Your strangest holiday gift?

LauraMax

LauraMax

Cathlete
I always get the most bizarre gifts from coworkers. It's like they want to make a nice, original gesture & end up leaving me scratching my head.

This year's odd gift was a set of very cute cappuccino mugs. It would've been a great gift IF I HAD A CAPPUCCINO MAKER! LOL! I'm not quite sure what to do w/them........:confused:

But the strangest gift I've ever received was from another coworker many years ago. I was about 21 or 22 & a woman I worked with gave me lingerie! I'll never forget it--very beautiful green silk cami & tap shorts from VS. I was young & didn't think anything of it at the time, but do you think she was trying to tell--or ask--me something?!?!?! :eek:

So what kind of oddball gifts have you received?
 
A few years back, I was about a size 22, squeezing into size 20s bc I didn't want to be a size 22. DH's grandma bought me a pair of size 14 elastic waist jeans, then proclaimed across the room "Those ought to fit, that's a pretty big size" She also bought me a yellow (yellow??? ick!) sweatshirt with a blue bird embroidered on the front. Not only was it ugly and waaaaay out of my age bracket, but embarrassing, too!!!

Nan
 
Someone once gave me a pair of enormous heavy brass elephant bookends. Putting aside the fact that I hate brass, I also didn't have any 40# books in need of holding up.

Very odd.

ETA: the elephants were sitting on their behinds with front legs and trunks raised.
 
Last edited:
DH and I got a green ceramic buddha for Christmas one year from his stepparents. They owned a ceramic shop so maybe it was a leftover?
 
My MIL once got me a red carigan with a black a white faux fur collar and dogs embroider on it. Some she would wear, not me.

My SIL who was 28 at the time, received a bag of rubber bouncy balls from her secret santa at work.:confused:
 
We had Secret Santa in our family one year,one of my sisters drew my name and bought me bungee cords. WTH?
 
LauraMax said:
But the strangest gift I've ever received was from another coworker many years ago. I was about 21 or 22 & a woman I worked with gave me lingerie! I'll never forget it--very beautiful green silk cami & tap shorts from VS. I was young & didn't think anything of it at the time, but do you think she was trying to tell--or ask--me something?!?!?! :eek:
Click to expand...
:D !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have a tradition of regifting odd/funny/ugly gifts in our family, so we usually celebrate when someone gives us something weird. I immediately start to think about who in my family will be my next victim. Gifts over the years have included a mini-planter with a tulip bulb, a handmade psychedelic throw pillow (yellow with big red dots), a football shaped crock pot, porn (?!), and an alien inside a bar of soap.
 
Lori! LOL! Did the alien ever get out of the soap? :D

Nan, if I were you I'd buy Grandma a thong bikini & see what she thinks about THAT! HMPH! :mad:

Sparrow, I'll trade you my cappuccino mugs for your brass elephants. ;)
 
My mother-in-law used to give me lingerie - very odd, considering my DH comes from a strict, Baptist family. She finally stopped and gives me gift cards, now.

Um, my ex-roommate's grandmother used to give her used gifts. Nothing wrong with that - I give used books and CDs for gifts, but she would giver her half a tube of lipstick, or a crock pot with food stains in it.

I once received a ceramic cat for Christmas. It was so ugly (and I love cats!) - it had these weird beads on the end of the cat's whiskers, the cat itself was polka-dotted (but not in a good way), and the thing played music! Weird.
 
Laura,
This is a fun thread!!!

Ok, THE strangest gift was from my MIL. For our first Christmas as a married couple, MIL gave us the most ugly lamps I have ever seen(even to this day). Get this, she wrapped them in green leaf trash bags and put them under the Christmas tree!
They were poop brown, large with raised eagle and stars on them. The eagle and stars were painted gold, but the paint was slightly off the raised design. I'm guessing they were machine painted or hand painted by a drunk person.

When my husband and I would get into a really bad argument, we would divide things up in the apartment. Very immature, I know.:rolleyes: But hey, we had to stake our claims.:p Neither of us would claim the lamps! I feel since they came from HIS mother, they clearly belonged to him. We eventually broke the lamps. Can't really say if it was on accident or on purpose;)
Funny that 27 years later, I'm still laughing about those horrid lamps!
 
fit44 said:
I'm curious....was this when you were a young boy or recently?:confused:
GI Joe was always the bad guy in my Barbie and Ken collection. He was rude and Barbie did not like him! LOL
Click to expand...

Had this as a youngster...my oldest brother gave it to me as a reminder of how he'd kick the snot out of me when I tried to wrestle him, he told me to practice on it.

If I recall right, I tried to flush him down the toilet and play scuba diver with him...the doll, not my brother.
 
I'm sorry Uncle Jer, GI Joe does not qualify as a strange gift for you.

Holly Hobby might qualify as a strange gift for you. :D

I like the lamp story. I think the wrapping was more offensive than the gift though. ;)
 
I got a shrunken head:eek:

A little background: My brother won a Vincent Price Shrunken Head kit at a Halloween party about 35 years ago. It became our yearly re-gift to one another at Christmas. After so many years, it was becoming hard to disguise the box so my SIL made one from the kit and now we pass the head around. :confused:

JJ
 
A grow-your-own-mushrooms kit. WTH? I cannot honestly say I know ANYBODY who likes mushrooms enough to want to grow their own. When they grow in my front yard I spray fungicide on them. ICK!

It was this dried plod of dirt - and it was HEAVY! You were supposed to water it initially between January 15th and Feb 1st (I think) and then every 3rd day thereafter, and leave it in a dark place. Uh-huh. Needless to say when we cleaned up after Xmas the growyourownmushrooms must have gotten accidentally mixed in with all the wrapping paper and discarded. Sigh.
 
My DH's beloved stepfather once gave me a figurine of a clown playing the sax?! I have no idea why he thought I would like this, me never having metioned anything about clowns or saxophones. We had it displayed until we moved 6 years ago. I don't know its whereabouts now. He did end up giving me some great gifts-a pair of earrings from Tiffany, gift certificates to a spa, etc. He died two years ago at the age of 57 and this post immediately reminded me of him. Thanks for the fond memory, Laura.
 
I got the grow your own mushroom kit one year, too. Ended up giving it away to someone who would actually do it. It was from my sister and my DH was like, WTH?

But the strangest was probably this year. With my in-laws we do a gift exchange where everyone brings two gifts--one real and one fake. I only got fake gifts, one with a single glove and three cut off pant legs from my FIL, who passed away two months ago. It was from my BIL who bought a farm in a rural area before Y2K b/c he thought there was a real threat. My FIL always cut the legs off the bottoms of his walking pants so they wouldn't get dirty, but why would you give those away? Just weird.

anne
 
My X MIL got me this night shirt that was not really something for someone my age. My X and I were just dating at the time and I was about 20 years old. It was light pink (I wore and still wear mostly darker colors like purple and black) and had a cat sitting in a basket on it. Maybe not as strange as some of the ones that were mentioned previously but I still do not know what she was thinking.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Our Newsletter

Get awesome content delivered straight to your inbox.

Top