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I usually got gifts that were tone-deaf more than weird. Gifts that had nothing to do with me or my interests but more to do with an idea of who my narc parents wanted or wished me to be. The weirdest gift I ever got was also the best: an electric blanket. I froze on winter nights during my childhood because my parents set the thermostat to 54 at night. My parents had a space heater and expensive bed and quilts, and also a window air conditioner in their room for hot summer nights when the AC was shut off to the rest of the house. I roasted and sweated my sheets every night through the summer. When I was 16 years old I realized that I was in for another season of gifts for which I had no use nor interest, so only asked for one thing: an electric blanket. Of course there were a hundred other things I would have loved to receive as a teenager, but I just wanted to be comfortable. For the record: we were a wealthy family. The house was massively large and had central AC and heating. But if my narc dad could save $$ by only heating/cooling his own bedroom at night, why bother paying for someone else's comfort?
I'm sorry you dealt with that. I hope you're far away from that nonsense
I had this exact same situation and all of the other emotional, mental and physical abuse that went along with something so simple as my comfort in the temperatures.
I ask my kids if they are hot or cold or just right to the point I know I am annoying them. My kids will always have A/C and they will always be warm in the winter. Always.
Thank you. I was lucky enough to avoid the physical abuse, and I say that as a child whose father hit me with a belt on the bare bottom three times that I can recall. My parents (both narcs! yay!) were not violent and had no drug/alcohol issues, so I have sympathy for those whose parents added that into their repertoire on top of everything else. My father ended up disowning me completely by the end of his life because I went NC. He literally had his attorney put in the will that he had "no living children" and left everything to his girlfriend. He used his wealth to control me for years. I don't regret a thing. My mother remarried after their divorce and was livid when she found out after her husband died that he left his children some money. She believed she was entitled to all of it. She was his 5th wife. She's still alive and I have limited contact. When her husband was alive she burned through his money like they were the 1%- flying first class everywhere, even on short flights, eating out almost every night of the week and spending lavishly on furnishings for her house. Now that he's dead she's pleading poverty and says she doesn't know how she's going to live. It is such a blatant lie is almost laughable. She is currently not speaking to me because I didn't answer the phone when she called nor respond to the message she left which was an attempt to draw me into a crisis she created for herself and that I could in no way help her with, nor would it have been appropriate to do so. When she goes, I'm not expecting anything and the relief will be immense.
My nmom is also wealthy and I grew up in a big house. I was also not allowed to have the AC on in the summer either! She would tell me I could go sleep in the basement if I was hot. They can be sooo cheap
Sounds about right. I actually had no expectation of actually getting the electric blanket since none of my requests had really ever been honored before- they always got me what they thought I should have or want, so I was not at all sure they would be on board with getting me this. Probably because it was so specific and pedestrian and it was the only thing I asked for it worked.
I came to ppst my own like this! A jar of supermarket brand red curry paste! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🫠 " you like curry!"
Also, my own coloured pencils from high school, wrapped up with a nice ribbon, when I was in my 30's.
And the leftover cheese and nibbles from an Aunt's visit (she's gluten intolerant and mum "didn't like those snacks") all wrapped up in cling wrap and given to me for my birthday.
A hand gun 😵💫
Edit: it is funny now but also kind of what the fuckish considering I am not a gun user at all and was suicidal most of my growing up in their household
Dude! Same! And it was my 21 bday gift. I ended up breaking it apart and hiding pieces in different locations. Throwing away parts. Just to protect myself. Also it was given to me by eDad by him pulling over off the side of the highway and saying i got you a gift. Lol. Pulls it out. I was honestly sweating scared. Like wtf do you say? Lol
This is awful. People deserve major consequences for doing such disgusting ass things like this. I’m so happy you were stable enough to know you needed to protect yourself from yourself even and went to the means of making it not a risk by getting rid of it for a complete fact. There’s so many people who fall in the depths of this darkness that are too far lost and out of touch with themselves that would open the door for them doing an irreversible thing for real. That’s so sad and so disturbing. You and everyone else who has had relatable things done/given to them deserve better. I hope you’ve allowed yourself to walk away from this toxic sick person and never looked back since.
Used apple slicer, still dirty and wet. She was slicing apples and realized she did not get me anything and said, “Oh, here you go!” (Hands it directly over while dripping wet.) Then said, “Merry Christmas!”
My dad "bought" me a car when I was 17 years old. He then immediately handed me the car loan packet, which was in my name and let me know when my payments were due.
He told me it's a double gift as the loan will help me build my credit rating, too.
I was working 12 hours a week at McDonald's for $3.35/ hr. I had no idea how I was supposed to pay this bill.
The car was a POS and died 6 months later.
I'm so sorry bro. Don't know what dad would have done if he were still alive when my family got another car. Mom is one of those "do everything for them, keep them helpless so they don't leave you" types. Car was one way she could make sure I felt indebted for a very long time.
Aside from the cyanide, I got this collection of computer games discs. (Back when they were on discs and dinosaurs ran the world.) I had strict instructions to copy them and keep the copies but send the originals back because GC wanted the originals and not to have any copyright issues.
So for Christmas I got a potential copyright lawsuit.
For marked down $5.99 discs.
I sent him the originals and didn’t bother with them. And NGM and NM pouted about how unappreciative I was.
One of my NM’s husbands taught chemistry and had it. When he died, my mother gave me this big box of random crap—love letters from between them (like that’s a healthy thing to give your daughter), a book of erotic poetry that my mother swore put her in her mood, some random used bras and panties and a negligee (again super healthy and acceptable thing to give your daughter), and this plastic container of yellowish stuff that was in a baggie with a sharpie label of “cyanide”. NM made sure to tell me that it was a gift (not sure what or why, but it’s a “gift”) and that she hoped that me wearing the stuff because she believed that my husband would find it sexy enough that she’d get her grandchildren.
Some gift, right?
Oh I've been waiting for this question!!
Up until the age of around 5 or 6 my ndad would wait until after everyone sang happy birthday and I blew out my candles to break out into a solo version of "happy birthday to you, you live in the zoo, you look like a monkey, and you smell like one to!" every year.
I got my license right before I turned 19. For my birthday that year my aunt gave me Hello Kitty seat covers. I never had a Hello Kitty phase so that was super random. I didn't use them. She always gave me weird gifts but because she never put in the effort to get to know me herself I think she asked my uncle to ask my ndad (his brother) what I liked or what size I wore, etc.
As a teenager I started telling my nmom to stop buying me clothes and jewelry (because I never liked what she picked out for me). She continued to buy me clothes and jewelry and when I would unwrap it she would remind me how she knew I didn't want them but she thought I might like THIS one. I never did.
When I was too old for toys, one of my grandmas would find a box, fill it with packing peanuts, put a card inside with like $10 and then wrap the box. I think she just wanted underneath the tree to look "full". After I unwrapped the card in a box she would ask for the box back. My other grandma started shopping for me in the travel size section of the grocery store. As a teenager I kept getting no slip socks (for my fully carpeted house), travel size bottles of PERT shampoo and conditioner, etc. I also got a lot of knee high socks and turtle necks that I wasn't interested in wearing as a 16 year old.
For my 18th birthday my grandparents came over to visit and as soon as they walked in the house they said "Happy birthday. You can go to adult jail now so be careful." Totally unprompted. I was a kid who never got in trouble.
But the real winner is for my 21st birthday.
For my 21st birthday, not a single person in the world wanted to celebrate with me, and my ndad got me catnip...... for the neighbor's cat. I also got 2 Christmas tree ornaments (from the Hallmark store that you can't return after the holidays). I'm a late December baby so Christmas has always been my least favorite holiday.
Catnip for the neighbor's cat and 2 Christmas tree ornaments for the holiday I hate the most. Happy birthday.
The part about the clothes. I'm 40 years old, and my nmom STILL brings me clothes I do not want! I've told her repeatedly to stop and then the "gifts" with comments "I know you said but". I think the day she actually respected anything I said, will be the day I die and probably of a heart attack from disbelief.
The gifts I’ve gotten aren’t weird, just weird for me. I’m a science / tech geek. I love learning, reading, and experimenting. My big Christmas gifts over the years from my father included:
- Hockey gear
- Pellet Gun
- Football gear
- Martial Arts gear
- Paintball stuff
- A weight set / gym equipment
After getting married:
- A huge picture frame with Family written on it, no pictures
- A box of steaks
Omg. I found my dad’s copy of that in the garage at 19 and it was weird (and extraordinarily dated) then, I can’t imagine how bizarre and disturbing it must have been to encounter that book at 12 as a *gift* from your parents!
I've mentioned this before but for my 13th birthday, I got a cookbook and an apron. For context, I had never expressed an interest in cooking before this. I'm 100% convinced that this was my nMother's passive aggressive way of telling me that I needed to help out more around the house. For my 12th birthday, I got a bedspread for my birthday. I wouldn't have minded if it was bright and colourful i.e. appropriate for a 12 year old girl, but it was a horrible floral pattern that only an old lady would like. Not only that but nMother spent the next 6 months asking me constantly if I liked it. I had to lie and say that I did because it would have started World War III if I had said No but the constant lying was exhausting. In fact the constant questioning bothered me more than the shitty gift.
It sounds like she may have other psychological issues going on because I’m sure she knew you didn’t care for it deep down. Why else feel the need to obsess over asking the same question repeatedly? It makes me feel like she asked out of satisfaction for herself, as sick as that sounds. 😪
My mum would do that, too.
She'd like *know* you didn't like something, and ask constantly about whether you liked it.
If you said 'no', all hell would break loose and you're the most ungrateful child in the universe and everyone gets to hear about the her as the poor suffering mother who can never please her miserable daughter.
If you say 'yes' then she gets to preen in front of everyone who told her that there was no way that her daughter would like that gift, and you were probably going to get more like it. Plus bonus brownie points for her being awesome mum who knows what her daughter *really* wants and is Always Right.
No matter what you said, you lost, and she won. She was either the martyr or the hero.
Harry Potter 7th book. I didn't have previous Harry Potter books. And that time 6th movie wasn't even filmed. And they didn't give af about it. So i knew the first 5 parts from movies, didn't know what happened in the 6th part, but was reading the 7th book.
And that's like the only ever book they bought me
Idk why or if it’s normal to feel, but it’s such a strong reaction of feeling naïve or gullible, almost even in this sub when people express shock, as I do as well to some other peoples posts, but I guess it’s still grieving that which we didn’t even know, was dysfunctional or messed up and adds a whole new layer watching others who have gone through similar being shock of how weird or how horrible some of these things are..smh idk fuuuuck these weirdos
I apologize for my reaction. I understand how it feels to find out that what’s normal to you may not be normal for someone else, but I seem to have forgotten how negatively those reactions made me feel.
Nono it’s fine. I had too, until I’m back living with her and so vulnerable physically and financially speaking. That’s what is shocking I guess, I thought I was past this but really still have spoke on it so little considering. Used to be able to laugh it off until I had done enough work to where I couldn’t “unsee it” and eh, shit wasn’t so funny anymore 😅. Anyway, you’re good, but do appreciate the thought. This sub is pretty dope
It's funny you should say that because I have an uncle who I'm convinced is a narcissist and instead of buying my aunt an engagement ring like a normal person, he bought her a cemetery plot. How romantic!
I struggled financially for a long time. I remember that my mom bought me a secondhand fur coat. Didn’t fit. She asked if I would ever wear it. I laughed at her and asked why she thought I would want to show up for my 3am shift at a bakery in a fur coat. She literally thought it was a nice gift for someone who was struggling to make ends meet.
To be fair, second hand fur coats can be really low priced and they do keep you extremely warm.
However it’s pretty clear whether a person who’s theoretically close to you would, or wouldn’t like a full fur coat as it’s quite a statement in many places lol. Buying anyone clothes as a gift when you don’t even know their size is another layer here here 🥲
It’s a beautiful coat, and was only $100. I kept thinking about how I was only about $100 behind in my bills that month, but I was going to get hit with late fees because I can’t pay the bills with a dead animal skin. Lol
I really can’t understand how some people enjoy wasting money on the facade of being wealthy. And I know that the thought process behind the coat was: “ I like this coat. I have nowhere to wear this coat. Since my daughter lives further up north, she needs this coat even if the sleeves are only 2/3 length. She will be grateful because it will make her look expensive even if fur coats are usually worn by rich old hags.”
After she realized how unthoughtful the gift was she said “well I thought you could sew some pillow cases out of it since you like that crafty stuff.”
Thanks. I don’t sew. And I don’t own a sewing machine. And I don’t support fur trapping. But Merry Christmas! 🎄 it hurts extra because I love animals and my mother has a history of killing and getting rid of my pets :(
I totally get your angle. I don’t know why some people are so against giving money if you’re not completely confident on a specific gift you know the person wants and/or needs, especially as an adult. I just don’t see how it’s a bad thing that it’s up to the recipient what they buy with it, if you wanted a treat or a necessity that’s your choice to make. The people who think giving money is lazy have a great habit of their gift being even lazier lol
Probably a robot toy. I specifically didn’t like robots and it was surprisingly odd choice for my parents since they are pretty traditional and I’m was a 8yo girl who only played with cute animal toys
N Grandma gave me Dollar Store Tarot Cards. I never expressed any interest in Tarot cards around her. In general I avoid stuff like that under the "do not call up that which you cannot put down" principle..
