<p>I just saw what I think was the dumbest gift ever for this particular person; I realize you would have to know the person to fully understand, so I will try to explain. My father in law recently turned 92, so all the children and grandchildren went out to dinner. FIL still drives and is very with it, but wants for nothing. In the 35 years I have known him, I think he might have kept a handful of gifts anyone has purchased him; not that he is not grateful, he just sees no need for most of the gifts. It is a running joke that he will return anything you give him. He is very frugal and doesn’t like to spend more than necessary. </p>
<p>My husbands step brother and wife gave him (without asking the other siblings to go in on the gift like we always do,) a Vineyard Vines gift card. If you are not familiar with Vineyard Vines, you have to look it up! First of all, there is not a store locally and my FIL does not touch a computer, although my MIL does. Second of all, if you knew the man, you would know that he is not going to order an $75 tie with fish on it! Preppy is not a word you would use to describe this man. </p>
<p>I was sitting across from the table when he opened the card and I could see what it was, while he flipped the card over to read it. He shows it to my MIL and said, “Look honey, a gift card to a wine store.” My BIL had to tell him it was a clothing store; he assumed that Vineyard meant wine! Not that a gift card to a wine store would have been any better; 2 Buck Chuck is good enough for my FIL.</p>
<p>Both of my kids are dying to get the card from my FIL, but can’t think of a diplomatic way to ask for it; there is no way my FIL is going to use it. I can not even imagine what possessed my BIL to purchase that for dad; the only thing I could come up with is that it was a regift. I just can not imagine that he or his wife went online specifically to order this card for my FIL. Not that it matters, but my BIL has more money that the rest of the sibling but together, and we all live well. If they really wanted to get something for him, I can think of so many other things; this gift just makes no sense at all.</p>
<p>While I generally believe that it is the thought that counts…I must admit that I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry from the anecdotes in posts #1 and #2!</p>
<p>Bath products that come in smelly smells. I mean come on… i’m allergic to most of the smelly smells so i can’t use them. We place them in the yardsale box :D</p>
<p>My MIL once gave me leather driving gloves for Christmas. I lived in a very hot place and drove a station wagon. Another year she gave me tiny folding scissors.</p>
Hmmm - when my mother asks me what I want for a gift I’ll either not answer her or I’ll tell her ‘orange slices’ - a bag of those orange slices candy that costs less than a dollar I think. The orange slices are fine - it’s something I like but won’t buy myself and something that I know won’t cost her much and is convenient to buy (i.e. grocery store). I’d truly rather have the 99 cent bag of orange slices than a $75 gift card to some clothing store. Luckily she listened to me and this is what I usually receive!</p>
<p>Another good gift I received once was a head holding device - a little fold out piece of fabric on a plastic frame (like a hammock for the head) that one can rest their head on when laying on the ground. I’m sure it cost less than $5. I used it again the other day to watch fireworks and it’s nice to use at the beach.</p>
<p>This is going to be an interesting thread.
The soap thing is not good. I am thinking there is a lot of re-gifted soap.
I bought my mother-in-law (sweetest woman but the queen of wasting money on miracle cures) an ionic hairbrush. Not the $200 one that may or may not work…but the $20 version that I am sure is a tube with a little red light in it…batteries not included! It is supposed to make your hair grown long and full. RIGHT. NOT. It just about killed me to do it because I thought it was about the stupidest thing I could think of…but she saw it in a catalog and really wanted it. And since she I am sure returned the other (brilliant) gifts I have given her in the past…I said whatever!</p>
<p>Unfortunately I now get a catalog from this company every month…filled with thousands of the stupidest gifts!!</p>
<p>For Christmas H once gave me a gift certificate (stuck it in my stocking) that <em>I</em> had purchased for one of his staff members–this had to be THE WORST! Not only did he short the staff member, he’d actually sent me to the store to buy the certificates for his staff! And that was the only present I received that year. Another time he gave me a snap together wooden dinosaur skeleton for an anniversary present. . . (for the kids?)</p>
<p>H turned 50 recently. I got him a bunch of items from the grocery store (box of crackers, bag of nuts, fruit, etc.–stuff he likes but nothing special) and wrapped them all up. It looked like a nice pile of gifts! Then after he opened them all he asked me if it took me a long time to pick out all the gifts. . .</p>
<p>The kids also played a trick on him that day. For some reason, he thought I was going to give him a surprise party for the big 5-0. He was not working that day and went out on several errands. When he came home, the little kids prevented him from coming in the house (totally their own idea–I didn’t know they were going to do this) saying, “Don’t come in yet! . .Wait a minute, don’t come in, we’re not ready, etc . .” After several minutes of this, H sneaked around to the back door by our kitchen where we were all hanging out. I could see him looking in the window with an expression of expectation. Then he burst in the door, and we all said “surprise” in dull quiet voices. The brief moment of disappointment on his face when he saw that there was absolutely NOTHING going on was. . .PRICELESS!
(I know this sounds really mean, but you have to know H, and you have to know that I have usually gone out of my way to “do up” his birthday and other special occasions. Anyway, he totally deserved that surprise!)</p>
<p>My mom once gave my dad a truckload of horse manure for a birthday gift. For his garden.
