It can be low effort, passive-aggressive, insulting or derogatory towards your convictions.
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.
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
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.
Seems like someone took “the children yearn for the mines” a bit too seriously
My birthday is the 27th of December.
On any given year odds are that my birthday sucked. Growing up it was during holiday break so no bringing cupcakes to school. 2 days after Christmas, care to guess how many kids want to attend a birthday party? Birthday presents were almost always an afterthought combined with Christmas.
I am a huge Star Wars fan so when Carrie Fisher passed away on December 27th, 2016, that was an especially shitty birthday.
There have been uears when my parents have forgotten my birthday entirely.All that aside, my wife threw me my first and only surprise birthday party for my 40th. It was Star Wars themed including food she made from the Galaxy’s Edge cookbook she had given me for Christmas. That year I got a Kenner power (Gonk) droid still in the original packaging (with Venture price sticker still on it), which my mom had somehow saved since I was a kid. She also gave me all of my old Star Wars action figures she had been saving for me, unknown to me. And I also received an original Rancor and the box it came in from a friend. That one almost made up for all the others before and since. I’ve learned the best way to have a good birthday is to set the lowest of expectations.
My BIL’s bday is on Christmas. We call him “Little baby Jesus”.
If they’re older than 33 you can call him Old Jesus, too!
Christmas babies unite! Yeah, Ive never really had a good one. Spending this one alone, too. Whatever I guess…
Your wife sounds lovely though, and happy early bday!
Cheers and a happy early birthday to you as well!
Or…is it a late happy birthday?
Ugh, I can never remember with your birthday being so close to Christmas, y’know? It just slips my mind every year.
I felt this in my soul…
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.
My dad won box tickets to the last 49er game at candlestick through some radio contest. All expenses paid, bunch of merch, got to meet some players, whole VIP package. Happened to be that the last game at the stadium was a few days after my birthday and a couple days before Christmas. I even happen to live in the area while he was flying out from Texas.
He got me a card with $20 in it and took his mom, stepdad, and ex wife with him to the game. Killed himself about 8 months later. Thanks pop.
Did the 49ers lose? That may have been the last straw.
That took a turn.
Jesus I’m sorry.
I always win at tragic backstory.
I always win this question hands down; my really big asshole NPD of a MIL gave me her very used and threadbare bathrobe as a present. Made a big point of telling me it was hers and she was going to give it to the Catholic thrift shop she volunteered at but then thought it would be a gift for me. It was only fit for the garbage can and had holes in it.
But giving people random trash is a thing she likes to do because she likes to be provocative and “stick poking” in the therapy description. She gave her only grandchild an old vitamin bottle filled with dish soap and a bubble wand she found on the ground in the park. No spending one whole dollar on her only grandchild, oh no, let’s just give her some garbage. And for my BIL who golfed, she walked the public golf course every day and picked up discarded golf tees, chipped and stained and half broken, filled a sandwich bag with them, and that was his present.
She likes to pretend she’s very poor but she’s not, and giving her family literal garbage is her way of trying to provoke a fight because she likes nothing better than to provoke a fight. That’s the only Christmas present she wants is to upset people and make them angry at her.
I have a zillion other horrible stories of her, but you get the gist.
I’ll toss a nice gift in the trash for your MIL to find.
It’s all she really wants.
My sister gifted me the third book of a fantasy trilogy series once.
I never read or got the first two books.Also, when I was little, my grandma (who hated me with passion) bought me a pink bike just to piss me off, because she thought a boy wouldn’t ever like that color. I rode that bike until I was too tall to use it and every time she saw me enjoying that thing she was furious. :)
“Oh, by the way grandma, I’m wearing the dress you bought me too.”
My grandma once gifted me volume 21 of a manga I didn’t even own a single volume of. All she knew was that I like that japanese comic thing so she bought a random one at the book store.
The propensity for you and your grandma to both act out of spite for one another is impressively high. Its good to have proof you’re related
Oh, you’re mistaken. I enjoyed that bike because it was a good bike. It just wasn’t “boy-colored”, but I didn’t mind.
Gendered colours are stupid anyway.
Exactly, and I was way too young to actually care about colors anyway.
Especially when you consider the arbitriness of it. Pink used to be the color for baby boys.
Yeah, but surely you knew how she’d react if you rode it in front of her
Dude, I was a child. I didn’t even have the mental capacity to spite my own grandma. I saw a cool bike, didn’t mind the color and rode it, that’s it.
Psychoanalyzing people on the internet is stupid.
No! You will take the judgement I gave you to your grave!
Why did she hate you with such passion ?
And why didnt she think about spray paint ?
She always called me “the bastard” because I had a different father than my sisters.
