54 People Share Their Worst Christmas Gifts That Still Make Them Cringe Years Later

My husband once gifted me a bicycle ....I was 8 months pregnant and had recently fallen and cracked my tailbone.

My mom regularly gifted me Reeses-themed sweets and things with cinnamon like scented candles, etc. While they could be great for the right person, I'm highly allergic to both cinnamon and peanut butter.

I'm now divorced and no contact with both parties.

My mother gave me a rice cooker that she got free as a give away at the grocery store. She gave my brother a massive tv and whatever gaming console he wanted at the time. She called me ungrateful for not being over the moon ecstatic about the rice cooker.

Flash forward to next Christmas.

After her making comments about the rice cooker all year, she asked me what I wanted. I had been saving for a camera that I wanted for a while and she had been hinting that she was getting it for me despite me saying just money so I could put it towards the camera. Naive me thought she was trying to redeem herself from last year. On Christmas Day, I'm handed a camera sized box, I open it excitedly to be met with:

A large jar wrapped in a towel filled with socks.

A few years later, I went no contact from my family.

Do not, *I repeat*, do not give your wife household appliances/cleaning supplies for a gift, *unless* she has specifically asked for it.

A gift card to Barnes & Noble (from an Aunt) when I was 12. I was so excited because there were some new books that had been released that I wanted and my parents didn't have alot of money at the time. When we went to Barnes & Noble, I picked out my books and proudly presented my gift card...it had 12 cents on it (so was obviously used before I received it) My dad looked so heartbroken when I unfortunately had to put the books back. I held it together until we got home and silently cried for hours.

My parents were able to save some money and take me back to the store for my birthday at the end of January so I could get my books, but im now 36 and still have a feeling of dread when I receive a gift card.

My sweet, very religious mother in law gave me a vibrator. It was labeled as a back massager and she said I looked tense and she wanted to help me relax. 🤣😭.

Ex husband gave me hot pink lingerie. 5 weeks after c section with bub #2, bub #1 was only 16 months old. Unwrapped in front of my parents, aunts/uncles, grand-dad and his mother, who helped pick it.
That's 1 reason he's an ex.

I was about 6 or 7 and my aunt gave me a stocking with coal in it. She thought it’d be funny, I sobbed my little heart out. My mom was not to happy with her sister.

Alcohol to a recovering alcoholic.

My now ex-husband bought me a sewing basket, filled with scissors, thread, and needles. I do not sew as a hobby. However, he always wanted me to repair his clothing, sew on buttons, etc. By the next year we divorced.

Found the basket in a closet recently, and burned it in a barrel.

For a secret Santa exchange, I once got a used foot massager, complete with dead flaky skin all over it. I haven't taken part in once since.

Someone gave me a pet turtle when I was 15.

Don’t do that.

My ex MIL was extremely underweight due to medical issues (and maybe an ED?), at the time I was slightly overweight and it’s something I’ve always struggled with. We’re both quite short and she was around a size XXS, while I was around a medium. She always gave me clothing, and it was always her size.

Luckily, it was usually ugly clothes and not even remotely my style, so I never felt I was missing out by not being able to wear it, but it felt so unnecessarily mean and passive aggressive.

My little cousin gets screwed almost every Christmas. One year he asked for games for his ps4, he was given equipment for football, his school season was over and the stuff given likely wouldn’t fit next year. He has also received used (heavily tattered) books for Christmas a few years from my grandma because “he’s failing reading, thought this would encourage him to do better or want to read.” He was not happy having his grades announced to the whole family and also wasn’t happy he wasn’t even worth new books.

The Bible game on gameboy advance when I asked for Pokemon. Seven year old me was so disappointed. I am 27 now and still hate that Christmas. Everyone else got pokemon at school I got a religious learning game.

My best friend got a dollar store Barbie-type doll from her boyfriend's mother. She was 20 and not pregnant.

As for me, my ex boyfriend once made me a macaroni picture of two girls hanging from nooses and holding hands. No red flags there.

Not necessarily the worst, but ironic.

I have health problems and can’t eat (at all, I’m on TPN). Everyone in my inner life knows I can’t eat. And yet somehow I end up getting Mc Donald’s gift cards, booster juice gift cards, Tim Hortons gift cards, etc.

My one aunt spent 3 months in the hospital with me and got me a Mc Donald’s gift card. It’s like, out of anyone you should have known at least 😅

But I just give them to my family so it doesn’t matter lol.

I asked for a copy of Foundation by Asimov.

I received a published copy of a transcript of a BBC radio broadcast of two people reading it and discussing it.

I'm still scratching my head on that one. It's one of the most printed books in the world. It's... not hard to find. Like she went out of her way to find something like that.

A distant aunt once gifted me a plastic luggage tag for "when I went travelling".


I was 7. We didn't travel. My 4 yo brother and other cousins all got flash, expensive gifts. .

My Dad gave me earrings several years in a row.

I don't have pierced ears.

A “self-improvement” gift you absolutely did not ask for.

Like deodorant, weight-loss stuff, anti-aging cream, or a book that’s basically saying “here’s what’s wrong with you.” Wrapped up with a smile like it’s thoughtful 😭

Nothing kills Christmas vibes faster than opening a present and realizing it was a **subtle critique**, not a gift.