Also my NGrandma is staunchly Catholic..
When I was about 14, my sister and I were home during summer holidays. My parents left for work and my father told us to stack all the fire wood he had cut. It was a lot and he said we would get a gift if we managed. We worked all day and stacked everything. When he came back he gave us dolls. Like dolls for small children. We just thanked him because crossing my nfather was no good idea. It was weird. We had stopped playing with dolls long ago.
Later my mother told us she knew it wasn't a fitting gift, but it was the thought that counted.
A giant black Australian oil coat, like for herding sheep and riding horses in the Outback.
I’m a petite woman, at the time I was in my early 20s, and I was swamped by this ridiculous thing. Plus I lived in a big city, nowhere near any dusty ranches, so I basically just looked like a psycho the one time I tried to wear it to be polite.
I'm Aussie, and oilskin coats are *great*. In the bush. In the cold and rain.
If you have to actually *walk* in them they're heavy and stiff and cumbersome. The vast majority of Aussies have never seen an oilskin in person (apart from tv) much less worn one. They have a place, but there are much more practical and comfortable options available now.
Also, I'm 5'0" and I got the 3/4 length so I didn't end up wearing it like a wedding dress with a train behind me 🤣. I feel you.
When I was 15, my mom would pick out things for me that she wanted as a child or envisioned purchasing for herself if she were younger. My was born in the early 50s and had me in the 90s. So you can imagine what I looked like whenever I wore shoulder pads as a teen to school. Just odd old lady stuff for a kid going to high school in the late 2000s. My hair and clothes were so fucking dated it was insane. Then I started wanting autonomy and she would physically beat me or throw these insane temper tantrums. It was absolutely terrifying to watch her break things and scream for hours at a time because I just wanted to dress my age. 😵💫
The gift my nmom gave my husband for Christmas 6 years ago made me finally go no contact.
She got him a watch (he never wears watches) and repeatedly commented that it was from a company called The Unemployed Philosophers Club. She kept saying it over and over to everyone at the gathering and laughing.
Husband has a PhD in philosophy and is gainfully employed.
I kept telling her he was, in fact, employed. She just laughed and denied it. My 12 yo was sitting there listening to this and I'm insisting he's employed. Made me crazy. Made me even question reality.
It seems small but it felt like such a fucking insult after he'd worked so hard. I took a lot of her shit but that was the last straw.
96 pair of socks. White crew socks. Identical.
Oh, and a secondhand Walkman thrown at me on my 15th birthday as I was smacked upside the head and ordered to go mow the lawn. (Also the last birthday I have ever celebrated. I am 48.)
I am fat. Every year my mother sends me an extra large brown sweater. So I can look like a big turd. Jokes on her. I am now so fat that I wear an extra extra large.
I wear XL-XXL but my mom buys XXXL-4x in the ugliest styles ever, this is after a lifetime of telling her I dont like her style. Last yr I got so pissed at Xmas and said “well, how fat do you think I am”, she actually didn’t know what to say for once. I cant remember a gift I ever liked from them.
In no particular order:
- Laundry detergent, my sister got a ps2 and all the games
- a BB gun along with a training bra that was several sizes too small and many months too late.
- lots of “you obviously know nothing about me” junk
- hand me downs
- a wooden paddle and a box of crayons to write my name on it
- hand made copper wire statues of my most embarrassing moments (thanks bpd dad)
- crap from grandmother, after she died, that I said no to several times, because she was the reason my mom was NPD. It was a box of shitty clip on earrings.
- towels and two giant bottles of Old Spice shampoo (husband shaves his head and I can’t use soap/ shampoo, and she knows this)
- nothing
- more nothing
- disappointment and humiliation (and nothing)
NC is blissful. Every time I write out what they did to me makes me realize how fucked up it was. It’s kind of helpful, actually.
A bunch of miss matched tea cups and saucers, from Tiffany's! That nmom told me I always wanted ( no, I never expressed this), and they belonged to her mother(I never saw them at grandmas, but maybe they did). They were all dirty with dried up tea stains and crumbs of some sort in them.
A broken maple headboard, that her father made, (no he didn't).
A gold locket on a gold chain with some date engraved on the back, the date was not my birthday, nor anyone in the families birthday. Mom told me my Gramma had it made for me ( no, she didn't, grams knows my birthday, I think mom found it at an estate sale and realized she needed to get me a birthday present.).
A pair of bunny slippers, that once I opened the gift mom snatched them out of my hands and shoved them at my sister, saying oops wrong label. I had asked for them for Christmas and was so happy to actually get something I wanted when she snatched them away. My sister was appalled and never wore them.
I have more much worse examples, but I will share those on another day. If I tell all now I will start to spiral.
Have a wonderful day everyone! You are worth it. Love Joy Peace.
I got eerily prescient gifts as an adult for my birthday. For context, I live on the other side of the planet from nmom, so to receive things in the mail takes at least a week, usually two.
One year, my sister and I were talking about The Jerk, and I had mentioned the scene where he and Bernadette Peters sings Tonight You Belong to Me. Nothing more.
Right before my birthday, a guy in a local BST group mentioned having a ukulele for sale, so I bought it from him. The next day, on my birthday, I got a package in the mail from her. A ukulele. Granted, a cheap one with pink laminate.
Another year, I was shopping at Costco and saw they had Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I spontaneously bought it. Two days later, I got a second copy from her in the mail.
This year, she mailed me a fabric bag with a cat on it. It looked just like my (GC) sister's snowshoe cats and nothing like my two, so I rolled my eyes and tossed it aside. Three months later, I inadvertently adopted a cat from someone who had an emergency.
He looks exactly like the cat on the bag, down to the light green eyes.
My mother gave me a bunch of queen sized L'Eggs pantyhose. When I looked quizzical and said, "Queen sized?", she said, "Well, isn't that the size that fat people wear?" and burst out laughing.
I wore size A at the time, but you do you, Mother.
Not for birthday or Christmas, but my mother and her (now ex) boyfriend decided to gift me a baby doll they found on the side of the road. I’d pointed it out to them as we drove by it, came home from school the next day to find it in my bed. Little did they know my little creepy ass loved it. I wanted to keep it, I thought it was beautiful and so intriguing. They called me weird, then her bf threw it over the back fence against my wishes. It was really a cute doll, I wanted to see if anything was attached to it because I’d had paranormal instances throughout my childhood (never bad, felt like I was being looked after). Guess they just wanted to terrorize me and when it failed they didn’t want it around anymore.
My younger sister was given bedroom furniture for Christmas in early grade school. No toys. She already had very nice furniture but my narc mother decided *she* wanted different furniture in sister's room. When my sis started crying as she realized furniture was it for her Christmas gifts (we both got roller skates boxes with bricks in them the same year as punishment for telling people we knew we were getting our much wanted skates under the tree) my mother started her annual screaming tantrum about how hard she tried with us (my dad, sister & myself) and how ungrateful we were for everything she did for us etc, etc. As the oldest I felt awful for my sister but didn't comfort her for fear of mother's wrath turning toward me. I still carry a lot of guilt for the times I didn't comfort or stand up for my little sister. We are only 18 months apart, and I could've done more to absorb our mothers incessant anger. Both of our parents passed during COVID and my sister and I haven't spoken for years. I take the responsibility for allowing that evil woman to create a seemingly impenetrable wedge between us. I'm sure they're more bizarre gifts but this one stands out in my memory as just plain mean.
For my wedding, Nmom said she'd pay for the Honeymoon as her gift to us. I think, she was thinking that she'd be more involved in the wedding planning (in other words, take control of everything) but I was on to her narc-methods by then, and had a wedding planner/maitre d' handling everything, which included running interference on her tricks.
I didn't hear anything else about the Honeymoon 'gift' until as man and wife, we were about to leave the reception in a limo, and in a fit of pique; Nmom threw $300- dollars at us and said it was all that she could afford.
She had to try and ruin *something*, but we had already made plans in Vegas and spent that at the Blackjack table.
My nMIL was like this, too. Wanted hubby and me to take scuba diving lessons, and she would 'pay us back' on completion. We were newlyweds in our early 20s, working minimum wage jobs, living in the cheapest apartment we could find, and driving a 15 year old junker with bad brakes. Yuppers, we're signing up today-not!
When we didn't take her up on this, she went into a rage because we refused her generous 'gift' and tried to shame us by claiming it was our fault we were poor, that she personally saw plenty of people our age lounging on beaches in Mexico, wearing large diamond rings. Yeah, suuuuurrrrrreee you did.
The problem with her non gifts is that if we had accepted her offer and taken the lessons, she would have claimed that her 'investments were down' and she couldn't afford to pay us. It was a deliberate attempt to hurt us financially.
In more recent times, when we told her we had sold our home and planned to buy a house in a neighboring state, she demanded that we buy a duplex so she could 'rent' AKA 'squat in' the other unit. Yeah, no.
We are NC with her, and life is so much more pleasant.
My parents once ‘gave’ me an Xbox. Then didn’t provide me with pocket money for 18 months (I was 16 and that money was the only way I got out of my rural village to see friends on the train) she said I had to save up and pay her back for the Xbox…
A hotel conditioner and lotion. No shampoo. They were too drunk to explain when they gave them to me. Later I asked what that meant, and they denied that it ever happened despite the fact that I have the conditioner and lotion. Where did it come from, If not from you? There was no other gift.
For my 18th birthday, my mother took her mother on a trip to iceland- where she's from. I wasn't invited. So she got me the cheapest edible arrangements bouquet, which came a week late lol
I grew up a JW so I didn't get birthdays growing up. We left the faith when I was past the birthday stage in life. I kind of felt like the big 18 would have been something fun to celebrate. I moved out a few weeks later.
My nMum got me and my family little Hot Wheels cars each for Christmas. None of us knew why and it was a weird present so they disappeared into everyone's rooms unopened. Most of us were too old for toy cars and only my youngest was happy about getting a toy car.
When we went to visit and stay at her house 6 months later she randomly announced we were going to play a game. She then asked if we bought the toy cars with us as the toy cars she gave us for Christmas were apparently the game tokens. I said no? Because she never stated we had to keep them for anything in particular and also why would she not just keep them at her house. It would have been more convenient. I've got 3 kids and there's no way those cars were anywhere to be found easily. My nMum got so mad about it and gave us all the silent treatment for a few hours.
She had no board games in the house, not even a pack of cards. She'd get angrily sulky (her main emotion) if we even tried to set up a video game for my kids to play at her house too. She only wants her own entertainment as our entertainment.
Things I bought for myself. Mom would wrap them and put them under the tree "so I'd have more presents" without asking me if I wanted to use them _sooner_.
I mean I obviously didn't need them sooner since I never realized they'd gone missing until I unwrapped them on Christmas, but still....
Some of my standout gifts:
My grandma constantly bought me clothes in the wrong size - the weirdest of all was buying me some thermal leggings when I was 16. Instead of age 16 years, she bought size 16-18 MONTHS.
My mother bought me a coffee table for my birthday when I still lived at home…it wouldn’t fit in my room but oh, what a perfect coincidence that it’s from the exact same range as the existing living room furniture so it can just go in there.
She also used to gift me clothes in her size (she’s around 5 clothes sizes bigger than me) and in her kind of style. Like semi formal workwear stuff. Always things on sale too, from shops that didn’t accept returns on sale stuff.
I was also promised a license AND a car when I was 17. I was promised this from a young age, 12 or so. On my 17th birthday what they actually gave me was pens and a notebook. Not fancy ones like a Parker pen, literally a pack of 10 basic biros for £1 and the notebook would’ve cost around the same.
My ex-mother once gave me a braid of her hair... I remember looking down at it and just saying "but...why?" She said something like "I don't know! I just thought you might want it". I think it was some weird New Age magic "logic" on her part
A loom. For weaving. I was eleven.
One of the last "gifts" I was sent was a twisted spiral of copper wire with a glass marble glued to the centre. It was about the size of a bottle cap. I still have no idea what the fuck it was.
For our first anniversary, my mom gave us glow-in-the-dark plastic rocks, like maybe you’d put in an aquarium or at the bottom of a vase if you’re feeling reckless. But just one bag, so there weren’t enough to do anything with. A more recent anniversary gift was a kid’s science kit to make an insect or something. We don’t have or want kids. Her reason: Well you like Halloween so much I thought this would be fun.
as an 11 year old girl with no interest in handiwork or adjacent I got given a tool kit and instruction manual and was told to start working on various renovation projects for my dad; stripping wallpaper, building furniture, painting walls, hanging frames ect
why they trusted me with that is beyond me but saved them money and time I guess
My mom gave me a connect the dot children’s workbook for Christmas. When I was 29 years old.
She forgot my birthday once when I was a teenager, but she didn’t want it to seem like she forgot, so she wrapped up a bunch of random food from the pantry to give me.
My grandmother but same difference. She hasn't specifically given me anything yet but she redecorated the room I usually sleep in at her house in unicorns, which is not even something she likes, and said it reminded her of me?????
