Worst Christmas Gift You've Ever Received

It's almost that time. Time to traipse over to Aunt Gertrude's house for an hour so you can feign enthusiasm over the hand-knitted argyle mittens she made you while her pug, Delilah, drools on your shoes.

Everyone has been the unwilling recipient of a horrible Christmas gift at least once. Your eyes grow wide with disbelief; your breathing suddenly becomes deep and labored; the room momentarily spins with you as the central axis. It's like being punched in the chest with goodwill toward man.


When I was, oh, fourteen years old, my aunt gave me a sweater vest and shirt combination for Christmas. The vest was knitted from bright red yarn. The shirt was a plaid, polyester blend of brown and forest green. The entire combination was extremely garish and honestly, it looked like something you'd see on BBC footage from 1968. Now, never in my life had I ever worn a sweater vest, and I wasn't really into flannels either, especially non-cotton types. I don't know why she thought I'd be thrilled with this. But it's her comments that hit me like a frying pan to the skull more than anything else.

"Now you have something nice to wear to school." she said.

I was fourteen and weighed about 100 pounds soaking wet. My primary goal in school each day was escaping with my life intact. There was no way in seven levels of Hell that I was going to wear a brown/green plaid shirt with red knitted vest to class unless I somehow developed super-speed and flight that same day.

I believe it laid at the bottom of my dresser for around four years until I decided it had been long forgotten enough that I could cut it into strips for my own joy and throw it out without anyone else asking where it went.


What is the most misguided, ill-conceived Christmas (Or Hanukkah, Kwaanza, or Solstice - we are not discriminatory in this thread) gift you've ever been given? Share your horror stories so that the rest of us can mock your misfortune and feel a little bit better about the ponies-and-clouds jigsaw puzzle sitting at the bottom of our closet.

Jam it back in, in the dark.