Yes, you guessed it, one year I received soap-on-a-rope as a Christmas gift from my girlfriend's grandmother. I didn't know if she was trying to tell me I smelled bad or that I shouldn't be dropping the soap when I showered at the YMCA. It was one of the worst gifts I have had the pleasure of opening. The most useless gift I received was from my great aunt when I was 14. I was in my sophomore year of high school and all my gifts that year were either clothes, CD's, or SNES games. I opened up my great aunt's gift and it was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Donatello I do believe. WTF? I wasn't 8. I had no idea what to do with the toy, so I gave it away to one of the neighbor kids. FOCUS: What are some of the worst gifts you have received for Christmas? Ever watch your Father open a gift from Mom, only to watch his smile turn to a frown over his new bad ass yellow, pink, and brown turtle neck sweater? We want to read about these horrible gifts.
ANTI-FOCUS: To cheer this up a bit, what's the best present you've ever gotten? Bonus if the story makes Shegirl cry. Only half a bonus if it makes Nettdata cry - he's easy.
FOCUS Mum gave me a book for Christmas a couple of years ago. I enjoy reading, so normally it would've been a good present, other than the fact that she had given me that exact book as a Birthday present in October.
One of the best gifts I've ever received was last year. It was a DVD from my folks. In case you've forgotten, I'm part of the older crowd around here, and when we were growing up we didn't have cameras everywhere and in everything. Cameras were complicated manual things that were few and far between. Even more rare was the high-tech, fancy-schmancy hi-8 movie camera that my grandparents had. My mom somehow got a hold of the old movies of me, my sister, my 8 cousins, grandparents, and various aunts and uncles from Christmas when I was about 6 or 7, and had it all transferred to a DVD. The goofy 1970's clothes, the old dogs that are now just a warm, fuzzy memory, the home-made skating rink in the back yard, and my late-20's dad teaching me how to skate and shoot a hockey puck for the first time. It was almost 90 minutes long, and we sat there and watched it 2 or 3 times straight Christmas morning. So yeah... don't take the modern proliferation of cameras for granted.... compile that shit into something to remember later on in life. It'll be bigger than you think.
There are two people who have the honor of giving me both the best and the worst presents of my life. The first is my aunt, who is the definition of eccentric. Sometimes, our eccentricities align perfectly and she gives me these freaking awesome gifts. She's given me a few pieces of amazing jewelry that are just enough off-kilter that it's actually my style and not a crazy person's. She also gave me her vintage red Versace jacket for graduation. But then, there are times when I open her gifts and it is so hard to fake being gracious and I feel awful. The crazy hot pink faux fur scarf embellished with neon pom poms that looked that something I vomited up after a party that somehow involved chugging Pepto Bismol comes to mind. The other is my ex. It's kind of interesting. Looking at the timeline of his presents and their decline exactly mirrors the decline of our relationship. That whole saying "It's the thought that counts" really does mean something, everyone. It went from being surprised with a necklace in the morning that was simple, but my taste, to helping to fulfill my years-long pipe dream of having a blowfish for a pet, to a pair of diamond earrings that were unique and perfectly my style (which I actually have mixed feelings about because I thought his motivations were not in the right place and I'm still trying to figure out if they were a cover up for him cheating or if they subsequently lead to him cheating....long story, and this is not the place) to gifts that he so obviously put little to no thought in whatsoever. The absolute worst was for Valentines Day, during a period when I was feeling particularly insecure about how he felt about me, and he ended up giving me a box of ghetto mint candies that got crushed in the mail along with the story of how he tried to swindle them from a Girl Scout and ended up getting swindled by her instead. And that was it. I cried over that "gift," and not in the good way. The next few occasions weren't exactly really bad gifts, but again, it was so obvious that the only consideration he put into it was how he could pull of giving me something in the cheapest way possible. Even when I told him exactly what I wanted, he would change it just enough so that it was a cheaper version of the suggestion that I then didn't have any use for. Like, last Christmas, I did a gift guide for my blog, and I told people I was exchanging gifts with that if they were stuck for ideas, they could just look at the entry and pick something out. My dad was asking me if I wanted something from it specifically, so I was asking the ex for a hint at what he got me, and he couldn't even remember what he picked out. It turned out he got two things that he could combine shipping on, one of them being a single curtain for my three-window bedroom. Another time I wanted a stuffed animal (shut up) based off an inside joke of ours, and I took the liberty of emailing him links to ones that I liked, and he ended sending me this dinky one that was basically a beanie baby that I looked up online and found out it was $2. It was just things like that over and over. And before you get all "What a bitch she hated that he got her cheap presents" on me, I didn't give a shit about the price. I felt much more comfortable with the cheaper necklace he first got me than with owning $1000 diamond earrings. What was the worst about them was being confronted with tangible evidence that he didn't give a shit about me anymore when I was trying really fucking hard to pretend that everything was okay between us. Moral of the story: Men of TiB, it's a cliche for a reason. It really is the fucking thought that counts. Or else don't even bother. (End of rant. I am not a morning person, so I'm cranky. Apologies.)
