What Was Your Worst Christmas Gift Ever?

We've all had them. Bad, BAD gifts. The ones that leave you scratching your head, the ones that leave you wondering if the people around you even know you at all.

I've had a few of those, too. Usually from well meaning elderly relatives. But then there are others.... One of the absolute worst gifts I ever got was from my husband's paternal grandmother. Well in this case, it was the gift along with the circumstances surrounding it.


 His parents divorced a short time after we started dating and he tried to maintain a relationship with his Dad and that side of the family. Even though they were pretty much all crazy. One Christmas, we were gathered with them and I had noticed his Dad pulling him off to the side for something, but he wouldn't tell me what he wanted. After awhile we got around to the gift giving and I open up this large box and pull out a robe. Normally that wouldn't be such a bad thing.... but this one was homemade... of a one sided material that to this day I am not sure what it is called. One one side it has little raised rows that resembled small cheneille. The rows were fairly soft, but the reverse side of this fabric was so rough it could have been used to strip paint. Guess which side was on the INSIDE of the robe? She had appliqued a giant butterfly on the front left side and then outlined and highlighted it with a glitter fabric puff paint. Tacky at best. I tried to be polite and thanked her. My future sister-in-law received one just like it. We also each received a small bundle of washclothes made of the same material. The lady must have bought an entire bolt of that horrible material. And she bestowed most of it on us! Not ot sound ungrateful, but from the moment my hands touched that fabric I knew there was no way I was letting it touch the rest of me!

As we prepared to leave that evening, we again thanked her for thinking of us, gave our hugs and made our way out to the car. A few minutes later as we were driving down the road I happened to ask future husband what the whispers in the other room had been about. He hemmed and hawed for a moment and finally told me.... his own dad had made hime PAY for that nasty robe. Not caring that the money future husband had in his wallet was all we had. His dad told him the grandmother had had to buy that material and had put a lot of work into making it and blah blah blah. I was PISSED. I tried to get him to turn around and go back. I wanted to go throw that thing in her face. I don't think we ever really spent time with her again after that. We did spend a little time with his dad. He remarried a lady that was very nice and thoughtful, but he was too much of an ass to realize what he had and she realized he was one and divorced him after just a couple of years.

I had the robe stuck back for awhile. It was one of those things that gets shoved away and forgotten about. But one day I was going through things and found it. I loaded it up into a box of donations to Goodwill. The grandmother had worked (or volunteered or something) there for many years and I knew that she pawed through the donations before they were put out in the store to sell..... 

So what's your tale of woe? What is the worst Christmas gift you have ever gotten?