'My cousin gave me a picture of herself for Christmas': 15 folks share the worst gifts they have ever received

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Nov 27, 2023 4:00 PM EST

Not everyone is good at giving gifts. Obviously, for some people out there, it's their bread and butter. Their love language, if you will. If that's you, congratulations. However, the rest of us (myself included) were not born with the "good gift-giver" gene. As someone who was once gifted a dictionary and a pencil case holder for my 15th birthday, not to mention a DVD of Inside Out for my 21st birthday, I was not raised to be good at this. That's why when this time of year rolls around, I get immediately tense. As I've gotten older, the good gift-givers go even more "all out" while folks like me never know what to get people. I'm sure one day, I will end up in someone's anonymous Reddit post about a gift I gave that totally missed the mark. 

These folks shared their worst gift stories via this r/AskReddit thread. Keep scrolling below for the full stories. When you're done, check out this list of the top Karens of the week.

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 9841767936
    via Kira auf der Heide
  • 02
    r/AskReddit Posted by u/SaithSiro Whats the worst gift you've ever recieved?
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 03
    smultronstalle. When I was 11-12 my father's fourth wife would constantly give gifts to me and my sister, but would often take them back when we were out of the house and return them. So she'd give us really cool things, like a DVD player or even once a slot machine (???) but in a week or so they'd be gone... and we were expected to be totally okay with that. The only gifts that she gave us (permanently) were her old clothes. And that would have been fine, except that she was a size 20 and at th
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 04
    ThatsBushLeague. I hate ketchup. At work one year we did a secret santa gift exchange and everyone did a really good job and got people really cool gifts with a lot of thought. I bought my person tickets to a Chiefs vs Packers game because they were from Wisconsin but never got to go to a game at Lambeau. They were really happy. Other people got free dance lessons and cool stuff like that.
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  • 05
    The person who drew my name was the only person at the entire company to take this opportunity to be a .. They bought me three giant bottles of ketchup. And thought it was hilarious. I just stood there kind of dumb founded as the person who gave it laughed really hard. Everyone else just stood there staring at him.
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 06
    It sucked because everyone else tried really hard and I spent a good amount of money on my gift. And the person who got me was ao. Not cool. Literally made me hate the person. 18.7k Share
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  • 07
    lunchesandbentos. My mother in law pulled out a box in which there was a fire engine red nightgown and said in front of the family, "This is what you'll wear when you conceive a son." Yep. ETA: I did not expect this to blow up. No, to those who were asking if it worked, we have 2 daughters (she gave it to me on Christmas after our first). I guess we didn't use it right. Also, yes, it was new and I ended up donating it. Now you're all being so creative, making me regret not keeping it because I c
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 08
    S scifilove. My mother in law gave me a blanket I had just donated 2 weeks before to Goodwill. She went there, bought it, and gave it to me like a new gift. Never realizing it had been in my home. Now I have to drive about an hour to donate anything for fear it will come back to my house. 16.6k Share
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 09
    jsackerson A friend of mine and I gifted each other the same bottle of after shave each xmas. That way every other xmas one of us got a gift every other year, without fail. We did this for over forty years until he passed in Feb., 2015. It's really the thought that counts. 14.9k Share
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  • 10
    4 [deleted] My cousin gave me a picture of herself for Christmas. ↑ 14.1k Share
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 11
    itgirl__ragdoll. It was actually a Reddit secret Santa gift. I asked for books, and the person sent me a card first saying, "your present is on its way, and it will surely add to your book collection". It was a bookmark of owls saying "hooooots reading my book". Granted I still use the bookmark today, but what a tease. 12.0k Share
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 12
    Brainstick. ( My mom is the worst gift giver of all time. She usually just gives you one of whatever she's been hoarding that she doesn't have room for. For a while this was ceramic lighthouses. Then it was little fountains. As a man in his thirties I was not the least bit interested in either. Then, one year, after my wife and I wondered what my bday present would be- a fountain or a lighthouse- she surprised me.
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  • 13
    She took a lighthouse, drilled a hole in the bottom, put a pump in it and set it in a ceramic bowl of water so water poured from the top of the lighthouse like it was flooded or something. lighthouse fountain. Well played, Mom. Edit-Dudes, I get that it almost sounds cool, but I can't explain how halfassedly this thing was constructed. The lighthouse and the little bowl it sat in didn't match. The lighthouse sat crooked in a bed of rocks because the pump she used was too big for the base of the
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 14
    dragonseye87. Not me but I had an OG for a teacher in high school. We called him Mr. T (had a long T name) and he was a legend because he sounded like the boring teacher in Ferris Bueller and kept a bat in his filing cabinet (just in case). Anyway, Mr. T always wore these weird, colorful, (kinda) ugly sweaters and shirts. So this goofball in our class decided to give him a gift during class for Christmas. Mr. T, being a champ, opens it mid-class and just bursts out laughing. It's any ugly shirt.
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  • 15
    Mr. T tells us that it was actually his shirt that he had disliked and donated. He got a good laugh out of it. Probably not his favorite gift ever. EDIT: Since everyone is asking, this particular Mr. T taught psychology/ economics in Ohio :D 10.8k Share
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 16
    FortLagomorph One year my (now ex) boyfriend bought me a deck of Magic: The Gathering Cards. I had absolutely no interest in them prior to receiving them, and then he refused to teach me how to play the game. He took them with him when we broke up. Edit: I should mention it was for my birthday, too. 9.3k ↓ Share
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  • 17
    eternalsunshine325. One year for Christmas my dad got me not one, but two copies of the Baha Men cd. I was a 14 year old girl at the time. ↑ 7.6k ↓ Share
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 18
    DE MOCH ItsMorpeth Not me but one of my friends didn't get anything for Christmas last year because he was an 'adult' now. He was 19. He then didn't get anything for his mums birthday because she is an 'adult' and she doesn't need anything if she is an adult. She realised her mistake after that and he got treated pretty well on his birthday this year. 7.1k Share
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 19
    hidden_specter. My grandparent my sister a gave -ton of things she liked + money and then they turned to me and gave me a bible I know I'm a heathen but that's cold haha 6.4k Share
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 20
    RubixRube. I happy meal Barbie. For my 20th birthday. From my boyfriend. It wasn't intended to be ironic. ↑ 6.0k Share
    via u/SaithSiro
  • 21
    Hitchmeister. I got really excited one year when my uncle who was usually pretty when it came to gifts handed me a wrapped present in the shape of a video game case. Turns out it was a metal puzzle that he got in a magazine he didn't want. ✩ 5.7k ↓ Share
    via u/SaithSiro

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FAILS gifts FAIL gift card askreddit gift parenting entitled reddit thread Reddit funny Parenting Fail entitled people
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