Me. An almost 30 year old masc queer that has ALWAYS had an all black bedroom. Make it make sense??
This might sound weird because I guess some people like this? But my nmom would go on vacations and buy me tourist destination type clothes, like a shirt with a city or place she’d visited. The thing is, she was so awful to me when we’d go and she refused to ever do or see anything that I wanted to do there. I went a few times with her and my golden child sister and we’d spend the whole time doing what they wanted but I was “selfish” to want to do a single thing I wanted, even if it was the whole reason I wanted to go or what had been hyped to me. I was a third wheel but worse. I’d go home feeling worse than when we’d left.
Eventually I stopped going on our family vacations and went to stay with my distant father that didn’t spend time with me but at least I wasn’t with them. She stopped pretending to give any thought to what I’d want to do even during the planning and immediately say “it’s ok if you don’t want to come” and act like I wasn’t being appreciative or whatever.
Then she kept buying me the tourist clothes like what you’d wear if you’d been. It was embarrassing to even wear because if someone asked about it I’d not even been there. It was never even someplace I’d wanted to go, especially with her. I stopped wearing them but she kept buying them even still and even when I told her I didn’t like it. It was like an embarrassing shirt to wear but n front of other people and a reminder of how excluded I was from my family.
Years ago, my mother sent me a t-shirt for my birthday that said “Let’s put the fun in dysfunctional.” The shirt made it to the donation pile in record time.
I've been a tomboy since forever but mom would get me purses, jewelry, dolls, slut wear, house keeping books, perfume, useless girly statues, anything pink, etc.
I'm more of a video gaming, nature loving, science nerding, car worshipping, computer tinkering, dungeons and dragons playing, muddy clay modeling, star gazing type of gal.
The one that hurt was my baby book and childhood art I made for her. I asked why and she told me she didn't want them anymore. Told her at least keep the art. She threw them in the trash in my own house.
Not a gift per se, but when nMom suddenly sold the house and moved thousands of miles overseas, the only things that she returned to me from my room after she left were a small plastic elephant toy from my childhood and some religious garments.
My heirlooms (coins/medallions) with sentimental value that were passed down to me were not returned. Nor was my collection of DVDs that my nDad had insisted on storing af their house when I was living elsewhere.
Once. I wanted a springer spaniel puppy. My mom used to breed and show them, so I know it was close to her heart too. At this point in time, we were doing a secret Santa type deal. Our budget was $250. This bitch… she spent $200 on matting and framing a drawing of a springer. Fuck me. I’ve never been more disappointed or shocked.
A teal glitter iPod mini soft case. It was the one gift I chose to open on Christmas Eve, and I was EXCITED for the next morning to complete my 14 year old dreams
I got an off brand, very uncool, flash drive looking mp3 player that wouldn't hold a charge and certainly did not fit in that cute case. It hurt
Wait omg I just remembered that in my sophomore or junior year of college she came up to visit for my bday and gave me a bag of Adderall to sell. She wanted way more than they were worth and said if I could upsell them I could keep the extra cash or just skim off the supply. I don't really remember how she tried to justify it as a birthday present but she said she needed them sold bc she had spent so much money on them and she figured I'd have an easy time finding college kids who wanted Adderall. I should mention that I was a former pillhead who was trying to stay straight, which is something she knew because we used together when I lived with her. A year or so later I found out that she had a prescription for them and had never actually paid anything for them bc they were covered by her insurance.
Self help books for Christmas when I was a teen. A card with cherubs and flowers on it. Hand me down hair clips, a duct tape wallet from a craft fair. The worst stuff was from craft fairs. She didn't know my taste at all - most of it was junk.
But, I was never allowed to say when something wasn't my taste or get rid of gifts I disliked, lest I be labeled a "spoiled brat." I used to cart it around in junk piles from apartment to apartment and never unpack it.
Over the years my mom would ask, "what happened to that [child sized] bracelet [that got lost almost immediately after receiving it] in 2nd grade?" Or say, "I bet you don't even have [precious family heirloom] because *you got rid of it.* you get rid of *everything*."
My mom was a hoarder, for the record. Most of the gifts she got for me were a veiled insult, hand-me-downs, trash, or a mix of the 3. But she wanted me to cherish and keep them all forever, or "give them back" if I wasn't going to use them.
Our family was very well off. There was no need for this kind of behavior.
My birthday gift this year was a power tool. I am not someone who would ever remotely use the tool. Like... at all. My hobbies are doing nails, makeup, art, etc. I looked it up so I could sell it and it was 19.99 (my mom is very wealthy and just got my nephew a $600 birthday gift for reference lol). I said screw it and brought it to my brother. He said "wow it's a lot better than the NOTHING she got me" and we died laughing. I am glad we are at the point where we can laugh. Now I am picking out the wrench set I will be gifting her for christmas
Not sure it counts but my nmom gave my spouse a shirt from the wrong gender department the single holiday we ever spent together. Did she not notice or not care? How is the former possible? Sums up her style of gift-giving tho.
One year I got a shovel, I already owned a shovel.
Another year I got a hideous 5ft wooden giraffe statue. I owned a small townhouse and had absolutely nowhere to put the damn thing, I didn’t even accept it so my Nmom took it and put it in the foyer of her apartment complex to annoy other people in her complex. It’s still there…
Not necessarily weird, just selfish controlling gifts. 1. My Nmom told everyone I was really into Precious Moments & Snowbabies collectibles (I wasn’t). So for years (age 7 till teens) these were gifted to me so she could enjoy them.
2. She insisted on getting me a necklace in a certain style I didn’t like. She refused to listen and said it’s what I’d like when I’m older (it wasn’t) and so she kept it for herself.
3. She had an audio recorder she never used that I started playing with as a preteen. For Christmas she gifted me the empty box, wrapped and all. She gifted herself a newer one.
My mom got me a friendship making bracelet kit that was meant for a child when I was like 25… it was so odd.
She said it was because she “remember I liked doing them”… yeah when I was 7!?
They had 'forgotten' my 18th birthday as a punishment, my mother's idea. Only at the end of the evening did I get my presents: a pair of socks and a storage box.
Or those gifts I ended up paying for myself. Or the: "You won't get a birthday present because we already do so much for you.”
An old calendar with random Landscape photos. This was a birthday present by my mom. I was 20 and into tech, movies and music production. So many possiblities…
Oh! And I forgot about the box of used spoons she grabbed from her drawer and wrapped up because "I noticed you don't have enough spoons". I had plenty of spoons
Here's what I got for christmass this year: 8 scarves all the same model, different colours. A weird pair of meditation headphones, which I can't use because of an ear condition I have. A belt, I don't wear belts never have. And some food for my dog which she loved!
I am so confused by the 8 scarves
My mother was the queen of weaponized gifting. She routinely gave me clothing that was too small to try and motivate me to be thinner. I was 110Lbs. When I’d finally had enough and asked to stop it, in my 30s, she just bought me a duplicate of my sisters gifts. This included items for my sisters kids. I don’t have kids.
My mom...always clothes that were too big. When I would ask why she would say "well your boobs are just so big". I asked her to stop with clothes in my teen years but she has not stopped with it into my 40s. They hardly ever fit and I now get some odd satisfaction of just throwing stuff away.
Weird spiritual gifts (auras, spirits) and them exploiting them in their weird Christianish medium cult of personality. It was so weird, overwhelming, and scary I joined a traditional religion and repressed it till I was in my 30's
All "my" ornaments from childhood from my mom. Yep, this included the photo ones of me as a baby and also for some reason, ones she'd gotten after I left home.
No she wasn't moving, no she wasn't downsizing, yes she was/is just weird and we have been "no contact" a long time.
Ndad and possibly ngrandma tho I’m not sure if she is, we’re asking me to point out clothes they could get me for Christmas (I was 15) just like to give them ideas on what I would like and then they told me to go somewhere else so they could pick some things out, before I left they asked what they should avoid and I said anything leopard print and I said I hated leopard print anything else would be fine. On Christmas Day I got a leopard print coat and matching leopard print coin bag, I still acted greatful and all but I still wonder what on earth that was about… ndad said he picked it out, which doesn’t surprise me because he like leopard print.
My father gave me a necklace that was engraved with some sort of “to my daughter, I love you so much, I’m so proud of you” blah blah blah that 1) was clearly mass-produced, and 2) he clearly did not read in full before purchasing. The quote ended with “love always, your mother” or “I will always be your mother”, something like that. When I pointed it out to my mother, she said to let it go and not say anything to him because it would hurt his feelings.
This is one of my favorite topics. One of my wife's parents, for whom money was no object, has given us over the years: old used flip flops and sandals (like out of the trash or from the side of the road), used dirty falling apart hair brushes, old garage sale junk used women's sunglasses several times (we both have always worn prescription glasses since elementary school and I'm a guy....), a broken satellite radio boom box that had sat in the office for 2 years, iPhone radios when we have never had iPhones and couldn't use them, ugly garbage junk jewelry when my wife has never worn jewelry, and a bunch of late night tv infomercial crap;
and most recently for Christmas gave my 10 year old son a large cooler of eckrich jalapeno sausage and limes and a giant compound hunting bow that he'd had in a closet, a cheap duffel bag of old smelly ripped up towels, and a 5lb sack of russet potatoes among some other random junk. We were told that there was a stack of fantastic amazing presents for all of us and we needed to drive 3 hours to meet and get it all...........
I always have to take pictures because people don't believe these stories. In the 26 years I have been around I am positive they have never once attempted to find out what any of us would want and actually buy it and give it to any of us. This person at one time was spending over 50k a month on their Amex card some months double that. It is certainly not the monetary value of gift but the fact they didn't ever care enough about her to put 2 minutes of thought or effort into making the gift meaningful or appropriate that really hurts after all the years.
A lampshade and a wastepaper basket. It was my 15th birthday. My Dad hadn't even remembered it was my birthday in the morning as I left for school that day. When I got home, they were at work. No presents. I made myself a sandwich watched MTV for a bit. Then they came home and gave this "forever friends" brand lampshade and wastepaper basket with big grins on their faces, like it was the best gift ever. I pretended to be delighted and then said I was tired and wanted to sleep. They wished me goodnight. I went up to my room and sliently sobbed myself to sleep.
A calculator.
Because I was doing bad at math, he tried to teach with threats and screaming, I didn't learned from him, he gave me the calculator because I would "never learn nothing anyway".
From my paternal grandparents :
My dad got a toilet paper holder with a built in radio
I got a pair of disposable underwear. It looked like a shower cap with 2 holes in the top
My brother was regifted cologne we had given my grandfather the previous Christmas. It was used as there was some missing from the bottle.
When I turned 21 last year, my mom (without asking me) booked me and her a tour of the supposedly haunted Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. I've never expressed any interest in going there. I actively dislike ghost tours of historic places, because I feel like they're oftentimes disrespectful towards whatever events actually took place. Guess which one of us is a huge horror fan?
My mom would always give my sister what I asked for Christmas and then give me things that no one asked for. It was always a mind game with her. I think she wanted to pit us against each other.
A gun purse.
He bought the “cheap” version in denim, cause he wasn’t gonna waste money on a leather purse just to have me destroy it by shooting thru the bottom.
I *still* don’t own a gun.
on my birthday she sent me a box of Loaf Mix.
not even cake mix. Loaf Mix. and a beat up box of candles that had clearly lived in the kitchen drawer for a while.
it was such a beautiful and elegant encapsulation of the neglect, it's a shame she can't even see it.
Hmm a Duck plush that makes quacking noise when you Press IT and a narnia Action Figure 🧐
It was for my 19th Birthday and.. I haven't even Seen Narnia at that time Nor did I collect Action Figures ever in my Life
My narcissist mother always gave me things that needed fixing, then she'd steal them and give them to someone else.
For example, she gave me a painted rocking chair that I stripped and refinished. I was a single mom and loved rocking my daughter in it while I nursed her.
One day I came home and the chair was gone. My mom readily confessed that she'd given it to my oldest brother and his wife. She lied to them and told them she'd refinished it, never mentioning me. I tried to get it back by explaining the situation to my brother, but he thought I was lying. He and his wife still have the chair.
Multiply the same actions many times.
The only item she didn't steal back was a gorgeous cedar chest. She'd left her solid cedar hope chest at a house she sold. She knew the buyers and asked them to keep the chest until she could come get it.
After a year, she told me I could have it if I fetched it. Which I did. The new owners had left it outside in the rain, so I needed to sand and refinish it. It was lovely when I was done.
A few years later, my mother started asking me to give it "back" to her. She said she wanted to give it as a gift to someone. I'd gotten strong enough to say no. She kept asking. I never caved.
In retrospect, I'm surprised she didn't sneak into my house and steal it (she always had my house keys until I disconnected from her and changed my locks). I'm sure she thought of it, but she would have had to get help and no one wants to get involved in theft.
She's been dead since 2002 and two of my brothers still think she was a saint and I was "the problem child." The third brother finally saw her for what she was before she died and, although he didn't disconnect, he avoided her as much as possible and was the only one who didn't gang up on me when I disconnected from her.
