It can be low effort, passive-aggressive, insulting or derogatory towards your convictions.
Store bought pudding, no clue what I was supposed to do with that.
Eat. That’s what you usually do with pudding. /j
I’ve always been a computer/theatre nerd. When I was a teen my parents bought me a bike. I did not express nor have any interest in a bike, but I’m sure my mom felt I needed to go outside more and spend less time on the computer. A week or two later while upset at me about something else she complained that I haven’t even used my new bike yet.
That sounds a bit petty from you, at least from my POV.
No matter how nerdy you are, going outside is healtht, both physically and mentally. They got you a nice gift, IMO.
They got me something I had no interest in and were upset I wasn’t using it. Ever hear the phrase “it’s the thought that counts”? It demonstrated zero thought into what I would actually be interested in.
It’s like buying a teen a set of knitting needles and being surprised that they didn’t start knitting with them.
Well it might have been a thought about what would be good for you (to their belief), but to be upset that it didn’t just make you want to use seems a but naïve.
Ever hear the saying “Don’t look a gift horse into the mouth”?
It demonstrated plenty of thought.
I know nothing about horses. I won’t look this gift horse in the mouth because I don’t know know what I’m looking at, but I’m also not going to be thrilled with the horse you’ve gifted me that I have no idea what to do with.
It’s a common saying, it’s not a literal thing
Thanks tips.
My point is if someone did show up at your house gifting you a horse for Christmas it would be appropriate for you to respond with “what am I supposed to do with this?” And someone telling you “it’s a nice gift, be thankful for it” would be an unreasonable response.
It’s an example that not every gift is thoughtful just because it’s a gift.
Bro upset his parents told him to be healthy and touch grass.
Lenny moment
I didn’t like a gift that demonstrated zero understanding of who I was or what I would have wanted.
There was no attempt to talk to me about going outside more or getting more exercise, I have always been pretty skinny and reasonably healthy, and at no point did I indicate that I didn’t go outside or wasn’t active.
But I’m sure you understand my parents and their motivations better than I do.
Lenny moment.Lenny moment
You’re only making one person look silly, and it’s not them.
Blahaj backhanded moment
Not me, but my wife.
She receives an envelope from her grandmother, oh cool, money!
She opened it and it was empty. Okay, no fuss she probably forgot to fill one when making all of them for the family. A week later, she told her grandma it was empty. Her grandma replied “No! There’s no way it was empty, your mistaken.” This is par for the course. She ignores my wife all the time and talks down to her.So an empty envelope is the worst I’ve seen.
Reminds me that my aunt gave me 100$ in a box but claimed I threw it out…
My Dad once gifted me a bazinga shirt. I don’t watch the big bang theory.
Someone sent me what they referred to as a self-help DVD that was just some motivational speaker type of person invalidating my issues. A virus in the DVD also temporarily destroyed my friend’s DVD player in the process of playing it.
Nothing
I had an aunt and uncle who, when I was a kid maybe 12, were not well off. They got my brother and I each this toyset that was like make pretend welding. It had a hand tool that, if I remember, let you weld with this soft plastic to make things with the parts in the kit.
It also had a chamber near the nozzle that spun and contained something that made a bunch of sparks.
Well… The thing kept zapping and burning me. Kinda hurt. So, being 12, I complained about it.
And of course, I was an ingrate for not liking the toy they could afford instead of a Lego set or something. The worst of it was I got what my parents meant, my aunt and uncle were kind of ashamed. But it burned me.
Hell I thought it was really cool, and even said so, but I couldn’t keep playing with it due to, you know, my hand being red and kinda cut up.
Just bad times all around.
And no, no one suggested put a glove on, and it did not come with one.
I was deployed and got a box from my home unit that was basically just trash. I think it was supposed to be funny, but it was just a lot of scrap paper thrown into a box. Nothing written on them that was for me. Nothing to signal anything. Just a big box of trash that could have been nothing more than the recycling bin upended into it.
That was pretty heartbreaking.
Did you ever talk about it with them? Definitely sounds like an inconsiderate joke. Flabbergasting that they managed to follow through enough to get it posted to you.
Sounds really fucked up of me, but I once had a girlfriend gift me a painting she made for me. I could tell she really tried, took her time, spent money on it, and she chose a subject matter I really liked, but it was absolutely terrible. One of the worst paintings I’ve ever seen.
It put me in such a dilemma because she even framed it and was expecting me to hang it up at my place but I couldn’t bear to hang it and see it ‘decorating’ my place. I thanked her a lot when she gave it to me but I would’ve preferred she had gotten me nothing instead.
Did you hang it?
No, I broke up with her about a month or so later and threw it away.
one of my buddies got a mtn dew. thats it
another got a playstation gift card, which would have been good but he didnt have a playstation
PTSD on the hoops I had to go through to get the Xbox gift card my kid received one year into Minecraft coins. We don’t have an Xbox, it was… Tricky at the time.
My grandmother bought me a dark green, polyester, turtle-neck shirt; when I was 12. I never even tried it on.
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 😅.
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’ve lucked out and haven’t gotten anything that bad. My mother in law is weirdly obsessed with making sure everyone gets the exact same number of gifts so sometimes I get some truly random junk lol. She got me (or maybe my wife) a Toy Story 3 Pizza Planet branded Pizza… Maker? Idk. Imagine a waffle iron but for pizza. We have an oven. Idk. I guess it’s for college kids in dorms without full kitchens? We just don’t have the counter space for it. It’s sat in the box. Our kitchen is very tiny. We already have a bunch of counter top appliances and don’t have room for another. And why take it out of the box when we have an oven?
A small drinking cup +possibly unintended whooping cough that ruined my entire holiday season.