That was enough of a reason to hate me, I guess. 🤷It was definitely intentional of her to gift me a “girls” bike and she didn’t expect me to actually like it.
She also pulled stunts like gifting me and my sisters money on Christmas, but I got 10€ and they got 50€ each. My mum always equally split the whole money afterwards.What an asshole
Your mom did right
If it was Ender’s Game, you might be better off starting with book two…
For their sake i hope it wasn’t, Ender’s Game is possibly the greatest example of deservedly famous book 1 and equally deservedly forgotten rest of the series.
Toothpaste and a toothbrush.
I do now understand the financial problems my family had at the time, but for a child it still was a major bummer. Nevermind me being an only and a Christmas child.
Being poor and lonely made Christmas the worst time of the year: no real celebrations like other kids have and my friends were spending time with their families. It was always the loneliest holiday.
I don’t hold any resentment to my parents, they did what they could with what they had and they weren’t bad people ultimately.
I still don’t like Christmas, but my SO does make it something to look forward to. I like thinking of little gifts to get them and watch their reaction. This year I made several oversized t-shirts for sleeping with vinil prints of our cats. It’s cheesy as fuck, but in a good way. I like getting gifts as well tho 😅.
People keep giving me steak house gift cards.
I’m a vegetarian. I can only eat a roll there.
I’m vegan and the number of people who can’t figure out “no animal products” is astounding. I’m so tired of “no eggs? No dairy?” like yes bitch, I don’t fuck with animals.
People act like it’s rocket science.
What? Fish is an animal?? /s
How could I forget? It always blows people’s minds that I don’t eat fish, but before I was vegan I never liked fish anyway but no one had a problem with it then.
Not according to catholics
People act like it’s rocket science.
There’s always going to be a question as to where you draw the line. For example, is it okay to eat figs, even though they’re pollinated by wasps that end up in them? Is it okay to eat plants grown using animal products as fertilizer? Is it okay to eat cultured meat that is many generations removed from a living animal, such that none of the material present now was part of the living animal? How about things in the animal kingdom, but outside the chordates? The ones you’d need a microscope to see? Is honey okay to eat?
There’s also the issue that other people that call themselves vegan will disagree with you on what all counts.
It’s usually not that complex. If someone has a plate of chilaquiles with egg on it and I say I’m vegan I don’t think it’s hard to discern that I’m probably not going to eat it.
Egg is obvious if you know what the difference is between vegetarian and vegan in the first place, but I don’t think you can expect most people to be able to cook vegan food, even if they’re trying, and know the basic definition. I know enough non-obvious uses of animal products(like shellac on fruit), that I’d have no confidence in being able to avoid them all unless I grew everything myself.
To be fair, the person you’re responded to said “vegetarian” not “vegan.” But yes, otherwise, it isn’t rocket science. My vegan boys are big fans of seitan.
Either way, a Steak House is probably not a place they’re interested in.
Maybe they have impossible steak!
Which is actually amazing for tacos and as an added bonus is you don’t get those nasty grizzly parts
Hail seitan!
Right. I guess people mix up the two a lot so for me it’s just easier to say “no animal products” plainly.
Are you full vegan or just vegetarian?
If it’s for Ouback Steakhouse, you could always have a Bloomin Onion if you’re okay with eggs and milk.
But otherwise, yeah, not much else on the menu for ya.
Don’t forget salad. Outback is largely one of the worst if you’re vegetarian unfortunately. Most steakhouses at least have a few vegetable sides and can make a meal out of them.
Vegetarian but I may as well be vegan since my stomach can’t handle eggs or much dairy.
I used to receive a lot of Starbucks gift cards and can only drink so much coffee, so I would sell the codes using an online gift card trade site. I forget which specific one I used, but there are several sites when you search up “sell gift cards.” I used to get like $0.70 per dollar or so, which isn’t terrible when you’re a broke college kid. Can’t pay rent in gift cards lol
I’m vegan, and my agency gave me a gift card to Zaxby’s, and it wasn’t even loaded
Perhaps that’s why, to annoy you.
Sounds like a dick move, too
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.
Still better than her cooking.
Nah! They’re used to dollar store candies, so I just tell them it’s a candy bar. They love the scented ones, a real treat.
At this time of year I imagine alot of peppermint and pumpkin spice flavors
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.
A small drinking cup +possibly unintended whooping cough that ruined my entire holiday season.
I received a framed picture of my parents, from my parents. They said it was because I didn’t have a picture of them hung up in my house.
That’s kind of hilarious. 😆
…I dunno, I actually think it’s kinda sweet. Something bonus might’ve been nice though haha.
Did you hang it up?
I think the only place to put it is on the floor behind the toilet.
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.