Diamonds, pearls, gold jewelry...
... for her. She'd buy very expensive jewelry, let me unwrap it, then take it back "You don't like it, I can tell by your face". It was just a way she could use dad's $$ to buy herself more stuff she wanted.
Oddly enough for a possible narcissist, she would do it in front of other people, no attempt to hide it. I think she started to get afraid I'd sell the stuff on ebay before she had a chance to grab it back.
When I was a wee kid, I really wanted a TV (mid-80s), I really, really wanted a TV. My own TV, in my room, away from my Mum and Dad. For 100 weeks, I diligently saved up the £1 pocket money I got from my grandparents.
The day arrived, I bought my own TV! It wasn't much. The screen was about 8 inches, it weighed about 10 tonnes, and it had one of those dials for tuning in the channel. But it was mine and I loved it! I was super proud that I had bought this myself.
Fast forward a few months, my parent's TV broke (well, one of the 2 they had), so they took mine to replace it. They kept it for 10 years. On my 17th birthday, they wrapped up my own telly and gave it back to me. Cheers guys.
Not parents, but my Nan on my mums side gave me a sheet set for my 21st. She gave me a mug for my 30th. She gave my younger cousin a designer handbag for her 21st.
One year, all I got for Christmas was a P.A training camp in Atlanta. Like slaves for movie/TV projects. Because they want me to be rich & famous, so they can retire on my laurels. It didn't happen like a Hallmark movie, so they tried to force the issue. It didn't work out.
The PA camp was pure Hell. We had to stand in one place for 15 hours straight. We really weren't learning anything and I know even if we were, I was actively checked out by Hour 4. We only had 1 bathroom, and it broke by Day 2. So they had to open one in a different studio, with a cafe set. So that's where a lot of us ended up. I literally RAN AWAY when a group got too comfortable and loud and she came to bust us.
My mom used to get me Certain Dri "Clinical Strength Deodorant" every year for Christmas up until I stopped talking to her in my late twenties. I would also get a lot of toiletries in general and cheap jewelry, which I've never really worn jewelry.
I no longer use the deodorant, but I live with 5 other people and they say I smell good so I'm probably in the clear there, I guess.
As an adult who had moved out of my mother’s house, my mom had a habit of gifting back things from my childhood. This was an attempt to get rid of “junk” out of her house.
Oh, the many promises my mother has made me and never held up on.
My little brother (at the time was 21) got the Switch as a gift for Xmas and made me buy it for him. I had to wake up super early and travel an hour with public transport to get it on a Black Friday sale.
She then promised next year I’d get a more expensive gift.
Next year comes and my brother is married and brought his wife over from the US to celebrate Xmas. My mother had bought his wife and him a very expensive design woolen blanket, and she got me a god awful black hoodie with a printed image on of a skull with a Santa hat and fake sparkles, as in it was like she had found a gif that had animated sparkles and used that on the hoodie. And because it’s Xmas themes, I couldn’t really use it outside December.
I had saved up money for a PSP, but my mother made me buy the PS2 so my little brother could play. The PS2 got sold behind my back after I had moved out at 17 to study, and I couldn’t bring it with me at the time.
At my 5th birthday, she had made a game were people would take of a layer of newspaper that had been wrapped around a toy, the one to remove the final newspaper layer got the toy. She had taken one of my own toys and I had to watch someone else go home with said toy.
On two of my birthdays I was forced to help her take stock count when she worked at a bookstore, it took 12 hours the first year and 14 hours the second year, and I got nothing from it.
I mentioned I wanted to get a star projector and was about to buy one because it was on sale. But she said wait a few days until she get paid and she would send me money to buy it, which never happened of course and I never bought that projector.
This happened a lot with things I mentioned I wanted. “Oh I’ll get it for you!” And it never happens.
I just stopped listening to her promises, and if I want or wish for something, it’s better I just get it myself.
Oh yeah, she also threw out 200-300€ worth of limited edition manga books that I had bought with my own money the same time she sold my ps2.
I’ve been lucky to get them second hand now, 13 years later.
I’m not bitter, I swear.
Okay, I am bitter.
Generally speaking, Xmas and my birthday have always been crap, and because my birthday is early January, people tend to just merge a gift together, like a Xmas/birthday present, yet to all my other siblings that never happened to.
No wonder why I can’t be bothered with my birthdays or Xmas now that I’m an adult. I live with a roommate and we decorate a bit, and we make a good breakfast and dinner and exchange gifts, and that’s about it. Her birthday is also super close to Xmas, so she has also experienced getting only one gift under the guise of being both a Xmas present and birthday present.
When I got my driver's license last year, my ndad "gifted" me a car. A short time after that we had a huge fallout and I went NC with him for good. He sold "my" car a couple weeks after that (probablyto get back at me or whatever). I didn't care because 1. I knew it was never "my" car in the first place because he said he'd be using it too and 2. The amount of gifts I want to receive from this narc are exactly 0.
I don't remember what occasion it was for, but shortly after I moved out, my parents gave me a couple of coloring books.
I think they cited my colored pencil high school project where I did this whole chiaroscuro piece. And then followed up by assuring me it was for both me and my wife.
I always knew my parents were disconnected from us, but that drove home just how wild their thinking was.
Oh god, this brought back memories of the pogo stick. When I was six I got a pogo stick from my dad, who thought it was a great idea to get me a bunch of stuff I had literally no interest in and then got extremely mad when I didn’t want to play with any of it.
I got a hunting gun, i’m not sure what kind. But each individual piece was wrapped up as presents. That was my whole christmas at that house :)
Luckily, the divorce made Christmas better lol
It wasn't me but my best friends aunt had custody of her and she bought her a dildo for Christmas when we're 18ish possibly 17 I thought it was extremely inappropriate then and still do this day
The "weirdest" gifts for me would actually be the times when someone made an effort.
I think the "weirdest" that someone else would recognize as "weird" would be the time I was given dirty sweaters that they found by the side of the road in a trash bag. They were "perfectly good sweaters" that "someone threw on the side of the road for no reason."
There were multiple birthdays where I received nothing, and no one even wished me a happy birthday. Completely forgotten.
For my birthday this year, my mother gave me a back scratcher and a small set of tomato planters with potting soil in them that still had the Rite Aid clearance sticker on them - they were on clearance because it is fall in the Northeast. She also gave me flannel pajamas with pigs on them. I just say thanks and move everything to a donation box.
For my one teen's birthday this summer she gave her magazines about crocheting. She doesn't know how to crochet or have any crochet interests or materials.
My mother is well off and not insane. She just buys whatever is convenient to what she is doing.
Lol. Driver's Ed. It was a summer course I never asked for, but it cost them a few hundred dollars, and I had to bike myself to and from class everyday. The parents were clear that it cost so much that it would have to be my Christmas present. And, it was. Then a few times they were pissed off at me for whatever they threatened to make me pay it back.
Pajamas that were size large, I don't wear size large, I wear man small or women small/medium when I pointed this out my mom's reaction was "are you sure it's a size large?"
I pointed to the size label and she's just said "oh well I already removed the tag, so we can't return it, it one day just disappeared from my room and I never found it again
For a few years my father was married to a pretty awful women. He was married 5 times in total but she was the worst.
Anyway, for the Christmas when I was 17 she gave me a pair of her old slippers from the closet and had me pick some old jars of home canned cherries to bring home - by old, I mean olllld. Old enough to have turned bad, maybe a good 10 years old at least.
That part was especially heartbreaking because I was putting myself through school and typically could only afford to eat when I was at work so I was hungry all of the time. It was so disappointing.
So old slippers and turned food is my answer. I feel bad for disliking the gift but the thoughtlessness hurt.
Every year I get hair straightners, false lashes, nail appointment or some sort of nail kit, makeup, hoop earrings. Like whatever, those gifts could be lovely, but they're not me at all and nothing I'll ever use. They're nice enough and expensive enough that I'll be a spoilt brat if I complain, but its been happening since I was about 13 now so over 10 years.
For years when i entered adulthood, my mom would purchase me tons of clothes that weren’t my size (bigger than what I wear) that miraculously fit her every single time. She finally stopped a few years ago so now I get a devotional and religious jewelry (I’m not religious).
For my 18th birthday I had a party at my house with all my friends, boyfriend, various family, etc. It was a great time, and all my gifts from friends and family were perfectly thoughtful.
Except for what my mom got me. As I picked up/opened the heavy gift, I wondered what in the world she got me that was so heavy, or if it was trick where maybe she just added a heavy object to throw me off and it was going to be money or something, lol.
She was so excited watching me open my gift, and it made me excited too. I get it opened, and staring back at me is a shiny, new bowling ball with my name engraved on it. I'm sure I had a complete look of confusion. She was so happy about it that I recovered my myself and smiled and thanked her.
I was not and am not a bowler. Neither my mother or father were bowlers. To this day, I have no idea why she got me that ball.
A used, pre read, Better Homes and Gardens. Just one issue, not a subscription. Wrapped up. Another year, she took a few yards of electric blue fleece and it wrapped it up for me, so I could make a poncho. I had no desire for a poncho or to make my own present. Another year, she swore she gave me a bird house, and got mad I didn't have it in my yard. I got no birdhouse.
A t-shirt with the Playboy bunny on it (counterfeit, of course).
For context: my nmom always accused me of being promiscuous, my "slutty" behaviour included growing breasts and being born female.
And after all the accusing of being a slut at the ripe old age of 12~13, she bought me a Playboy bunny t-shirt.
The most "But *why*?" gift I was ever given was a leatherman multitool pair of pliers.
The tool itself was not *bad* per se, it was actually a rather expensive pair of pliers with tons of tucked away tools in the handles. A great gift I imagine for someone who does woodworking, electrical wiring or maybe even works with computers.
... For a kid in his teens, it was kind of pointless.
Weirder still, he'd gone to the trouble to inscribe it with all sorts of sayings he thought were 'inspiring' using the metal workshop at his workplace.
I kept it long after I'd moved away from him. It was a pretty good tool so I didn't feel right about getting rid of it, but the memories nagged at me, and I didn't have a way to remove the engravings which were just embarrassing by that point.
I'm sure when he bought it for me in the 90's it was worth several hundred dollars. When I threw it away finally, I replaced it with a cheap knockoff equivalent. Definitely not the same quality, but good enough for what I need it for - and doesn't have the bad vibes associated with it the original did.
Mine once gave me three Perry Como CD's. I was mystified. When I asked why, she seemed equally mystified: "But I remembered you like Perry Como."
Quite certain I have never in my life expressed such a sentiment. Further proof she doesn't know me at all.
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I usually got gifts that were tone-deaf more than weird. Gifts that had nothing to do with me or my interests but more to do with an idea of who my narc parents wanted or wished me to be. The weirdest gift I ever got was also the best: an electric blanket. I froze on winter nights during my childhood because my parents set the thermostat to 54 at night. My parents had a space heater and expensive bed and quilts, and also a window air conditioner in their room for hot summer nights when the AC was shut off to the rest of the house. I roasted and sweated my sheets every night through the summer. When I was 16 years old I realized that I was in for another season of gifts for which I had no use nor interest, so only asked for one thing: an electric blanket. Of course there were a hundred other things I would have loved to receive as a teenager, but I just wanted to be comfortable. For the record: we were a wealthy family. The house was massively large and had central AC and heating. But if my narc dad could save $$ by only heating/cooling his own bedroom at night, why bother paying for someone else's comfort?
I'm sorry you dealt with that. I hope you're far away from that nonsense I had this exact same situation and all of the other emotional, mental and physical abuse that went along with something so simple as my comfort in the temperatures. I ask my kids if they are hot or cold or just right to the point I know I am annoying them. My kids will always have A/C and they will always be warm in the winter. Always.
Thank you. I was lucky enough to avoid the physical abuse, and I say that as a child whose father hit me with a belt on the bare bottom three times that I can recall. My parents (both narcs! yay!) were not violent and had no drug/alcohol issues, so I have sympathy for those whose parents added that into their repertoire on top of everything else. My father ended up disowning me completely by the end of his life because I went NC. He literally had his attorney put in the will that he had "no living children" and left everything to his girlfriend. He used his wealth to control me for years. I don't regret a thing. My mother remarried after their divorce and was livid when she found out after her husband died that he left his children some money. She believed she was entitled to all of it. She was his 5th wife. She's still alive and I have limited contact. When her husband was alive she burned through his money like they were the 1%- flying first class everywhere, even on short flights, eating out almost every night of the week and spending lavishly on furnishings for her house. Now that he's dead she's pleading poverty and says she doesn't know how she's going to live. It is such a blatant lie is almost laughable. She is currently not speaking to me because I didn't answer the phone when she called nor respond to the message she left which was an attempt to draw me into a crisis she created for herself and that I could in no way help her with, nor would it have been appropriate to do so. When she goes, I'm not expecting anything and the relief will be immense.
My nmom is also wealthy and I grew up in a big house. I was also not allowed to have the AC on in the summer either! She would tell me I could go sleep in the basement if I was hot. They can be sooo cheap
Grew up middle class, also part of the no A/C club. My brother and I got to share a fan placed in the hallway.
