It can be low effort, passive-aggressive, insulting or derogatory towards your convictions.
People keep giving me steak house gift cards.
I’m a vegetarian. I can only eat a roll there.
I’m vegan and the number of people who can’t figure out “no animal products” is astounding. I’m so tired of “no eggs? No dairy?” like yes bitch, I don’t fuck with animals.
People act like it’s rocket science.
Oh fuck i have a long history of this…
My parents got me a cheap set of tools, pliers, screw drivers, level and a wood burner with no wood to burn at 10. My brother got a gameboy SP and Pokémon.
Two years later I got an electric shaver and Cologne. I didn’t start growing facial hair until 17 and didn’t have enough to need more than one pass with a razor until 26. Still have the Cologne, it’s not awful but it’s also not a smell that works for me.
14 I got a store made cake and $20. I can’t eat the cake, the frosting makes my face hurt and that’s been a problem since I was 5 so they know I can’t eat the cake.
Basically, I didn’t get a present for me until I met my wife at 30.
damn, that sounds like you were part of a case study in your childhood. Is there a difference with how your brother turned out and yourself? Interested to know if you picked up skills like DIY and stuff while your brother isn’t capable of those things.
He’s got a far better grasp on career and financial stability but he’s to nervous to do things like drive in the big city or see doctors about mental health. He’s amazing with computers but not great with mechanical things.
I on the other hand suck with computers and am excellent with mechanical things. I put a lot of effort into self improvement and mental health, but still float around jobs and only have a stable homelife because of my spouse. I’d like to say all the DIY stuff I got growing up helped with that, but most of them were shit quality and the ones that didn’t break got absorbed into my dad’s things anyway. My diy skills come exclusively from living with a moto of “well fine, I’ll just do it myself”
that sounds like you were part of a case study in your childhood
xD I need to remember this. Funny way of seeing this.
Toothpaste and a toothbrush.
I do now understand the financial problems my family had at the time, but for a child it still was a major bummer. Nevermind me being an only and a Christmas child.
Being poor and lonely made Christmas the worst time of the year: no real celebrations like other kids have and my friends were spending time with their families. It was always the loneliest holiday.
I don’t hold any resentment to my parents, they did what they could with what they had and they weren’t bad people ultimately.
I still don’t like Christmas, but my SO does make it something to look forward to. I like thinking of little gifts to get them and watch their reaction. This year I made several oversized t-shirts for sleeping with vinil prints of our cats. It’s cheesy as fuck, but in a good way. I like getting gifts as well tho 😅.
Not me but I was at a New Years Eve white elephant party where everyone brought something they were gifted but didn’t want. Someone who had a relative that owned a video rental store (yeah 90’s) brought a promotional press packet for a Steve Martin/Goldie Hawn movie. B&W glossy photos of the stars, photocopied excerpts of the script, bunch of crap stuffed into a cardboard folder. So basically they gifted their high end junk mail. As for me I got a flamingo costume
One place I worked at had a white elephant gift that was an “Elvis Sings Christmas” cassette compilation that showed up every year.
Most of you didn’t get me anything at all last year!
Most? Ok, what did the others get you?
A small drinking cup +possibly unintended whooping cough that ruined my entire holiday season.
A sack of potatoes and cat litter.
From my mom who usually shops year round for Christmas to save the hassle of buying at the end of the year.
My siblings got stuff that they wanted and could use and I got… Those two things in a very flimsy laundry basket.
She did not approve of my girlfriend and probably me living with her.
They weren’t even wrapped.
My birthday is the 27th of December.
On any given year odds are that my birthday sucked. Growing up it was during holiday break so no bringing cupcakes to school. 2 days after Christmas, care to guess how many kids want to attend a birthday party? Birthday presents were almost always an afterthought combined with Christmas.
I am a huge Star Wars fan so when Carrie Fisher passed away on December 27th, 2016, that was an especially shitty birthday.
