evolved.
We’re good sports about it, everybody makes mistakes, second and third gifts? two xbox controllers.
the morning continued, memory cards, some xbox party game, the works.
right at the end, the SOB reveals he won an xbox in a raffle.
happy ending, but god damn that was an awkward Christmas start
It never occurred to me until now, but I wonder if people got them mixed up because cube and box are similar lol.
Oh fuck i have a long history of this…
My parents got me a cheap set of tools, pliers, screw drivers, level and a wood burner with no wood to burn at 10. My brother got a gameboy SP and Pokémon.
Two years later I got an electric shaver and Cologne. I didn’t start growing facial hair until 17 and didn’t have enough to need more than one pass with a razor until 26. Still have the Cologne, it’s not awful but it’s also not a smell that works for me.
14 I got a store made cake and $20. I can’t eat the cake, the frosting makes my face hurt and that’s been a problem since I was 5 so they know I can’t eat the cake.
Basically, I didn’t get a present for me until I met my wife at 30.
damn, that sounds like you were part of a case study in your childhood. Is there a difference with how your brother turned out and yourself? Interested to know if you picked up skills like DIY and stuff while your brother isn’t capable of those things.
He’s got a far better grasp on career and financial stability but he’s to nervous to do things like drive in the big city or see doctors about mental health. He’s amazing with computers but not great with mechanical things.
I on the other hand suck with computers and am excellent with mechanical things. I put a lot of effort into self improvement and mental health, but still float around jobs and only have a stable homelife because of my spouse. I’d like to say all the DIY stuff I got growing up helped with that, but most of them were shit quality and the ones that didn’t break got absorbed into my dad’s things anyway. My diy skills come exclusively from living with a moto of “well fine, I’ll just do it myself”
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.
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.
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.
At the call center I worked at, our Christmas bonus was a dress shirt with the company logo on it.
My wife wears it when she dyes her hair.
No jelly of the month?
Too expensive.
Truly a horrible place to work at it.
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.
About 20 years ago
I went to my family Christmas with my then-partner. I got a Grinch onesie from my family
We then attended my partner’s family Christmas where basically the entire living room was stuffed with presents for the kids (my partner and their siblings). My then-partner complained about how the siblings all got more $$ worth of presents. I pointed out that I got a pair of pjs for Christmas. The reply: “it’s not about the dollar amount, it’s just they got more than me” (paraphrased)
I hated that present. A fucking onesie? It was such a disappointing present, and for a long time I used it as an example for questions just like this
I kept it and wore it. Eventually I lost the bitterness and started to cherish it even. Which is why I still wear it regularly this time of year! It’s quite warm… plus, it has pockets!
Grinch tax:
On the behalf of Lemmy. We appreciate you paying the Grinch tax.
They say once you go Grinch you’ll never go back.
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
A small drinking cup +possibly unintended whooping cough that ruined my entire holiday season.
I was given 30 quarters that had letters and numbers on each one in a black velvet pouch. If you put them in a certain order, it had a message. The quarters went in year order. The message was a Bible passage according to Matthew. It was when Judas was given 30 silver for betraying Jesus.
The context, I told one of our friends that the gifter was trying to get with his wife while he was deployed. He denied and then made me feel like shit to insinuate such a thing. Turns out, it was true.
I still have the quarters so I could give them back some day.
Wasn’t Judas the one who did the denying? So by referencing this isn’t the gifter calling himself Judas and not you?
My mom once gave me a cat litter scoop like this one
in my Christmas stocking. This was not, to my knowledge, in the context of a conversation about needing to clean up after the cat more often, but for all I know it was her way of subtly trying to get the point across.
I hope it wasn’t used at least
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
I was deployed and got a box from my home unit that was basically just trash. I think it was supposed to be funny, but it was just a lot of scrap paper thrown into a box. Nothing written on them that was for me. Nothing to signal anything. Just a big box of trash that could have been nothing more than the recycling bin upended into it.
That was pretty heartbreaking.
Did you ever talk about it with them? Definitely sounds like an inconsiderate joke. Flabbergasting that they managed to follow through enough to get it posted to you.