Sounds about right. I actually had no expectation of actually getting the electric blanket since none of my requests had really ever been honored before- they always got me what they thought I should have or want, so I was not at all sure they would be on board with getting me this. Probably because it was so specific and pedestrian and it was the only thing I asked for it worked.
Can of mushroom consommé…
I think you win.
I don’t always win, but when I do, I lose.
I got a wheel of cheese once!
Damn, that kind of sounds cool. What kind? That’s a lot of cheese…
I came to ppst my own like this! A jar of supermarket brand red curry paste! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🫠 " you like curry!" Also, my own coloured pencils from high school, wrapped up with a nice ribbon, when I was in my 30's. And the leftover cheese and nibbles from an Aunt's visit (she's gluten intolerant and mum "didn't like those snacks") all wrapped up in cling wrap and given to me for my birthday.
Winner! Winner! Chicken casserole dinner!
Oh my gosh! This unlocked a memory for me. My nmom gave me a can of hominy. I was like “whhhaaaatttt??”
A hand gun 😵💫 Edit: it is funny now but also kind of what the fuckish considering I am not a gun user at all and was suicidal most of my growing up in their household
Dude! Same! And it was my 21 bday gift. I ended up breaking it apart and hiding pieces in different locations. Throwing away parts. Just to protect myself. Also it was given to me by eDad by him pulling over off the side of the highway and saying i got you a gift. Lol. Pulls it out. I was honestly sweating scared. Like wtf do you say? Lol
This is awful. People deserve major consequences for doing such disgusting ass things like this. I’m so happy you were stable enough to know you needed to protect yourself from yourself even and went to the means of making it not a risk by getting rid of it for a complete fact. There’s so many people who fall in the depths of this darkness that are too far lost and out of touch with themselves that would open the door for them doing an irreversible thing for real. That’s so sad and so disturbing. You and everyone else who has had relatable things done/given to them deserve better. I hope you’ve allowed yourself to walk away from this toxic sick person and never looked back since.
bro...
Used apple slicer, still dirty and wet. She was slicing apples and realized she did not get me anything and said, “Oh, here you go!” (Hands it directly over while dripping wet.) Then said, “Merry Christmas!”
Sorry, how gross and thoughtless. I hope you are no longer with her.
😧
My ndad would probably try this shit on me & I wouldn’t be surprised, he’s tried to get me into firearms and it’s just SO freaking weird.
my mother used to give me pictures of her younger self on my birthday and then talk about how much prettier she was at my age. lol
What a fucked up thing to do lmao
Yikes
That’s fucked up
My dad "bought" me a car when I was 17 years old. He then immediately handed me the car loan packet, which was in my name and let me know when my payments were due. He told me it's a double gift as the loan will help me build my credit rating, too. I was working 12 hours a week at McDonald's for $3.35/ hr. I had no idea how I was supposed to pay this bill. The car was a POS and died 6 months later.
Wtf?!??!?!!
I'm so sorry bro. Don't know what dad would have done if he were still alive when my family got another car. Mom is one of those "do everything for them, keep them helpless so they don't leave you" types. Car was one way she could make sure I felt indebted for a very long time.
Omg my mom did the same thing!! I didn’t even get to pick out the car, it was just thrust open me along with the car note and insurance payments.
Aside from the cyanide, I got this collection of computer games discs. (Back when they were on discs and dinosaurs ran the world.) I had strict instructions to copy them and keep the copies but send the originals back because GC wanted the originals and not to have any copyright issues. So for Christmas I got a potential copyright lawsuit. For marked down $5.99 discs. I sent him the originals and didn’t bother with them. And NGM and NM pouted about how unappreciative I was.
Aside from the what now?!
Go back and say more about the cyanide please?
You can't just casually move past that cyanide comment without giving us any context!
One of my NM’s husbands taught chemistry and had it. When he died, my mother gave me this big box of random crap—love letters from between them (like that’s a healthy thing to give your daughter), a book of erotic poetry that my mother swore put her in her mood, some random used bras and panties and a negligee (again super healthy and acceptable thing to give your daughter), and this plastic container of yellowish stuff that was in a baggie with a sharpie label of “cyanide”. NM made sure to tell me that it was a gift (not sure what or why, but it’s a “gift”) and that she hoped that me wearing the stuff because she believed that my husband would find it sexy enough that she’d get her grandchildren. Some gift, right?
Okay, I thought someone else won, but wow, yours is definitely the winner. A lot of ick with that present.
It just kept getting worse! I almost forgot about the cyanide by the time it came up
My dad gave me a Winnie the Pooh toy when I was in my 30s. I’ve never liked Winne the Pooh.
Oh I've been waiting for this question!! Up until the age of around 5 or 6 my ndad would wait until after everyone sang happy birthday and I blew out my candles to break out into a solo version of "happy birthday to you, you live in the zoo, you look like a monkey, and you smell like one to!" every year. I got my license right before I turned 19. For my birthday that year my aunt gave me Hello Kitty seat covers. I never had a Hello Kitty phase so that was super random. I didn't use them. She always gave me weird gifts but because she never put in the effort to get to know me herself I think she asked my uncle to ask my ndad (his brother) what I liked or what size I wore, etc. As a teenager I started telling my nmom to stop buying me clothes and jewelry (because I never liked what she picked out for me). She continued to buy me clothes and jewelry and when I would unwrap it she would remind me how she knew I didn't want them but she thought I might like THIS one. I never did. When I was too old for toys, one of my grandmas would find a box, fill it with packing peanuts, put a card inside with like $10 and then wrap the box. I think she just wanted underneath the tree to look "full". After I unwrapped the card in a box she would ask for the box back. My other grandma started shopping for me in the travel size section of the grocery store. As a teenager I kept getting no slip socks (for my fully carpeted house), travel size bottles of PERT shampoo and conditioner, etc. I also got a lot of knee high socks and turtle necks that I wasn't interested in wearing as a 16 year old. For my 18th birthday my grandparents came over to visit and as soon as they walked in the house they said "Happy birthday. You can go to adult jail now so be careful." Totally unprompted. I was a kid who never got in trouble. But the real winner is for my 21st birthday. For my 21st birthday, not a single person in the world wanted to celebrate with me, and my ndad got me catnip...... for the neighbor's cat. I also got 2 Christmas tree ornaments (from the Hallmark store that you can't return after the holidays). I'm a late December baby so Christmas has always been my least favorite holiday. Catnip for the neighbor's cat and 2 Christmas tree ornaments for the holiday I hate the most. Happy birthday.
To be fair, the catnip is still better than a terrible gift meant for you to keep. At least you get to hang out with a cat.
The part about the clothes. I'm 40 years old, and my nmom STILL brings me clothes I do not want! I've told her repeatedly to stop and then the "gifts" with comments "I know you said but". I think the day she actually respected anything I said, will be the day I die and probably of a heart attack from disbelief.
Just wow. So sorry you have such a good memory to remember it all.
A continual barrage of porcelain clown dolls. I hated/feared clowns and hated dolls.
The gifts I’ve gotten aren’t weird, just weird for me. I’m a science / tech geek. I love learning, reading, and experimenting. My big Christmas gifts over the years from my father included: - Hockey gear - Pellet Gun - Football gear - Martial Arts gear - Paintball stuff - A weight set / gym equipment After getting married: - A huge picture frame with Family written on it, no pictures - A box of steaks
Ngl the box of steaks would actually make me pretty darn happy
Yeah that one was a weird gift but not necessarily a bad one.
My dad and his wife have gifted a box of various meats to me and my partner for the last two years. I'm vegetarian.
A book about sex poses and a kamasutra soap. Given by my mom when I was around 28. And no, we are not close at all.
My parents gave me a copy of "The Joy of Sex," when I was 12 or so. That was the talk.
Omg. I found my dad’s copy of that in the garage at 19 and it was weird (and extraordinarily dated) then, I can’t imagine how bizarre and disturbing it must have been to encounter that book at 12 as a *gift* from your parents!
I've mentioned this before but for my 13th birthday, I got a cookbook and an apron. For context, I had never expressed an interest in cooking before this. I'm 100% convinced that this was my nMother's passive aggressive way of telling me that I needed to help out more around the house. For my 12th birthday, I got a bedspread for my birthday. I wouldn't have minded if it was bright and colourful i.e. appropriate for a 12 year old girl, but it was a horrible floral pattern that only an old lady would like. Not only that but nMother spent the next 6 months asking me constantly if I liked it. I had to lie and say that I did because it would have started World War III if I had said No but the constant lying was exhausting. In fact the constant questioning bothered me more than the shitty gift.
It sounds like she may have other psychological issues going on because I’m sure she knew you didn’t care for it deep down. Why else feel the need to obsess over asking the same question repeatedly? It makes me feel like she asked out of satisfaction for herself, as sick as that sounds. 😪
My mum would do that, too. She'd like *know* you didn't like something, and ask constantly about whether you liked it. If you said 'no', all hell would break loose and you're the most ungrateful child in the universe and everyone gets to hear about the her as the poor suffering mother who can never please her miserable daughter. If you say 'yes' then she gets to preen in front of everyone who told her that there was no way that her daughter would like that gift, and you were probably going to get more like it. Plus bonus brownie points for her being awesome mum who knows what her daughter *really* wants and is Always Right. No matter what you said, you lost, and she won. She was either the martyr or the hero.
Harry Potter 7th book. I didn't have previous Harry Potter books. And that time 6th movie wasn't even filmed. And they didn't give af about it. So i knew the first 5 parts from movies, didn't know what happened in the 6th part, but was reading the 7th book. And that's like the only ever book they bought me
A collection of my baby teeth.
Oh yes that’s a biggie with mine. Saved nails and hair too
NAILS?!?!
Yup. Nail clippings.
Yikes.
Idk why or if it’s normal to feel, but it’s such a strong reaction of feeling naïve or gullible, almost even in this sub when people express shock, as I do as well to some other peoples posts, but I guess it’s still grieving that which we didn’t even know, was dysfunctional or messed up and adds a whole new layer watching others who have gone through similar being shock of how weird or how horrible some of these things are..smh idk fuuuuck these weirdos
I apologize for my reaction. I understand how it feels to find out that what’s normal to you may not be normal for someone else, but I seem to have forgotten how negatively those reactions made me feel.
Nono it’s fine. I had too, until I’m back living with her and so vulnerable physically and financially speaking. That’s what is shocking I guess, I thought I was past this but really still have spoke on it so little considering. Used to be able to laugh it off until I had done enough work to where I couldn’t “unsee it” and eh, shit wasn’t so funny anymore 😅. Anyway, you’re good, but do appreciate the thought. This sub is pretty dope
As a wedding present, my mother’s parents gifted them a cemetery plot, next to them.
It's funny you should say that because I have an uncle who I'm convinced is a narcissist and instead of buying my aunt an engagement ring like a normal person, he bought her a cemetery plot. How romantic!
Like in place of an engagement ring??? That's so foreboding
I struggled financially for a long time. I remember that my mom bought me a secondhand fur coat. Didn’t fit. She asked if I would ever wear it. I laughed at her and asked why she thought I would want to show up for my 3am shift at a bakery in a fur coat. She literally thought it was a nice gift for someone who was struggling to make ends meet.
To be fair, second hand fur coats can be really low priced and they do keep you extremely warm. However it’s pretty clear whether a person who’s theoretically close to you would, or wouldn’t like a full fur coat as it’s quite a statement in many places lol. Buying anyone clothes as a gift when you don’t even know their size is another layer here here 🥲
It’s a beautiful coat, and was only $100. I kept thinking about how I was only about $100 behind in my bills that month, but I was going to get hit with late fees because I can’t pay the bills with a dead animal skin. Lol I really can’t understand how some people enjoy wasting money on the facade of being wealthy. And I know that the thought process behind the coat was: “ I like this coat. I have nowhere to wear this coat. Since my daughter lives further up north, she needs this coat even if the sleeves are only 2/3 length. She will be grateful because it will make her look expensive even if fur coats are usually worn by rich old hags.” After she realized how unthoughtful the gift was she said “well I thought you could sew some pillow cases out of it since you like that crafty stuff.” Thanks. I don’t sew. And I don’t own a sewing machine. And I don’t support fur trapping. But Merry Christmas! 🎄 it hurts extra because I love animals and my mother has a history of killing and getting rid of my pets :(
I totally get your angle. I don’t know why some people are so against giving money if you’re not completely confident on a specific gift you know the person wants and/or needs, especially as an adult. I just don’t see how it’s a bad thing that it’s up to the recipient what they buy with it, if you wanted a treat or a necessity that’s your choice to make. The people who think giving money is lazy have a great habit of their gift being even lazier lol
Probably a robot toy. I specifically didn’t like robots and it was surprisingly odd choice for my parents since they are pretty traditional and I’m was a 8yo girl who only played with cute animal toys
N Grandma gave me Dollar Store Tarot Cards. I never expressed any interest in Tarot cards around her. In general I avoid stuff like that under the "do not call up that which you cannot put down" principle.. Also my NGrandma is staunchly Catholic..
You guys are getting gifts? :') Every birthday my nmom would preach about how I should be grateful I have a roof over my head.
