Recently, I wrote a very seasonal post about a Reddit thread where people shared the worst Christmas gifts that they have gotten.
Well, clearly the article hit a little too close to home for a lot of BuzzFeed readers as lots of them shared their own stories of the terrible Christmas gifts they've gotten.
So, I decided to round up some of the comments that really stood out:
1. "One year my father and his new wife got me a cemetery wreath... I was not thrilled to bring that thing home with me. Needless to say, I’m not dying, and it went straight into the trash."
2. "A gift card that had an odd balance on it of $18.28. So it had clearly been gifted to them, they used it for something, and then gave me the remainder."
3. "When I was a kid, all I wanted was a Britney Spears doll. Christmas morning, I GOT IT! Unfortunately, my dad was gathering up trash from wrapping paper and accidentally threw it away. Within half an hour of receiving it, poor Britney was outside on our burn pile, blazing away. My parents never replaced the doll. 😞"
4. "My very wealthy MIL gave me five little ceramic Santas wearing cowboy hats that someone had made and were covered with dust (thrift store); they went in the dumpster on the way home. She also gave me a stack of garage sale cookbooks that were old, dirty, and even moldy — again, straight to the dumpster."
5. "A black men's bathrobe and a DVD of Animal House from my husband. We divorced two years later."
6. "When I moved out of state for graduate school, I asked for a tool kit to be able to change the oil in my car and take care of basic apartment maintenance. My parents gave the tool kit I'd asked for to my younger brother, because he needed to be able to take care of his car at college. And it would be easier for me to just take mine in to get done. I got a pizza cutter with my name engraved in it. I don't like pizza that much, and I lived alone. I would never make a homemade pizza big enough to need a pizza cutter. Since it had my name and the date on it, it was almost impossible to regift and couldn't be returned."
7. "My folks always gave me what THEY thought I wanted for Christmas, which it never was, but I didn’t complain. When I was 12, I desperately wanted a camera, any camera, because I wasn’t allowed to use the 'family' one. I asked my mom for months if I could get one, even a used one, and she always smiled and winked. Christmas morning I got an acoustic guitar and a pack of underwear three sizes too big. No music lessons, or explanation as to why they got these things for me. Seriously devastated me."
8. "When I was a kid, my great aunts would get me those cheap glittery body gels and lotions. It was well-known I had pretty bad eczema so I could never use them. I was always told, 'It's the thought that counts,' but goddamn if that wasn't a slap in the face every year. Yes, I got them every year until I turned 18. And I still can't use them."
10. "My fiancé's parents hate me even though I always tried to bond with them and went out of my way for them. For our first Christmas together, they gifted me Pure Romance stuff that his mother had laying around from her MLM. I was so hurt I hid in the bathroom to cry."
11. "Years ago, I was working for a company — where the owner drove a Jaguar — that had all the crews come in from out of town for the company Christmas party. The owner walked out and gave everyone a company hat and said, 'Profits were down this year. Merry Christmas.'"
12. "My grandmother gave me a pair of my grandfather’s used pajamas for Christmas, when I was 12. She said I’d grow into them."
13. "A pair of trainers from the supermarket wrapped in a box of groceries. My cousins got CD players, designer clothes, roller skates. I left them there."
14. "Gonna go with the time my grandmother gave me an opened pack of underwear she'd gotten for herself before deciding she didn't like the fit."
15. "My ex-mother-in-law got me a CAT. Without consulting my ex or myself. And we lived in an apartment that didn’t allow animals. I love cats, but this poor baby was an adult that must have gone through some trauma because she was ridiculously skittish. All she would do was hide all day, and at that time, given we hadn’t any pets of our own already, I just didn’t have the time to care for her the way she needed. I ended up making my ex give the cat back to his mother."
16. "My dad’s now ex-wife gave me a box of apple-themed thank you notes and one of those fill-in-your-own recipe books. I was 16 and notoriously hate cooking."
17. "My aunt used to give me trash for Christmas. Regifts, junk she found at yard sales, broken small appliances; one year she gave me a sack full of left gloves. And to this day, she wonders why she has no friends."
18. "I got three thrifted (used, not nice) dinner spoons from my stepmother. There are four of us in my family. Another year I got a travel book to Banff in Alberta, Canada. I have never expressed any desire to go to Banff. Sigh."
19. "I got an old pillowcase from my stepmother this year. This was after she told me in July — in the middle of my favorite restaurant on my birthday no less — that she's never actually loved or cared for me and only tolerated me for the sake of my father."
20. "One year when I was a child, my new stepdad gave my brother a $100 bill. He gave me napkin rings."
21. And finally, "My partner's family gave me an iron, because they wanted me to iron their adult child's clothing."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.