Those posters would be great in dh’s office. Maybe they thought that your username suggested you’d think they were equally wonderfully weird?
The last year we received gifts from my mother-in-law they were all really awful things from Goodwill that still had that Goodwill smell lingering on them. We did not realize it then but part of her dementia was really not understanding money anymore. She’s skimp by washing zip-loc bags and then send thousands of dollars to scammers.
My ex gave me a shotgun for our wedding anniversary one year.
This reminds me of when my parents gave me a set of barbells for Christmas when I was in junior high. It was about the last thing I would have wanted.
We got a copy of The Joy of Cooking as a wedding present from a friend who was, shall we say, preferring to be budget conscious The inside 1/3 of the book is printed/bound upside down. Am guessing she got a good deal on that copy.
When I was a child one of my family’s favorite Christmas traditions was the unwrapping of the gift from one of my father’s business associates and his wife. The givers were kind, generous people, but their tastes were so different from those of my Yankee WASP parents. The gift were always things like an ornate cuckoo clock or a gilded statue of the Venus de Milo. How anyone who knew my parents thought they would use these gifts is beyond me, but clearly the givers thought they were beautiful. Before the unwrapping we would all try to guess what might be in the box, but happily we were always surprised. 
My mother never wanted to offend this couple so she would put the gifts aside and make sure to trot them out when the couple was at our house once a year or so.
Ohh, where to start. My MIL thinks I don’t dress well, so for a long time she gave me clothes she thought I ought to wear: A fire-engine red double-breasted w/ gold buttons and shoulder pads SKORT “suit”. A violent purple and black satin raincoat (my boys referred to this as Mom’s Hooker Coat). A lovely brown dress she showed me, and then admitted she liked it so much she’d kept it and would buy me something else later. High heeled lizard print shoes. Mini skirts.
Once they became hoarders, the gifts have gotten weirder. My oldest got a case of expired potato chips. My BIL got a box of (75) souvenir pocket knives. My DH got bits for a drill he doesn’t own, and I once got a box of gifts that were clearly meant for someone else entirely. And by box, I mean, items in a cardboard box pulled from storage and a piece of paper taped across the top! You just have to laugh. At least they stopped the practice of giving my husband some incredibly high end gift , and giving me rolls of paper towels. (Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up). My DH also put his foot down when they started this with our kids – one would get something elaborate, and the other one would get something from the grocery store checkout.
People. But it is a first-world problem, to be sure.
A teacher friend received a Christmas gift from the poorest student in the class. Because she knew spending money on any gift was not easy for this boy, she made a big deal out of it. She had him bring the silk rose flower up to her at the front of the class.
She was going on and on about how special she felt getting this gift from him. But he wasn’t done. He told her there was more. Told her to pull apart the rose. Turns out, the “flower” part was actually a nicely folded up pair of skimpy panties!
Teacher was speechless. And that was the last gift she ever opened in front of her class.
My H had an Aunt who was famous in the family for bad gift giving. One year she gave an “antique” pencil sharpener to H’s youngest brother. It was a little statuette of a football player and the sharpener was in the base. Hideous! And the football player had weird painted on eyelashes.
Aunt wasn’t there when the gift was unwrapped and my BIL was angry. Refused to take it home. His sister cooked up a scheme to sneak it into their other brother’s luggage just before he left. That was more than 20 years ago! This thing, which we call “number 39” because of the number on his football jersey, has been going from house to house for all that time.
Once my MIL made us lasagne and stuck #39 in the freezer with it. Another time, my D1 broke her pinky running to hide #39 in her Uncle’s car. Another time, I got a call while driving home on the Jersey turnpike, “biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiich”, it was MIL and she had just found #39 tucked in her bed. Another time, I totally fell for it when one BIL told us all that he liked it and was going to keep it from now on - it was in my dishwasher.
It’s given us a lot of great stories over the years for such a bad gift!
When he was a pre-teen and teen my son used to get gifts of clothes from our European relatives-3/4 length pants, bright jackets with fur on the collars, shirts with multiple zippers zig-zagged across the front. All things he would have been mercilessly ragged on by his friends for had he chosen to wear them in public. After he politely tried on the first of these in front of the in-laws my husband, struggling to say something positive, said “Hey guy, you’re styling’!” It’s become shorthand in our home for “Wow, that is truly hideous!”