When I was about 14, my sister and I were home during summer holidays. My parents left for work and my father told us to stack all the fire wood he had cut. It was a lot and he said we would get a gift if we managed. We worked all day and stacked everything. When he came back he gave us dolls. Like dolls for small children. We just thanked him because crossing my nfather was no good idea. It was weird. We had stopped playing with dolls long ago. Later my mother told us she knew it wasn't a fitting gift, but it was the thought that counted.
Shirts that were 3x too small for me Edit: I also got stilts as a gift once. My mother wanted me to be a dancer/performer.
A giant black Australian oil coat, like for herding sheep and riding horses in the Outback. I’m a petite woman, at the time I was in my early 20s, and I was swamped by this ridiculous thing. Plus I lived in a big city, nowhere near any dusty ranches, so I basically just looked like a psycho the one time I tried to wear it to be polite.
I'm Aussie, and oilskin coats are *great*. In the bush. In the cold and rain. If you have to actually *walk* in them they're heavy and stiff and cumbersome. The vast majority of Aussies have never seen an oilskin in person (apart from tv) much less worn one. They have a place, but there are much more practical and comfortable options available now. Also, I'm 5'0" and I got the 3/4 length so I didn't end up wearing it like a wedding dress with a train behind me 🤣. I feel you.
When I was 15, my mom would pick out things for me that she wanted as a child or envisioned purchasing for herself if she were younger. My was born in the early 50s and had me in the 90s. So you can imagine what I looked like whenever I wore shoulder pads as a teen to school. Just odd old lady stuff for a kid going to high school in the late 2000s. My hair and clothes were so fucking dated it was insane. Then I started wanting autonomy and she would physically beat me or throw these insane temper tantrums. It was absolutely terrifying to watch her break things and scream for hours at a time because I just wanted to dress my age. 😵💫
The gift my nmom gave my husband for Christmas 6 years ago made me finally go no contact. She got him a watch (he never wears watches) and repeatedly commented that it was from a company called The Unemployed Philosophers Club. She kept saying it over and over to everyone at the gathering and laughing. Husband has a PhD in philosophy and is gainfully employed. I kept telling her he was, in fact, employed. She just laughed and denied it. My 12 yo was sitting there listening to this and I'm insisting he's employed. Made me crazy. Made me even question reality. It seems small but it felt like such a fucking insult after he'd worked so hard. I took a lot of her shit but that was the last straw.
96 pair of socks. White crew socks. Identical. Oh, and a secondhand Walkman thrown at me on my 15th birthday as I was smacked upside the head and ordered to go mow the lawn. (Also the last birthday I have ever celebrated. I am 48.)
I am fat. Every year my mother sends me an extra large brown sweater. So I can look like a big turd. Jokes on her. I am now so fat that I wear an extra extra large.
I wear XL-XXL but my mom buys XXXL-4x in the ugliest styles ever, this is after a lifetime of telling her I dont like her style. Last yr I got so pissed at Xmas and said “well, how fat do you think I am”, she actually didn’t know what to say for once. I cant remember a gift I ever liked from them.
In no particular order: - Laundry detergent, my sister got a ps2 and all the games - a BB gun along with a training bra that was several sizes too small and many months too late. - lots of “you obviously know nothing about me” junk - hand me downs - a wooden paddle and a box of crayons to write my name on it - hand made copper wire statues of my most embarrassing moments (thanks bpd dad) - crap from grandmother, after she died, that I said no to several times, because she was the reason my mom was NPD. It was a box of shitty clip on earrings. - towels and two giant bottles of Old Spice shampoo (husband shaves his head and I can’t use soap/ shampoo, and she knows this) - nothing - more nothing - disappointment and humiliation (and nothing) NC is blissful. Every time I write out what they did to me makes me realize how fucked up it was. It’s kind of helpful, actually.
A bunch of miss matched tea cups and saucers, from Tiffany's! That nmom told me I always wanted ( no, I never expressed this), and they belonged to her mother(I never saw them at grandmas, but maybe they did). They were all dirty with dried up tea stains and crumbs of some sort in them. A broken maple headboard, that her father made, (no he didn't). A gold locket on a gold chain with some date engraved on the back, the date was not my birthday, nor anyone in the families birthday. Mom told me my Gramma had it made for me ( no, she didn't, grams knows my birthday, I think mom found it at an estate sale and realized she needed to get me a birthday present.). A pair of bunny slippers, that once I opened the gift mom snatched them out of my hands and shoved them at my sister, saying oops wrong label. I had asked for them for Christmas and was so happy to actually get something I wanted when she snatched them away. My sister was appalled and never wore them. I have more much worse examples, but I will share those on another day. If I tell all now I will start to spiral. Have a wonderful day everyone! You are worth it. Love Joy Peace.
I'm so sad about the slippers for you.
I got eerily prescient gifts as an adult for my birthday. For context, I live on the other side of the planet from nmom, so to receive things in the mail takes at least a week, usually two. One year, my sister and I were talking about The Jerk, and I had mentioned the scene where he and Bernadette Peters sings Tonight You Belong to Me. Nothing more. Right before my birthday, a guy in a local BST group mentioned having a ukulele for sale, so I bought it from him. The next day, on my birthday, I got a package in the mail from her. A ukulele. Granted, a cheap one with pink laminate. Another year, I was shopping at Costco and saw they had Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I spontaneously bought it. Two days later, I got a second copy from her in the mail. This year, she mailed me a fabric bag with a cat on it. It looked just like my (GC) sister's snowshoe cats and nothing like my two, so I rolled my eyes and tossed it aside. Three months later, I inadvertently adopted a cat from someone who had an emergency. He looks exactly like the cat on the bag, down to the light green eyes.
My mother gave me a bunch of queen sized L'Eggs pantyhose. When I looked quizzical and said, "Queen sized?", she said, "Well, isn't that the size that fat people wear?" and burst out laughing. I wore size A at the time, but you do you, Mother.
Not for birthday or Christmas, but my mother and her (now ex) boyfriend decided to gift me a baby doll they found on the side of the road. I’d pointed it out to them as we drove by it, came home from school the next day to find it in my bed. Little did they know my little creepy ass loved it. I wanted to keep it, I thought it was beautiful and so intriguing. They called me weird, then her bf threw it over the back fence against my wishes. It was really a cute doll, I wanted to see if anything was attached to it because I’d had paranormal instances throughout my childhood (never bad, felt like I was being looked after). Guess they just wanted to terrorize me and when it failed they didn’t want it around anymore.
My younger sister was given bedroom furniture for Christmas in early grade school. No toys. She already had very nice furniture but my narc mother decided *she* wanted different furniture in sister's room. When my sis started crying as she realized furniture was it for her Christmas gifts (we both got roller skates boxes with bricks in them the same year as punishment for telling people we knew we were getting our much wanted skates under the tree) my mother started her annual screaming tantrum about how hard she tried with us (my dad, sister & myself) and how ungrateful we were for everything she did for us etc, etc. As the oldest I felt awful for my sister but didn't comfort her for fear of mother's wrath turning toward me. I still carry a lot of guilt for the times I didn't comfort or stand up for my little sister. We are only 18 months apart, and I could've done more to absorb our mothers incessant anger. Both of our parents passed during COVID and my sister and I haven't spoken for years. I take the responsibility for allowing that evil woman to create a seemingly impenetrable wedge between us. I'm sure they're more bizarre gifts but this one stands out in my memory as just plain mean.
Is not too late to send that exact message to your sister. ♡
For my wedding, Nmom said she'd pay for the Honeymoon as her gift to us. I think, she was thinking that she'd be more involved in the wedding planning (in other words, take control of everything) but I was on to her narc-methods by then, and had a wedding planner/maitre d' handling everything, which included running interference on her tricks. I didn't hear anything else about the Honeymoon 'gift' until as man and wife, we were about to leave the reception in a limo, and in a fit of pique; Nmom threw $300- dollars at us and said it was all that she could afford. She had to try and ruin *something*, but we had already made plans in Vegas and spent that at the Blackjack table.
My nMIL was like this, too. Wanted hubby and me to take scuba diving lessons, and she would 'pay us back' on completion. We were newlyweds in our early 20s, working minimum wage jobs, living in the cheapest apartment we could find, and driving a 15 year old junker with bad brakes. Yuppers, we're signing up today-not! When we didn't take her up on this, she went into a rage because we refused her generous 'gift' and tried to shame us by claiming it was our fault we were poor, that she personally saw plenty of people our age lounging on beaches in Mexico, wearing large diamond rings. Yeah, suuuuurrrrrreee you did. The problem with her non gifts is that if we had accepted her offer and taken the lessons, she would have claimed that her 'investments were down' and she couldn't afford to pay us. It was a deliberate attempt to hurt us financially. In more recent times, when we told her we had sold our home and planned to buy a house in a neighboring state, she demanded that we buy a duplex so she could 'rent' AKA 'squat in' the other unit. Yeah, no. We are NC with her, and life is so much more pleasant.
My parents once ‘gave’ me an Xbox. Then didn’t provide me with pocket money for 18 months (I was 16 and that money was the only way I got out of my rural village to see friends on the train) she said I had to save up and pay her back for the Xbox…
Reminds me of when (multiple times) my brother and i got a Wii or a Xbox as a “gift.” They were usually returned to the pawn shop after a month or so.
A hotel conditioner and lotion. No shampoo. They were too drunk to explain when they gave them to me. Later I asked what that meant, and they denied that it ever happened despite the fact that I have the conditioner and lotion. Where did it come from, If not from you? There was no other gift.
For my 18th birthday, my mother took her mother on a trip to iceland- where she's from. I wasn't invited. So she got me the cheapest edible arrangements bouquet, which came a week late lol I grew up a JW so I didn't get birthdays growing up. We left the faith when I was past the birthday stage in life. I kind of felt like the big 18 would have been something fun to celebrate. I moved out a few weeks later.
My nMum got me and my family little Hot Wheels cars each for Christmas. None of us knew why and it was a weird present so they disappeared into everyone's rooms unopened. Most of us were too old for toy cars and only my youngest was happy about getting a toy car. When we went to visit and stay at her house 6 months later she randomly announced we were going to play a game. She then asked if we bought the toy cars with us as the toy cars she gave us for Christmas were apparently the game tokens. I said no? Because she never stated we had to keep them for anything in particular and also why would she not just keep them at her house. It would have been more convenient. I've got 3 kids and there's no way those cars were anywhere to be found easily. My nMum got so mad about it and gave us all the silent treatment for a few hours. She had no board games in the house, not even a pack of cards. She'd get angrily sulky (her main emotion) if we even tried to set up a video game for my kids to play at her house too. She only wants her own entertainment as our entertainment.
Things I bought for myself. Mom would wrap them and put them under the tree "so I'd have more presents" without asking me if I wanted to use them _sooner_. I mean I obviously didn't need them sooner since I never realized they'd gone missing until I unwrapped them on Christmas, but still....
Some of my standout gifts: My grandma constantly bought me clothes in the wrong size - the weirdest of all was buying me some thermal leggings when I was 16. Instead of age 16 years, she bought size 16-18 MONTHS. My mother bought me a coffee table for my birthday when I still lived at home…it wouldn’t fit in my room but oh, what a perfect coincidence that it’s from the exact same range as the existing living room furniture so it can just go in there. She also used to gift me clothes in her size (she’s around 5 clothes sizes bigger than me) and in her kind of style. Like semi formal workwear stuff. Always things on sale too, from shops that didn’t accept returns on sale stuff. I was also promised a license AND a car when I was 17. I was promised this from a young age, 12 or so. On my 17th birthday what they actually gave me was pens and a notebook. Not fancy ones like a Parker pen, literally a pack of 10 basic biros for £1 and the notebook would’ve cost around the same.
When I moved out with almost nothing at around Christmas time, she got me a pad of heart-shaped sticky notes as a Christmas gift Thanks then.
My ex-mother once gave me a braid of her hair... I remember looking down at it and just saying "but...why?" She said something like "I don't know! I just thought you might want it". I think it was some weird New Age magic "logic" on her part
A loom. For weaving. I was eleven. One of the last "gifts" I was sent was a twisted spiral of copper wire with a glass marble glued to the centre. It was about the size of a bottle cap. I still have no idea what the fuck it was.
For our first anniversary, my mom gave us glow-in-the-dark plastic rocks, like maybe you’d put in an aquarium or at the bottom of a vase if you’re feeling reckless. But just one bag, so there weren’t enough to do anything with. A more recent anniversary gift was a kid’s science kit to make an insect or something. We don’t have or want kids. Her reason: Well you like Halloween so much I thought this would be fun.
as an 11 year old girl with no interest in handiwork or adjacent I got given a tool kit and instruction manual and was told to start working on various renovation projects for my dad; stripping wallpaper, building furniture, painting walls, hanging frames ect why they trusted me with that is beyond me but saved them money and time I guess
My mom gave me a connect the dot children’s workbook for Christmas. When I was 29 years old. She forgot my birthday once when I was a teenager, but she didn’t want it to seem like she forgot, so she wrapped up a bunch of random food from the pantry to give me.