There have been uears when my parents have forgotten my birthday entirely.All that aside, my wife threw me my first and only surprise birthday party for my 40th. It was Star Wars themed including food she made from the Galaxy’s Edge cookbook she had given me for Christmas. That year I got a Kenner power (Gonk) droid still in the original packaging (with Venture price sticker still on it), which my mom had somehow saved since I was a kid. She also gave me all of my old Star Wars action figures she had been saving for me, unknown to me. And I also received an original Rancor and the box it came in from a friend. That one almost made up for all the others before and since. I’ve learned the best way to have a good birthday is to set the lowest of expectations.
My BIL’s bday is on Christmas. We call him “Little baby Jesus”.
If they’re older than 33 you can call him Old Jesus, too!
I received a framed picture of my parents, from my parents. They said it was because I didn’t have a picture of them hung up in my house.
That’s kind of hilarious. 😆
Did you hang it up?
I think the only place to put it is on the floor behind the toilet.
It was many years ago and I just realized that it wasn’t a sumo, just an absolutely monstrous hand that for whatever reason I recollected as a sumo wrestler.
As a depressed 16 year old boy I received a self help book from my mother. I was offended. Never opened the book. Like in hindsight I guess she thought I needed help and the book would somehow do that, but all I saw was that my mother thought something was wrong with me.
As a depressed 16 year old boy I received a self help book from my mother.
“Thanks mom but ‘Coping with Menopause’?”
My sister wanted me to be the Godfather to her children. She considered it a “gift.”
I’m an atheist. I told her explicitly “Hey, you remember I’m an atheist, right?” Part of this whole Godfather business is making a promise to raise them religiously if their parent dies. I thought I was being considerate and kind by being honest that I did not want to be a Godfather because I could not in good conscience make such a promise.
Nope, I’m the bad guy, not the person who knew I was atheist and decided to not respect that at all anyway by asking me to be a Godfather to begin with.
God parents are supposed to care for the children, if the parents die. I think you shouldn’t overthink it. If you’re willing to fill that role, then raise the kids however you think is best. Accept the role gracefully as it is an honor and your sister is showing she loves and trusts you. Leave it at that.
As atheists, we have to acknowledge that most of the world isn’t yet on our level of thinking, but also that we don’t really have similar “concepts” for religious traditions that serve certain societal needs. God parents do serve a societal function. As an atheist, I can acknowledge that, accept that role, and play the part for those I love.
I always win this question hands down; my really big asshole NPD of a MIL gave me her very used and threadbare bathrobe as a present. Made a big point of telling me it was hers and she was going to give it to the Catholic thrift shop she volunteered at but then thought it would be a gift for me. It was only fit for the garbage can and had holes in it.
But giving people random trash is a thing she likes to do because she likes to be provocative and “stick poking” in the therapy description. She gave her only grandchild an old vitamin bottle filled with dish soap and a bubble wand she found on the ground in the park. No spending one whole dollar on her only grandchild, oh no, let’s just give her some garbage. And for my BIL who golfed, she walked the public golf course every day and picked up discarded golf tees, chipped and stained and half broken, filled a sandwich bag with them, and that was his present.
She likes to pretend she’s very poor but she’s not, and giving her family literal garbage is her way of trying to provoke a fight because she likes nothing better than to provoke a fight. That’s the only Christmas present she wants is to upset people and make them angry at her.
I have a zillion other horrible stories of her, but you get the gist.
I’ll toss a nice gift in the trash for your MIL to find.
It’s all she really wants.
My mother told family I was into geology which I wasn’t, so for my ninth bitrhday I got books about rocks and the hugest fucking hammer.
The hammer felt a little bit cool until I tried it and it was completely useless on the granit which is the only rock in the region, the only thing happening was leaving marks on the stone and shoot mini splinters in the eyes. Totally unuseful for anything else.
Like this but bigger (in my memory, i was only 9), and also cheaper (black head, cheap wood handle):
As a kid I was fascinated by the chunks of rotten rock that would come off of a granite boulder in our backyard. My dad however did not appreciate that I used his nice hammer to smash it. I eventually stopped when I ran out of rotten chunks and found out how hard granite really could be.
Seems like someone took “the children yearn for the mines” a bit too seriously
I knew my marriage didn’t have much left in it when for my birthday my wife gifted me a bag of candles that had been half eaten by the kids.
I feel bad for the kids, those candles must have been waxy and disappointing.
Still better than her cooking.