Oh so many. My H’s family lives far away and have only visited once. However they do know that I like “art”. They send “art” every year. Let your imagination run wild.
Was it violent or **violet **?
I just love bad gift threads.
“After he politely tried on the first of these in front of the in-laws my husband, struggling to say something positive, said “Hey guy, you’re styling’!” It’s become shorthand in our home for “Wow, that is truly hideous!””
I love stuff like that!
When I was in college and had a summer internship with a financial institution, I needed to get a bunch of dress clothes ASAP, so my mom and I went to Marshall’s to try on some inexpensive outfits. I tried something on, wasn’t really pleased with the quality, but came out to show her how it looked. As we were deciding whether or not this outfit was worth it, and a woman said, “That look is just sweeping Marshall’s!” That was like the kiss of death for us, so to this day “That look is just sweeping Marshall’s!” is our code for “that looks really cheap!”
This is torture reading this thread at work where I can’t laugh out loud!
Our family does a Secret Santa among the adults - about 10 of us. We are all present for the event. We draw names at Thanksgiving and everything has to be wrapped in the USA Today to keep gift wrapping anonymous as well. Because most of our family are foodies, the gift must have something to do with food - actual food, books about food, kitchen equipment, food based board games - you name it! Price to spend, about $25. Last year my SIL who I love, had my name. Everyone was opening gifts - wonderful gifts from great cookbooks, to assorted teas and a teapot, to Zingerman’s bread and cheese!
I opened mine from SIL - one of those plastic pop top containers filled with spelt flour. What?! I’m not a special diet or anything! SIL likes to use spelt flour. Apparently she things I should too! It was REALLY hard to act thrilled. Surprised maybe, but not thrilled!!!
For some reason, this thread reminded me of Judd Nelson’s line in The Breakfast Club:
The nanny we had for our D did not like big brother who was 7 years older. She would literally buy a closet full of gifts for D and then give a token gift to S. One year she gave him an old used cookie jar in the shape of a work boot. It wasn’t even clean.
Another Christmas H gave me a red plaid blazer with metallic threads and velvet cuffs and collar. When I opened it I told him how much I love it and how I couldn’t wait to wear it. After company went home, he asked me why I praised the blazer when he knew I hated it. I asked him what he meant and he reminded me while walking through the shopping mall about a month earlier he pointed the blazer out to me and asked if I liked it. I pointedly told him then “are you kidding me?”. Unfortunately, he had already bought one and didn’t feel like returning it. Neither did I, it went to goodwill.
This thread is really making me laugh ! I love the football pencil sharpener story. My family has a few of those lovelies floating around. My late grandmother was notorious for giving out terrible gifts. One of the items that we pass around is a cumbersome glass grape thing . mounted on driftwood. We also having a singing lobster on a wooden plaque ( which reminds me, it’s time for me to pass it along )
My husband, Andy Taylor, kept hearing me run around saying things like:
“I have to go, I don’t have time”, 'I’m late, gotta run!"
So at Christmas, I get this square box that is heavy and elaborately-wrapped. I open it and it is a Franklin Planner.
So I said, “ooooooooh, a planner?” “Oh, how did you decide on that?”
He said, “well you’re always saying how you don’t have time, now, you’ll have time!”. He was sooo proud!
We had 3 children under 6 years of age, a huge mortgage, new job (Aunt Bea working 60 hrs per week).
I laughed so hard that I was crying!! He was so miffed that I couldn’t see how beneficial this 10 pound anchor would be with two in diapers and one rambunctious 6 year old!
When people asked about my husband’s xmas gift to me and I would say, a planner, but I would also add, “oh, he’s an engineer”. To which most would say oh okay!
Over the years our whole family has gotten strange gifts. When my boys were little, my mil would buy them birthday gifts from the Dollar store. Thank goodness she doesn’t do that one any longer! She hand knitted me a scarf that I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing out in public. We’ve received a few paintings or pictures that we only take out of the closet when so and so visits, who gave us that gift in the first place! 
I also hated getting little mementos from my in-laws world travels…they like to crowd their house with thousands of these items and thought we would too…my mil stopped giving us that stuff when she saw I wasn’t displaying any of it in my own house…dust collectors!
I never heard of a Franklin Planner and had to look it up.
ooooh. I really want one. Don’t laugh. I think I’m putting it on my Christmas list.