My great aunt knitted me a face washer out of wool. Dad's already told everyone that he's just going to give money. Money, in itself is great. Getting roughly enough to buy a happy meal is not. The irony of it is that for years I would just ask my parents for cash or vouchers and was always told "that's not a proper gift".
A box. I was 16 and for some reason my mom decided to give me one of those key locked fireproof boxes that you hold important documents in so they're safe if the house burns down. It was 10 years before I actually had anything really noteworthy to put in there. That was some major disappointment at that age.
I'll talk about the best present I ever gave: My father and I have spoken several times about how much we enjoy reading, and how sad it is that some kids don't appreciate it because - often - they don't see their parents reading for enjoyment. More than once during one of these conversations, he casually mentioned that he can still recall the first book he ever read. He couldn't remember the name of it, but he remembered the name of the bear the book was about and he even remembered the spelling (the bear had a unique name). Apparently it focused on a young hunter, who tracked down a destructive bear and shot him. I was at my wit's end as to what to get him for his birthday several years ago, and I remembered our talk. Cue me scouring google and emailing rare book auction houses. Some kind soul eventually emailed me back and said that it sounded like book [whatever] by the author [whoever]. A hunt around amazon and ebay procured it for $50, and miraculously it arrived the day of his birthday. I like to tease my dad that he is an old curmudgeon. He is stoic and not easily rattled or startled. Well, for the first time in my life I presented him with a gift that left him speechless. He didn't know what to say, and he kept returning to the book to thumb through it. He deliberately took a few weeks to read it so that he could savour the memory of finding this treasured book again. Never, before or since, have I ever managed to impress him with a gift so well.
Alt. Focus: My Grandfather's Pocketwatch When I was six months old, my grandfather had a massive heart attack playing raquetball and died right there on the court. His pocket watch, which I'm told he used constantly, was left to my mother. As I grew up, I became fascinated with watches (still am) and I would ask my mom if I could hold his and wind it from time to time. The chain also has his Phi Beta Kappa key from when he graduated college with high honors. The Christmas after I turned 18, my mom handed me a box before we left to go see family in Maryland. It was just the two of us sitting in the kitchen and she slid it across the table into my hands. "I think it's time for you to have this," she told me. I opened the box and suspended from a tiny hook within a glass globe was his pocketwatch--the chain perfectly coiled on the wooden base. Underneath, wrapped in tissue paper and held in a wooden frame, was one of maybe only 5 pictures in existence of my grandfather holding me when I was a baby. Incidentally, that Christmas I had also asked for a new watch to replace the one my ex had gotten me. It's one of the Seiko Kinetics, and is the second best gift I've gotten. I'm lost without it, and rarely take it off except when I go to the gym.
I am not a great lover of the holidays but I am super excited for Christmas this year because of the present I got for my wife. I got a bunch of her friends and our family to chip in to buy her a new computer. She's been stuck on my laptop for a number of years since her computer crapped out and really needs one of her own. More than that, my wife is one of the sweetest and most beloved people I have ever met but worries that other people don't really like her for some reason. So it's not just the new computer, but having a list of all the people who contributed, who care about her, will make her cry I think. I can't wait to give it to her. In a similar vein, one of the best presents I have ever gotten was from her a few years back, before we were married. For my birthday she got a HUGE card, like x feet by x feet big (I'm bad at physical dimensions), and got a ton of my friends to all write messages on cards or slips of paper and then she attached them to the inside of the card. It was so sweet and heartwarming and awesome. Especially as, similar to her, I worry about people forgetting about me when I leave the room so it was fantastic to have her organize this and see so many people's messages to me.