He really liked it!</p>
<p>Back in the day, my husband’s family got together and bought my brother-in-law a Rolex watch as a wedding gift. My hubby, being the younger of the two brothers, wanted one very badly. Fast forward 3 years, my husband is still yearning for a Rolex. Christmas Day, three weeks before our wedding, his mom hands him a beautifully wrapped gift, about the size of a watch box. His eyes grew wide and he could hardly contain his excitment as he unwrapped the box. Under the wrappings was the green box with the gold embossed logo. He was so excited he couldn’t speak! He opens the box to find a beautiful, shiny, new…set of nail clippers. I never saw anyone so disappointed in my life. I don’t know if it was meant to be a joke or if my mother-in-law just used the box because it was the right size. In any case, it wasn’t funny. Oh, and my gift from her that year, an acrylic cotton ball and q-tip holder. I guess it’s the thought that counts.</p>
<p>We’ve been making a donation to a charity in the names of our siblings and family for 25 years. We wish they would take the hint and do the same. We are tired of getting their trip souvenirs as gifts. We are trying to get RID of stuff, not accumulate more “stuff”. </p>
<p>I’ve gotten baseball type caps for Christmas for the last several years from my inlaws. I do NOT wear hats…any kinds of hats…and they know this. I guess it’s the thought that counts:(</p>
<p>My H and his siblings and SO’s pick a secret Santa each year so we don’t have to buy gifts for everyone and can concentrate on something nice for one person. My secret Santa one year got me a resin bust of Abraham Lincoln! I didn’t get much else that year and it was very disappointing. I tried to get rid of it on Freecycle but there were no takers. Luckily, we know some politically connected people and one was a Lincoln-phile and he really wanted it. </p>
<p>Phew, that creepy thing is out of the house!</p>
<p>I was once regifted by my husband’s aunt and uncle with a pair of fluffy pink pig slippers that I remembered the uncle giving to the aunt 2 years earlier at Christmas. I know they were the same slippers because they were her shoe size and not mine.</p>
<p>Freecycle is the best. You can get rid of stuff, stop feeling guilty about it, and actually feel virtuous because the other person usually Really Wants it.</p>
<p>My SIL gave my then-14-year-old son a Children’s Cookbook and a calculator (not a graphing calculator, just a basic calculator) for Christmas. Another year he got a video game that was 2 years out of date (it was Madden or something with the year on it). We are positive they were re-gifts, or items she just randomly bought over the summer as “Christmas gifts” and then just spread around. My SIL and her husband have more money than the rest of the family put together and she is a shopaholic who constantly brags about the bargains she finds. Clearly she’s more interested in the bargain than in thinking about who she is buying for. And I think that’s what makes for a “bad” gift - a gift that shows that the giver wasn’t thinking about the recipient and what he/she wants/needs at all.</p>
<p>My MIL loves knick-knacks. I don’t. She told me once that if people gave me stuff I didn’t like, I should put it on a low shelf so my kids (then in preschool) could break it. Not long after that she gave us two Hummel figurines. I put them on a low shelf and the kids broke them. She was horrified, but she hasn’t given me any breakable figurines (dust-collectors, in my book) since. </p>
<p>One year, I told my husband that I needed slippers. So he bought me a pair and told his brother and my mother that I needed slippers, and they bought them for me too.</p>
<p>Forty+ years ago my cousin gave me an electric hair brush for graduation. I guess I should have been thankful that she gave me anything because we weren’t really close but it was really tough having to write a thank you note for that.</p>
<p>A friend who got married the month before H and I gave us a teak salad bowl set that was a re-gift from their wedding (I knew because they accidentally left the card from the other gifter inside the box.) We later became rather good friends and invited them to dinner. I served salad with the gifted salad set. Friend had a strange look on her face when I tossed the salad. I guess the set that she kept didn’t have the utensils and she was upset that she had given them to me. I didn’t let on that I knew it was a regift.</p>
<p>ROFL!!! My DH almost gave me a truckload of beauty bark for Mother’s Day (or was it topsoil? :rolleyes:). Somehow he changed his mind and took me to a local winery for a nice picnic. LOL.</p>
<p>My grandmother was notorious for sending odd gifts. We would always open them last for a good laugh.</p>
<p>One year my parents got towels with a large YSL embroidered on them and we all had a great laugh thinking we got someone elses towels… Years later I realized these were designer towels. Looks like gramma got the last laugh.</p>
<p>Be careful what you deem a stupid gift. When we were married an old farmer ( friend of my FIL) gave us a very large steel bowl, like they would use in restaurants. I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever seen. And a really stupid wedding gift.
But I have used that thing almost everyday of my married life. The first summer we were married we lived a tiny apartment with no air conditioning. We would fill the bowl ice water and soak our feet in it while typing papers for grad school. Later I used it to wash the baby in, then later I would fill it with water for the toddler to play in. We used it as the “throw-up” bowl. (Hey, being steel, it could be sterilized with good rinse of boiling water). We use it now to harvest from the garden. I use it to make jam. I have served salad in it when we have a large crowd.
That “stupid gift” tuned out to be one of the best things I own.</p>
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