We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us some of the worst birthday gifts they've ever received. Here are some of the best responses.
1.
"For my 12th birthday my mom wrapped up a sanitary box of pads and gave them to me. You can imagine how mortified I was to unwrap them in front of my family and friends."
Submitted by sarah3hayes1213
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"My great-grandmother gave me a toothbrush. I thought it was a joke at first but then she looked me dead in the eye and told me disease in your mouth is not funny."
Submitted by marissa5x14
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"My grandma is a little different and one year she decided it would be a fun idea to wrap 100 pennies individually and give them to me as a gift. After opening five or so of them I decided to be done. My grandma however did not let that happen and threw a fit for me to finish. Long story short, and 100 unwrapped pennies later, I got a whole whoppin’ dollar for my birthday."
Submitted by alixxs
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"When I was nine years old, I had a big birthday party and invited all the girls from my class. It came time to open presents, and I chose a big flowery box and opened the lid. Inside was a box a bit smaller, so I opened that one. Inside that box was another smaller box. I kept opening and opening, and this went on until I had four more small boxes in my pile and had come to smallest box. I open the last box, and it was empty inside. Someone literally just gave me a stack of nesting boxes with absolutely nothing inside. Completely ruined my party mood. 13 years later and I still haven't let that one go or gotten past it."
Submitted by Amy Murray, Facebook
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"Every year I get chocolate and alcohol from my mother-in-law. I’m diabetic and don’t drink."
Submitted by laurac46a7611c3
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"My aunty is very, very wealthy. For my sister's birthday one year she bought her a Louis Vuitton handbag. For mine the same year: a towel. A. FREAKING. TOWEL."
Submitted by Lauren Parsons Jones, Facebook
10.
"For my 16th birthday, my grandmother and her boyfriend both gave me an egg because it 'reminded me of them.'"
Submitted by kyrah4d0260369
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"My partner at the time bought me a loaf of bread for my 21st birthday – it was wrapped and everything. I had asked him to bring home some as we had run out. It was not a gag gift…"
Submitted by lttf258
13.
"I received a jar of pickles from my best friend as a birthday present. She said 'I thought you loved pickles'. I do not."
Submitted by oliviat499892b01
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"My grandmother’s never been especially good at presents and has been known to re-gift things to us that we’ve given to her. When I was about 11, there was a special offer on a certain brand of crisp packets to save up tokens and send them in to get a badge. If you’re thinking she gave me the badge, you’re massively overestimating her. She gave me the empty packets and the address to send them to in order to claim the badge."
Submitted by jenatwork
16.
"When I was in kindergarten, one of my mortal enemies got me a head of cauliflower for my birthday. Cauliflower stills haunts me to this day."
Submitted by theotheoriginaltonganbutch
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"I got a block of warm, almost expired cheese. It wasn't even wrapped, and it was given to me in the middle of the school day."
Submitted by miriahas
19.
"My aunt lives in Maryland, and the rest of my family lives in Buffalo, New York. It has always been her custom to mail us our birthday gifts so that we could open them at our family parties. When I was substantially younger, she ordered a lava lamp directly off of Spencer's website to be delivered directly to my house (for those of you that don't know, Spencer's Gifts sells some pretty raunchy gag gifts but also decorative/innocent stuff). She always got me exactly what I wanted and I knew my mom told her that I wanted a lava lamp, so I started voraciously tearing at the box and through the starchy packaging paper only to find that the "packagers" at Spencer's warehouse had made quite the error. Staring back at me, making direct eye contact, was the biggest, floppiest, glow-in-the-dark, neon-green dildo anyone in my family had ever seen."
Submitted by Beth Bacher, Facebook
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.