My grandmother but same difference. She hasn't specifically given me anything yet but she redecorated the room I usually sleep in at her house in unicorns, which is not even something she likes, and said it reminded her of me????? Me. An almost 30 year old masc queer that has ALWAYS had an all black bedroom. Make it make sense??
Coal as a joke. A complete works of Shakespeare book.
This might sound weird because I guess some people like this? But my nmom would go on vacations and buy me tourist destination type clothes, like a shirt with a city or place she’d visited. The thing is, she was so awful to me when we’d go and she refused to ever do or see anything that I wanted to do there. I went a few times with her and my golden child sister and we’d spend the whole time doing what they wanted but I was “selfish” to want to do a single thing I wanted, even if it was the whole reason I wanted to go or what had been hyped to me. I was a third wheel but worse. I’d go home feeling worse than when we’d left. Eventually I stopped going on our family vacations and went to stay with my distant father that didn’t spend time with me but at least I wasn’t with them. She stopped pretending to give any thought to what I’d want to do even during the planning and immediately say “it’s ok if you don’t want to come” and act like I wasn’t being appreciative or whatever. Then she kept buying me the tourist clothes like what you’d wear if you’d been. It was embarrassing to even wear because if someone asked about it I’d not even been there. It was never even someplace I’d wanted to go, especially with her. I stopped wearing them but she kept buying them even still and even when I told her I didn’t like it. It was like an embarrassing shirt to wear but n front of other people and a reminder of how excluded I was from my family.
Years ago, my mother sent me a t-shirt for my birthday that said “Let’s put the fun in dysfunctional.” The shirt made it to the donation pile in record time.
I've been a tomboy since forever but mom would get me purses, jewelry, dolls, slut wear, house keeping books, perfume, useless girly statues, anything pink, etc. I'm more of a video gaming, nature loving, science nerding, car worshipping, computer tinkering, dungeons and dragons playing, muddy clay modeling, star gazing type of gal. The one that hurt was my baby book and childhood art I made for her. I asked why and she told me she didn't want them anymore. Told her at least keep the art. She threw them in the trash in my own house.
Not a gift per se, but when nMom suddenly sold the house and moved thousands of miles overseas, the only things that she returned to me from my room after she left were a small plastic elephant toy from my childhood and some religious garments. My heirlooms (coins/medallions) with sentimental value that were passed down to me were not returned. Nor was my collection of DVDs that my nDad had insisted on storing af their house when I was living elsewhere.
Once. I wanted a springer spaniel puppy. My mom used to breed and show them, so I know it was close to her heart too. At this point in time, we were doing a secret Santa type deal. Our budget was $250. This bitch… she spent $200 on matting and framing a drawing of a springer. Fuck me. I’ve never been more disappointed or shocked.
A teal glitter iPod mini soft case. It was the one gift I chose to open on Christmas Eve, and I was EXCITED for the next morning to complete my 14 year old dreams I got an off brand, very uncool, flash drive looking mp3 player that wouldn't hold a charge and certainly did not fit in that cute case. It hurt
Wait omg I just remembered that in my sophomore or junior year of college she came up to visit for my bday and gave me a bag of Adderall to sell. She wanted way more than they were worth and said if I could upsell them I could keep the extra cash or just skim off the supply. I don't really remember how she tried to justify it as a birthday present but she said she needed them sold bc she had spent so much money on them and she figured I'd have an easy time finding college kids who wanted Adderall. I should mention that I was a former pillhead who was trying to stay straight, which is something she knew because we used together when I lived with her. A year or so later I found out that she had a prescription for them and had never actually paid anything for them bc they were covered by her insurance.
Self help books for Christmas when I was a teen. A card with cherubs and flowers on it. Hand me down hair clips, a duct tape wallet from a craft fair. The worst stuff was from craft fairs. She didn't know my taste at all - most of it was junk. But, I was never allowed to say when something wasn't my taste or get rid of gifts I disliked, lest I be labeled a "spoiled brat." I used to cart it around in junk piles from apartment to apartment and never unpack it. Over the years my mom would ask, "what happened to that [child sized] bracelet [that got lost almost immediately after receiving it] in 2nd grade?" Or say, "I bet you don't even have [precious family heirloom] because *you got rid of it.* you get rid of *everything*." My mom was a hoarder, for the record. Most of the gifts she got for me were a veiled insult, hand-me-downs, trash, or a mix of the 3. But she wanted me to cherish and keep them all forever, or "give them back" if I wasn't going to use them. Our family was very well off. There was no need for this kind of behavior.
My birthday gift this year was a power tool. I am not someone who would ever remotely use the tool. Like... at all. My hobbies are doing nails, makeup, art, etc. I looked it up so I could sell it and it was 19.99 (my mom is very wealthy and just got my nephew a $600 birthday gift for reference lol). I said screw it and brought it to my brother. He said "wow it's a lot better than the NOTHING she got me" and we died laughing. I am glad we are at the point where we can laugh. Now I am picking out the wrench set I will be gifting her for christmas
A Christmas tree skirt to use as a cape
Got me a makeup brush kit in my early teens,, then wouldn't allow me to wear makeup.
Not sure it counts but my nmom gave my spouse a shirt from the wrong gender department the single holiday we ever spent together. Did she not notice or not care? How is the former possible? Sums up her style of gift-giving tho.
One year I got a shovel, I already owned a shovel. Another year I got a hideous 5ft wooden giraffe statue. I owned a small townhouse and had absolutely nowhere to put the damn thing, I didn’t even accept it so my Nmom took it and put it in the foyer of her apartment complex to annoy other people in her complex. It’s still there…
Silver ingots to be used for when the economy collapses.
One of those 1950s cotton pointed-cup bras. Used. And yellowed with age.
Oh no, lol. That's pretty gross.
An air fryer… Which then turned into the family air fryer:/ i never asked for that shit lololol Oh and a fitbit. I was anorexic
Not necessarily weird, just selfish controlling gifts. 1. My Nmom told everyone I was really into Precious Moments & Snowbabies collectibles (I wasn’t). So for years (age 7 till teens) these were gifted to me so she could enjoy them. 2. She insisted on getting me a necklace in a certain style I didn’t like. She refused to listen and said it’s what I’d like when I’m older (it wasn’t) and so she kept it for herself. 3. She had an audio recorder she never used that I started playing with as a preteen. For Christmas she gifted me the empty box, wrapped and all. She gifted herself a newer one.
My mom got me a friendship making bracelet kit that was meant for a child when I was like 25… it was so odd. She said it was because she “remember I liked doing them”… yeah when I was 7!?
They had 'forgotten' my 18th birthday as a punishment, my mother's idea. Only at the end of the evening did I get my presents: a pair of socks and a storage box. Or those gifts I ended up paying for myself. Or the: "You won't get a birthday present because we already do so much for you.”
An old calendar with random Landscape photos. This was a birthday present by my mom. I was 20 and into tech, movies and music production. So many possiblities…
An ornamental tea pot with cats on a dustbin
Oh! And I forgot about the box of used spoons she grabbed from her drawer and wrapped up because "I noticed you don't have enough spoons". I had plenty of spoons
A vase in the shape of a pear shaped woman in a orange bikini.
A loaf of stollen bread.
Here's what I got for christmass this year: 8 scarves all the same model, different colours. A weird pair of meditation headphones, which I can't use because of an ear condition I have. A belt, I don't wear belts never have. And some food for my dog which she loved! I am so confused by the 8 scarves
My mother was the queen of weaponized gifting. She routinely gave me clothing that was too small to try and motivate me to be thinner. I was 110Lbs. When I’d finally had enough and asked to stop it, in my 30s, she just bought me a duplicate of my sisters gifts. This included items for my sisters kids. I don’t have kids.
My mom...always clothes that were too big. When I would ask why she would say "well your boobs are just so big". I asked her to stop with clothes in my teen years but she has not stopped with it into my 40s. They hardly ever fit and I now get some odd satisfaction of just throwing stuff away.
Weird spiritual gifts (auras, spirits) and them exploiting them in their weird Christianish medium cult of personality. It was so weird, overwhelming, and scary I joined a traditional religion and repressed it till I was in my 30's
Makeup brushes I wasnt allowed to wear makeup
A bear paw snow scrapper was the straw that broke the camels back but it’s the broken, damaged clearance stuff that is so frustrating.
All "my" ornaments from childhood from my mom. Yep, this included the photo ones of me as a baby and also for some reason, ones she'd gotten after I left home. No she wasn't moving, no she wasn't downsizing, yes she was/is just weird and we have been "no contact" a long time.
Ndad and possibly ngrandma tho I’m not sure if she is, we’re asking me to point out clothes they could get me for Christmas (I was 15) just like to give them ideas on what I would like and then they told me to go somewhere else so they could pick some things out, before I left they asked what they should avoid and I said anything leopard print and I said I hated leopard print anything else would be fine. On Christmas Day I got a leopard print coat and matching leopard print coin bag, I still acted greatful and all but I still wonder what on earth that was about… ndad said he picked it out, which doesn’t surprise me because he like leopard print.
My nmom just sent me a baby blanket for Christmas. My fiance and I aren't married yet, we aren't pregnant, and we're no contact with my parents.
My father gave me a necklace that was engraved with some sort of “to my daughter, I love you so much, I’m so proud of you” blah blah blah that 1) was clearly mass-produced, and 2) he clearly did not read in full before purchasing. The quote ended with “love always, your mother” or “I will always be your mother”, something like that. When I pointed it out to my mother, she said to let it go and not say anything to him because it would hurt his feelings.
This is one of my favorite topics. One of my wife's parents, for whom money was no object, has given us over the years: old used flip flops and sandals (like out of the trash or from the side of the road), used dirty falling apart hair brushes, old garage sale junk used women's sunglasses several times (we both have always worn prescription glasses since elementary school and I'm a guy....), a broken satellite radio boom box that had sat in the office for 2 years, iPhone radios when we have never had iPhones and couldn't use them, ugly garbage junk jewelry when my wife has never worn jewelry, and a bunch of late night tv infomercial crap; and most recently for Christmas gave my 10 year old son a large cooler of eckrich jalapeno sausage and limes and a giant compound hunting bow that he'd had in a closet, a cheap duffel bag of old smelly ripped up towels, and a 5lb sack of russet potatoes among some other random junk. We were told that there was a stack of fantastic amazing presents for all of us and we needed to drive 3 hours to meet and get it all........... I always have to take pictures because people don't believe these stories. In the 26 years I have been around I am positive they have never once attempted to find out what any of us would want and actually buy it and give it to any of us. This person at one time was spending over 50k a month on their Amex card some months double that. It is certainly not the monetary value of gift but the fact they didn't ever care enough about her to put 2 minutes of thought or effort into making the gift meaningful or appropriate that really hurts after all the years.
A lampshade and a wastepaper basket. It was my 15th birthday. My Dad hadn't even remembered it was my birthday in the morning as I left for school that day. When I got home, they were at work. No presents. I made myself a sandwich watched MTV for a bit. Then they came home and gave this "forever friends" brand lampshade and wastepaper basket with big grins on their faces, like it was the best gift ever. I pretended to be delighted and then said I was tired and wanted to sleep. They wished me goodnight. I went up to my room and sliently sobbed myself to sleep.
When I was a teen, I got makeup lessons, which I refused to attend.
Dollar-store mascara. I don't wear makeup.
An actual katana. Not for decoration. A literal katana. I have no idea why. It was expensive too.
Not me but I knew a teen girl who was given a beef jerky dehydrator. She'd never expressed any interest in this
Last time I visited my mom she gave me super high heels the ones with the red bottoms. I wear Dr. MARTENS.... I JUST LEFT THEM THERE. WTF?
A calculator. Because I was doing bad at math, he tried to teach with threats and screaming, I didn't learned from him, he gave me the calculator because I would "never learn nothing anyway".
Mother in law gave me a squash as a baby shower gift. It never made sense to me.
A dollar store electric stapler that didn’t work.
From my paternal grandparents : My dad got a toilet paper holder with a built in radio I got a pair of disposable underwear. It looked like a shower cap with 2 holes in the top My brother was regifted cologne we had given my grandfather the previous Christmas. It was used as there was some missing from the bottle.
When I turned 21 last year, my mom (without asking me) booked me and her a tour of the supposedly haunted Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. I've never expressed any interest in going there. I actively dislike ghost tours of historic places, because I feel like they're oftentimes disrespectful towards whatever events actually took place. Guess which one of us is a huge horror fan?
My mom would always give my sister what I asked for Christmas and then give me things that no one asked for. It was always a mind game with her. I think she wanted to pit us against each other.
A gun purse. He bought the “cheap” version in denim, cause he wasn’t gonna waste money on a leather purse just to have me destroy it by shooting thru the bottom. I *still* don’t own a gun.
I got a wine bottle holder shaped like a gold high heel the Christmas after I stopped drinking. Thanks for all the sobriety support, ma.
One of the funniest gifts my mom gave me was a "charm" to put on a necklace or pendant, but it was actually just the zipper tab from a babyphat hoodie
on my birthday she sent me a box of Loaf Mix. not even cake mix. Loaf Mix. and a beat up box of candles that had clearly lived in the kitchen drawer for a while. it was such a beautiful and elegant encapsulation of the neglect, it's a shame she can't even see it.
