Question of The Day. Sunday 5th of December

Norachan

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Only 20 days until Christmas!

What was the worst Christmas gift you ever received?

I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I was once given a cookery book by a friend who knows me really well. Well enough to know that I don't cook. It was a book of Asian food recipes, which I'm sure were lovely, but almost all of them contained meat or fish and I've been a vegetarian forever. I did look at a few of the pictures, but I ended up giving the cookery book to another friend who got a lot more use out of it than I ever would.

What about you, did you ever receive a gift like that?
 

NY cat man

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When I was a kid, one year I got a basketball and net. There were only two problems:
1) I've hated basketball forever, and
2) Have you ever tried to dribble a basketball on grass? We had no hard surface to work with; just hang the net on the side of the barn and make do.
 

muffy

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My best friend at my first job gave me a pair of gloves with rabbit fur inside. I thank her but told her I could not accept them. She knew I was vegetarian but she did not know I was anti fur. That was 50 years ago and Kathy and I remained best friends until she passed away in 2010.
 
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LTS3

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A dress up doll. I was just out of college and was gifted this by a friend. it was not a gag gift or anything. I think I ended up giving the doll away to one of those toy drives (it was early in the season so toy drives were busy).
 

artiemom

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One year, my aunt---now deceased, gave me a roll of scented drawer liners... Yes, drawer liners!
Yes, it was a nice smell, but....... I did not know how to react!! I had to smile, pretend I loved it... and let it go... Her kids really laid into her for that... She was always known to give us weird gifts... but now for her own kids and their friends....

Strange.....
 

neely

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The worst gift I ever received was from a former boss - red velvet hangers and a fruitcake! She actually liked me and the fruitcake was homemade but not my thing. My husband said we could use it as a doorstop. :biggrin: She liked to sew so maybe she should have kept the hangers for herself. :lol: I didn't take it personally or let it bother me but I still remember it to this day.😉
 

mightyboosh

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"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
Although that maybe true in theory, it doesn't seem so in practice. The wrong, or cheap, gift can be taken as an insult as it imples that little or no thought has gone into it and only given as an obligation. It must be quite deep all this as folks appear to remember such occassions forever more. I witnessed an example of dodgy gifting between two family members and that was fifty years ago!
Also, it's hard to fake appreciation of a rubbish gift however hard we try.
All weird stuff eh?
 

maggiedemi

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toe socks
Are those the ones you can wear with flip flops? I love the ones by V-Toe, I bought like 10 pair. They are so warm!

Sometimes people will send me food items that I don't like. Once my brother bought me sugar free cappuccino instead of regular. And one time he got me gluten free tortillas that tasted like plastic. But mostly people know what I like or just give money or a gift card.
 

strider rose

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Are those the ones you can wear with flip flops? I love the ones by V-Toe, I bought like 10 pair. They are so warm!

Sometimes people will send me food items that I don't like. Once my brother bought me sugar free cappuccino instead of regular. And one time he got me gluten free tortillas that tasted like plastic. But mostly people know what I like or just give money or a gift card.
M maggiedemi yes i think so ... my feet dont work for those socks , i tried lol
 

MoochNNoodles

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My step grandmother gave me a Snow White porcelain type doll when I was in high school. The dress didn’t fit it right and one eye had its eyelashes glued on upside down. Mom and I ended up fixing it up a bit (I stuffed the dress with bubble wrap :lol:) and she gave it to a coworker for her daughter.

My step grandmother grew up poor so she really really liked giving toys. I appreciated the sentiment. Her house was loaded with knickknacks and magnets. It was crazy!
M maggiedemi yes i think so ... my feet dont work for those socks , i tried lol
I had 2 best friends in high school. One loved those socks and rocked them all the time. The other didn’t have enough toe to fill them. :crazy: She had really tiny feet and could still wear kids size shoes. Maybe we could have found her kid ones?:lol2:
 

strider rose

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My step grandmother gave me a Snow White porcelain type doll when I was in high school. The dress didn’t fit it right and one eye had its eyelashes glued on upside down. Mom and I ended up fixing it up a bit (I stuffed the dress with bubble wrap :lol:) and she gave it to a coworker for her daughter.

My step grandmother grew up poor so she really really liked giving toys. I appreciated the sentiment. Her house was loaded with knickknacks and magnets. It was crazy!

I had 2 best friends in high school. One loved those socks and rocked them all the time. The other didn’t have enough toe to fill them. :crazy: She had really tiny feet and could still wear kids size shoes. Maybe we could have found her kid ones?:lol2:
MoochNNoodles MoochNNoodles i have big toes and thats why they didnt fit me too well
 

fionasmom

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It is not so much one gift but a category of gift. In my life I have received many lovely, suitable gifts and don't frankly expect gifts as, for the most part, my family and friends have all that we need.

As I kid, I took years of ballet lesson. I was good at it, never dedicated or interested in a career; however, that did not stop me from being gifted with every ballet figurine, book, coloring book, hair ribbon, sweat shirt, cup and saucer, music box, etc. Once I transitioned my interests into dogs and cats, every damned piece of dog and cat tchotchke in Christendom came flying in my direction. It still does. I was just up and down the street trying to give away an Advent cat calendar, clearly intended for a child, to anyone who would take and enjoy it. Some are addressed to the cats and dog. I never knew that Jamie needed cat book ends for his apparently non-existent library. There have also been the stuffed toy cats and dogs. Like I need more?
 

Tobermory

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You know, I can't really remember specific gifts, but like fionasmom fionasmom , people know that I'm a cat person. So typically my staff would give me cat tchotchkes. It was so very thoughtful, but many of them were really kinda tacky not my taste. I've acquired SO many cat decorations/pieces over the years that I've gotten very selective about what I keep.

We used to have a Secret Santa thing at one of my jobs. You were supposed to get weird, funny, or tacky things. They weren't for specific people but were put in a pile on a table, and people drew numbers to take their turn to pick. I never was "lucky" enough to get the Elvis toilet seat, but it kept showing up every year, gifted to yet another person. :lol:
 
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