I got the worst present of my life just two days ago. I'll preface this by saying that my company is not a good place to be right now. Morale is garbage and getting worse. Everyone that's worth a crap has either left or is actively trying to leave. My boss is awesome, but her boss is truly awful. He's a nice enough guy, but he is dumber than a box of doorknobs and consistently leaves huge messes that my group gets to clean up. How he landed in his six-figure position I will never know. The other day, he walks into the office with a big cardboard box and a santa hat. He hands everyone their own bag-- they're the red and white striped paper popcorn bags that you see at ballgames. The bags are stapled shut at the top. I figured that he just hadn't wanted to spend a ton of time wrapping gifts, no biggie. Then, I opened the bag. Imagine my surprise when it revealed.... a single pack of Pop Secret popcorn. The only redeeming quality to this gift were the looks of disgusted astonishment on my coworkers' faces as they opened their 'gifts' as well. There is no better way to further ruin morale in your company than to make a huge production of giving people gifts and then giving them the cheapest, most thoughtless crap you can come up with. I wouldn't have thought twice if he hadn't given anything at all, but instead he decided to slap me in the face. Merry f-ing Christmas to you too, jackass.
The best presents I've recieved were from my grandmother. We were very close; I shared a room with her until I was 6, and most of my favorite memories have something to do with her. She was an artist, and when I got into my late teens she started giving me some of her paintings. They were exciting to unwrap then, but they mean even more to me now that she's no longer with us. I'm no art critic, but I love them just because they're by her. Second favorite is also from my grandma. One Christmas she gave me her engagement ring. The diamond is tiny...I don't even think it's half of a carat, but I like that she gave it to me when she was still alive and it wasn't after her death. She was really excited to give it to me, but it was also a sad moment because we all knew that it was probably one of our last Christmases together. It was. She passed the week before Christmas the next year.
Approves Alt Focus: The original Nintendo back when it first came out. Me and my dad played that thing forever. I remember staying up playing Metroid till like 4 in the morning with him trying to beat that stupid game. Oh, and fuck Battletoads.
One of the best Christmas gifts was getting Super Nintendo when I was 6 or 7. Shouting with joy in front of all of my family that, "Wow this thing is like 200 bucks!!" It was a gift from my grand parents. Needless to say my aunts and uncles gifts weren't as spectacular. My dad got me a .22 Marlin bull barrel rifle with a nice scope when I was 15 or 16. Probably my favorite Christmas gift ever. It is all black and looks like a bad ass sniper rifle. It's a tack driver for being semi automatic. This isn't mine but the same model. Mine has a glare protector on it so the scope looks twice as long. Spoiler
I don't remember how old I was when I got my SNES for Christmas. Excellent gift, but Mom followed it up by giving me an incredibly shitty gift to go with it. Her and my stepfather bought me the system, but they DIDN'T BUY ME A GAME. They instead gave me two 1-day video game rental certificates. They were confident that I'd enjoy renting games instead of actually... You know... Owning one.
My mother-in-law definitely takes the cake for worst gift giver on the planet. She is a junker, and sadly, probalby has a hoarding disease as well (she would put some of the people from "Hoarders" to shame). She's 60 years old, hasn't worked in over 30 years, and has been living on $10,000 a month alimony checks for the past 15 years. She owns her home and car outright, so she literally goes out and spends $10k a month on SHIT. She digs through trash, and regularly goes garage-sale-hopping. She bought $50,000 - yes $50,000 - of Beanie Babies about 10 or 15 years or so ago when those things were popular. She thought they were going to make her rich one day. They're still in her garage collecting dust. Anyway - that's just some background so you know what I'm dealing with. The first Christmas I spent with my wife (fiancee at the time), here is what her mother bought me: - Joe Boxer Fragrance Gift Set. Not men's, but women's perfume. She thought that because it was Joe Boxer, it was for men. One of the fragrances was called Sweet Pea. - Jelly Belly Freezer Pop Set. The box was covered in dust and had a hand-written price tag on it, clearly something she absolutely had to get me when she was at her neighbor's yard sale. - Jug of Almaden wine. I actually thought this was a pretty thoughtful gift - for her anyway. Then I helped her move some stuff out of her basement later in the week and found an entire shrinkwrapped crate of Almaden beneath the stairs, covered in dust. As if the extra-large Almaden bottle design wasn't enough, she needed to buy that shit in bulk. - A large box of See's Candies, unwrapped and missing 2 or 3 of the chocolates. - A padded tray that you put in your lap to set your food on while you are watching TV. - A ceramic angel that doubled as an air freshener. The best part is that she didn't actually know that it was an air freshener until I pointed it out. She just really thought I needed an angel to watch over me.
My extended family has a Christmas party every year, and everyone under 18 gets a gift. I got a football 6 years in a row, as if they were saying, you're a little queer, man up. Next year, your still kinda queer, here's a football, man up.