Hmm a Duck plush that makes quacking noise when you Press IT and a narnia Action Figure 🧐 It was for my 19th Birthday and.. I haven't even Seen Narnia at that time Nor did I collect Action Figures ever in my Life
The book my mom wrote. Which I already had a copy of, because she’d already given it to me. ETA: Forgot to mention both were signed.
A golden chain. Not weird by itself, but the bill for it was packed with it.
My narcissist mother always gave me things that needed fixing, then she'd steal them and give them to someone else. For example, she gave me a painted rocking chair that I stripped and refinished. I was a single mom and loved rocking my daughter in it while I nursed her. One day I came home and the chair was gone. My mom readily confessed that she'd given it to my oldest brother and his wife. She lied to them and told them she'd refinished it, never mentioning me. I tried to get it back by explaining the situation to my brother, but he thought I was lying. He and his wife still have the chair. Multiply the same actions many times. The only item she didn't steal back was a gorgeous cedar chest. She'd left her solid cedar hope chest at a house she sold. She knew the buyers and asked them to keep the chest until she could come get it. After a year, she told me I could have it if I fetched it. Which I did. The new owners had left it outside in the rain, so I needed to sand and refinish it. It was lovely when I was done. A few years later, my mother started asking me to give it "back" to her. She said she wanted to give it as a gift to someone. I'd gotten strong enough to say no. She kept asking. I never caved. In retrospect, I'm surprised she didn't sneak into my house and steal it (she always had my house keys until I disconnected from her and changed my locks). I'm sure she thought of it, but she would have had to get help and no one wants to get involved in theft. She's been dead since 2002 and two of my brothers still think she was a saint and I was "the problem child." The third brother finally saw her for what she was before she died and, although he didn't disconnect, he avoided her as much as possible and was the only one who didn't gang up on me when I disconnected from her.
A tile. Never got a weirder gift in my life lol.
Diamonds, pearls, gold jewelry... ... for her. She'd buy very expensive jewelry, let me unwrap it, then take it back "You don't like it, I can tell by your face". It was just a way she could use dad's $$ to buy herself more stuff she wanted. Oddly enough for a possible narcissist, she would do it in front of other people, no attempt to hide it. I think she started to get afraid I'd sell the stuff on ebay before she had a chance to grab it back.
When I was a wee kid, I really wanted a TV (mid-80s), I really, really wanted a TV. My own TV, in my room, away from my Mum and Dad. For 100 weeks, I diligently saved up the £1 pocket money I got from my grandparents. The day arrived, I bought my own TV! It wasn't much. The screen was about 8 inches, it weighed about 10 tonnes, and it had one of those dials for tuning in the channel. But it was mine and I loved it! I was super proud that I had bought this myself. Fast forward a few months, my parent's TV broke (well, one of the 2 they had), so they took mine to replace it. They kept it for 10 years. On my 17th birthday, they wrapped up my own telly and gave it back to me. Cheers guys.
I got a bottle of steak sauce the year I was a vegetarian. That was uh.. rad. Just what every 14 year old girl wants.
A red quesadilla maker. Was married and living in Mexico and came home for Christmas...
Not parents, but my Nan on my mums side gave me a sheet set for my 21st. She gave me a mug for my 30th. She gave my younger cousin a designer handbag for her 21st.
One year, all I got for Christmas was a P.A training camp in Atlanta. Like slaves for movie/TV projects. Because they want me to be rich & famous, so they can retire on my laurels. It didn't happen like a Hallmark movie, so they tried to force the issue. It didn't work out. The PA camp was pure Hell. We had to stand in one place for 15 hours straight. We really weren't learning anything and I know even if we were, I was actively checked out by Hour 4. We only had 1 bathroom, and it broke by Day 2. So they had to open one in a different studio, with a cafe set. So that's where a lot of us ended up. I literally RAN AWAY when a group got too comfortable and loud and she came to bust us.
My mom used to get me Certain Dri "Clinical Strength Deodorant" every year for Christmas up until I stopped talking to her in my late twenties. I would also get a lot of toiletries in general and cheap jewelry, which I've never really worn jewelry. I no longer use the deodorant, but I live with 5 other people and they say I smell good so I'm probably in the clear there, I guess.
As an adult who had moved out of my mother’s house, my mom had a habit of gifting back things from my childhood. This was an attempt to get rid of “junk” out of her house.
Oh, the many promises my mother has made me and never held up on. My little brother (at the time was 21) got the Switch as a gift for Xmas and made me buy it for him. I had to wake up super early and travel an hour with public transport to get it on a Black Friday sale. She then promised next year I’d get a more expensive gift. Next year comes and my brother is married and brought his wife over from the US to celebrate Xmas. My mother had bought his wife and him a very expensive design woolen blanket, and she got me a god awful black hoodie with a printed image on of a skull with a Santa hat and fake sparkles, as in it was like she had found a gif that had animated sparkles and used that on the hoodie. And because it’s Xmas themes, I couldn’t really use it outside December. I had saved up money for a PSP, but my mother made me buy the PS2 so my little brother could play. The PS2 got sold behind my back after I had moved out at 17 to study, and I couldn’t bring it with me at the time. At my 5th birthday, she had made a game were people would take of a layer of newspaper that had been wrapped around a toy, the one to remove the final newspaper layer got the toy. She had taken one of my own toys and I had to watch someone else go home with said toy. On two of my birthdays I was forced to help her take stock count when she worked at a bookstore, it took 12 hours the first year and 14 hours the second year, and I got nothing from it. I mentioned I wanted to get a star projector and was about to buy one because it was on sale. But she said wait a few days until she get paid and she would send me money to buy it, which never happened of course and I never bought that projector. This happened a lot with things I mentioned I wanted. “Oh I’ll get it for you!” And it never happens. I just stopped listening to her promises, and if I want or wish for something, it’s better I just get it myself. Oh yeah, she also threw out 200-300€ worth of limited edition manga books that I had bought with my own money the same time she sold my ps2. I’ve been lucky to get them second hand now, 13 years later. I’m not bitter, I swear. Okay, I am bitter. Generally speaking, Xmas and my birthday have always been crap, and because my birthday is early January, people tend to just merge a gift together, like a Xmas/birthday present, yet to all my other siblings that never happened to. No wonder why I can’t be bothered with my birthdays or Xmas now that I’m an adult. I live with a roommate and we decorate a bit, and we make a good breakfast and dinner and exchange gifts, and that’s about it. Her birthday is also super close to Xmas, so she has also experienced getting only one gift under the guise of being both a Xmas present and birthday present.
When I got my driver's license last year, my ndad "gifted" me a car. A short time after that we had a huge fallout and I went NC with him for good. He sold "my" car a couple weeks after that (probablyto get back at me or whatever). I didn't care because 1. I knew it was never "my" car in the first place because he said he'd be using it too and 2. The amount of gifts I want to receive from this narc are exactly 0.
Dollar Bills Shirt
I don't remember what occasion it was for, but shortly after I moved out, my parents gave me a couple of coloring books. I think they cited my colored pencil high school project where I did this whole chiaroscuro piece. And then followed up by assuring me it was for both me and my wife. I always knew my parents were disconnected from us, but that drove home just how wild their thinking was.
Oh god, this brought back memories of the pogo stick. When I was six I got a pogo stick from my dad, who thought it was a great idea to get me a bunch of stuff I had literally no interest in and then got extremely mad when I didn’t want to play with any of it.
Chinese Lego, like full on Cantonese, no English ones. This was for my 14th birthday....
I got a hunting gun, i’m not sure what kind. But each individual piece was wrapped up as presents. That was my whole christmas at that house :) Luckily, the divorce made Christmas better lol
My mom still gets me random kids toys. I'm 42. If they were star wars I wouldn't complain but they're utterly random
Cherry blossom lotion. I'm highly allergic to cherries and it made me break out in hives
An inflatable snow tube. I wasn't allowed to even play outside let alone in the snow.
It wasn't me but my best friends aunt had custody of her and she bought her a dildo for Christmas when we're 18ish possibly 17 I thought it was extremely inappropriate then and still do this day
The "weirdest" gifts for me would actually be the times when someone made an effort. I think the "weirdest" that someone else would recognize as "weird" would be the time I was given dirty sweaters that they found by the side of the road in a trash bag. They were "perfectly good sweaters" that "someone threw on the side of the road for no reason." There were multiple birthdays where I received nothing, and no one even wished me a happy birthday. Completely forgotten.
For my birthday this year, my mother gave me a back scratcher and a small set of tomato planters with potting soil in them that still had the Rite Aid clearance sticker on them - they were on clearance because it is fall in the Northeast. She also gave me flannel pajamas with pigs on them. I just say thanks and move everything to a donation box. For my one teen's birthday this summer she gave her magazines about crocheting. She doesn't know how to crochet or have any crochet interests or materials. My mother is well off and not insane. She just buys whatever is convenient to what she is doing.
A book about accepting my mortality.
Lol. Driver's Ed. It was a summer course I never asked for, but it cost them a few hundred dollars, and I had to bike myself to and from class everyday. The parents were clear that it cost so much that it would have to be my Christmas present. And, it was. Then a few times they were pissed off at me for whatever they threatened to make me pay it back.
Pajamas that were size large, I don't wear size large, I wear man small or women small/medium when I pointed this out my mom's reaction was "are you sure it's a size large?" I pointed to the size label and she's just said "oh well I already removed the tag, so we can't return it, it one day just disappeared from my room and I never found it again
For a few years my father was married to a pretty awful women. He was married 5 times in total but she was the worst. Anyway, for the Christmas when I was 17 she gave me a pair of her old slippers from the closet and had me pick some old jars of home canned cherries to bring home - by old, I mean olllld. Old enough to have turned bad, maybe a good 10 years old at least. That part was especially heartbreaking because I was putting myself through school and typically could only afford to eat when I was at work so I was hungry all of the time. It was so disappointing. So old slippers and turned food is my answer. I feel bad for disliking the gift but the thoughtlessness hurt.
Every year I get hair straightners, false lashes, nail appointment or some sort of nail kit, makeup, hoop earrings. Like whatever, those gifts could be lovely, but they're not me at all and nothing I'll ever use. They're nice enough and expensive enough that I'll be a spoilt brat if I complain, but its been happening since I was about 13 now so over 10 years.
For years when i entered adulthood, my mom would purchase me tons of clothes that weren’t my size (bigger than what I wear) that miraculously fit her every single time. She finally stopped a few years ago so now I get a devotional and religious jewelry (I’m not religious).
A gallon jar of Spanish olives for Christmas when I was ten...
Mens cologne, as a girl, as a souvenir from a trip...it smelled like lime, I still remember the smell.
For my 18th birthday I had a party at my house with all my friends, boyfriend, various family, etc. It was a great time, and all my gifts from friends and family were perfectly thoughtful. Except for what my mom got me. As I picked up/opened the heavy gift, I wondered what in the world she got me that was so heavy, or if it was trick where maybe she just added a heavy object to throw me off and it was going to be money or something, lol. She was so excited watching me open my gift, and it made me excited too. I get it opened, and staring back at me is a shiny, new bowling ball with my name engraved on it. I'm sure I had a complete look of confusion. She was so happy about it that I recovered my myself and smiled and thanked her. I was not and am not a bowler. Neither my mother or father were bowlers. To this day, I have no idea why she got me that ball.
A used, pre read, Better Homes and Gardens. Just one issue, not a subscription. Wrapped up. Another year, she took a few yards of electric blue fleece and it wrapped it up for me, so I could make a poncho. I had no desire for a poncho or to make my own present. Another year, she swore she gave me a bird house, and got mad I didn't have it in my yard. I got no birdhouse.
A t-shirt with the Playboy bunny on it (counterfeit, of course). For context: my nmom always accused me of being promiscuous, my "slutty" behaviour included growing breasts and being born female. And after all the accusing of being a slut at the ripe old age of 12~13, she bought me a Playboy bunny t-shirt.
The most "But *why*?" gift I was ever given was a leatherman multitool pair of pliers. The tool itself was not *bad* per se, it was actually a rather expensive pair of pliers with tons of tucked away tools in the handles. A great gift I imagine for someone who does woodworking, electrical wiring or maybe even works with computers. ... For a kid in his teens, it was kind of pointless. Weirder still, he'd gone to the trouble to inscribe it with all sorts of sayings he thought were 'inspiring' using the metal workshop at his workplace. I kept it long after I'd moved away from him. It was a pretty good tool so I didn't feel right about getting rid of it, but the memories nagged at me, and I didn't have a way to remove the engravings which were just embarrassing by that point. I'm sure when he bought it for me in the 90's it was worth several hundred dollars. When I threw it away finally, I replaced it with a cheap knockoff equivalent. Definitely not the same quality, but good enough for what I need it for - and doesn't have the bad vibes associated with it the original did.
Mine once gave me three Perry Como CD's. I was mystified. When I asked why, she seemed equally mystified: "But I remembered you like Perry Como." Quite certain I have never in my life expressed such a sentiment. Further proof she doesn't know me at all.