Cheap & Nasty Birthday Presents - what's the worst you've seen?

Claree__x

top_drawer wrote: »

A chocolate bar - around 30p at the time.

It wasn't the disparity as such that I had an issue with but that she had so obviously put so much thought into buying the plush toy and so little into mine.

We were around 15 yo.

It's probably 'cause I'm seriously craving them 6 months into my pregnancy, but a twirl sounds like an awesome present to me :rotfl:(I can see why it wouldn't be for a 15 year old though!)

My OH got a shirt/jumper set from Asda one year from his parents for Christmas. I'm pretty sure I took it back and bought myself a top or something, for about £8.

For years my mum would buy me a jumper/hoodie from the Celtic shop for my birthday and Christmas (which are 6 days apart btw). This lasted 'till I was about 20, I stopped wearing them when I was about 15 :rotfl:

vickiem30

On Christmas, my ex bought me a book called What you cat is trying to tell you. He thought it was about cat psychology, which would've been interesting. Unfortunately, the book was trying to tell me all about cat illnesses, cat diarrhea and suchlike. Just what you want to read after your Christmas dinner.

fififoofoo

My mother in law bought my husband a kit on how to make balloon animals for his 30th Birthday....!

SDG31000

DH forgot Valentine's Day one year and a few days later presented me with a slice of brown marble/rock. I hated the colour, didn't collect anything like that and had no idea what I was meant to do with it. It was also the year that his best friend took his wife on a surprise trip to Paris as her Valentine's Day present.
However they have since gone through a very bad divorce and DH and I have been together 19 years.

Imdebtfree

For my birthday my mum gave me 5 pairs of reading glasses strength 4.5. When I said I don't use reading glasses yet her reply was well your no spring chicken if you don't need them now you will one day.

Other gifts she gives are various toiletries that she wraps beautifully. Only problem is they are usually half used.

mrbrightside842

When I was around 15 my nana gave me one of those old lady Royal Jelly M&S toiletry kits. On the base of it was written "To Enid, Happy 60th Birthday!" I've no idea who Enid is....

This_Year

My ex-MIL tried to give us an ashtray for our first house (we didn't smoke and ex has asthma) so we said, no that's ok we won't ever need it.

So she wrapped it up and gave it to us at Christmas.

She also gave me over the years a toilet brush, set of scouring pads, 2 bags for life, an empty perfume bottle, and out of date money off vouchers.

I think it must run in the family as ex-SIL gave me a hoover belt, a book on scuba diving (I'm scared of water!) and a dog bowl. We've never had a dog!

Manchee

A couple of years ago (before my sister and her husband got married) my quite religious grandmother gave my BIL a tub of cheese footballs for christmas as his sole present, IIRC they're prob the only thing he won't eat, they were out of date too. I think someone was trying to make a point about 'living in sin' :rotfl:

Calien27

These are not mine but from another forum I frequent...

One Christmas a woman's well to do relative dropped of a "big" present, on Christmas morning she excitedly unwrapped it in front of everyone, it was a multi pack of toilet rolls...

Another Christmas present, this time for a woman's step son from his mum; he opened it to find it was a half eaten tub of Pringles.

My personal favorite though is this one;

As a youngster this girls aunt came around for Christmas dinner with the family, she sat down and passed around the presents she had. The girl got a biscuit...one single biscuit, nicely wrapped in pretty paper!

Gingernutty

Back in the 90s, I shared a flat with my brother and his then fiancee. Bailey's liqueur was in vogue at the time and there were a number of cheap knock-offs knocking around.

One day around Christmas, we went round the corner to visit my parents who had just been given a bottle of cheap looking, branded, Irish cream liqueur from "back home". They had been given the bottle by family friends who had been given the bottle and didn't drink it either.

As my parents didn't drink it and we were part of the younger crowd who did, Mum and Dad gave it to us.

We brought it back, put it on the kitchen counter and looked at it for a while. No one wanted to look like an alky and we all hesitated about being the first to open it.

Eventually, I opened it only to find it was absolutely solid inside. It was years beyond it's best before date and absolutely rank.

It must have been 'regifted' for the best part of a decade before it got round to us.