A wholesome mom.

One year I came home for Christmas and my mom had been asking me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her I didn't want anything, I had everything I need and not to get me anything.

Well, come Christmas morning there were a number of gifts with my name on them.. we always hand out all the gifts first and we each had a pretty decent pile..

We always start with the youngest and go up so I was like 3rd or 4th in line, and everyone had pretty normal gifts.. gloves, PJs, usual winter gift stuff.

My turn comes up, I probably have maybe 8 or 9 small packages to open. I open the first one and it's a box of Hamburger Helper.

I laughed and was like, uh thanks Mom..and then I continue.. after 3 boxes of Hamburger/Tuna Helper there's a couple cans of Chef Boyardee and Spaghettios and I'm like.. do you think I'm not eating or something, or are you trying to kill me?

What's with all the random food?

Her response? "No, I just felt bad that you didn't have anything to open on Christmas! You can go put those back in the cabinet when you're done."

Thanks, mom.

iamhyphenated

Outback Steak House? Worth it.

A co-worker of mine won a radio show contest where people were invited to describe the crappiest office gift they ever got.

My friend was the secretary of an IT company and her boss gave her a plastic bowl for Christmas. And it wasn't even a nice plastic bowl.

The first time she put it in the microwave, it exploded.

She won the contest and got a $100 gift card to Outback Steak House. Her boss insisted she take him since it was his crappy gift that caused her to win the contest.

- EGoldenRule

Now THAT'S cheap.

My uncle is notoriously cheap. One year he gave me a magazine that had Ichiro Suzuki on the cover. It was a free magazine (as it stated on the bottom of the cover).

Another year he also gave me a free t-shirt he had gotten for running a race.

Possibly the best, was the birthday gift he gave my dad one year- a McDonalds Happy Meal toy.

- BooksandPandas

Good riddance.

Maybe not the most WTF, but at my old company, we had a secret Santa gift exchange. The manager drew my name, and gifted me a very clearly used zoodler.

He proceeded to explain, in front of everyone, that he though I would have more use for it, as he only ate "real noodles".

I don't work there anymore.

- lola__bunny

Kinda cool but really weird.

An Egyptian pharaoh pen when I was in middle school. It was all gold colored, and the pen barrel stuck out between his legs.

Needless to say i was mocked mercilessly by my classmates for having this massive Egyptian dong pen.

- artnerdhippie

What size?

I have been disabled my entire life. It affects the footwear choices in my life. My mom has bought me dozens of pairs of slippers that I cannot wear. Sometimes multiple pairs per year. I have given up at this point. I just give them away.

When I was a teen, before I moved out she also had given me embroidered dish towels with weird sayings.

She also refuses to actually get my damn size and just holds clothes in the air and looks at them to decide if it looks like it should fit.

- anniemdi

Hope it was good cheese.

A cheese and champagne gift set that had the champagne and most of the other goodies taken out of it. So cheese in a mostly empty box.

- haggisforthesoul

A good rat-boi.

A pet rat, based on me having told the gifter that when I was in elementary school I liked the school's pet rat. I was 26 when I received this gift.

Rat turned out to be a very good rat-boi and we mourned his loss approximately 2 years later.

- jchrysostom

Um....what?

I randomly went to some extended family Christmas event and they gave me a woven basket. Within ten minutes, they had asked for the basket back. It "meant something" to them?? I didn't really care, I thought it was odd and funny.

- Impairedmilkman13

Ok, Grandma.

Christmas, 1993. I was eleven.

My grandma gave me one half of a pool cue.

She gifted the other half to my then-8-year-old brother.

Grandma: "See? You can only use it if you two cooperate and share!"

We did not own a pool table.

- CaptainWisconsin

Dang.

For my 6th grade class Kris Kringle, I received a pack of three tennis balls and a handmade voodoo doll of one of my closest friends. The voodoo doll was constructed of fabric, taped together with sticky tape with sticks inside the limbs so I could 'break' her bones and the face drawn on with a sharpie. It was not specified what the tennis balls were for.

The kid who made me the doll was notorious for his disturbing and unusual behaviour and antics so I wasn't completely surprised by the horrifying gift. Needless to say, he was forced to write me an apology note.

- MadamePandemonium

Salad spinner?

Ok. So, for context my dad was a pretty self-destructive alcoholic, and would often do his Christmas shopping towards the last minute, but not like to go to malls or places that had a lot of variety or choice.

One year he gave me a very carelessly wrapped package. It contained a very crappy remote-control car, also not with any batteries (which is a problem in Australia because everything is closed on Xmas Day haha). I was 26 years old, and had shown ZERO interest in cars. And I realised a few days later he got it from the local petrol station.

Another one was when my mum got me a salad spinner as a semi-gag gift. This was due to her being forgetful and somehow getting me confused with my younger sister, who had tis stupid joke whenever we would all go shopping to point out the salad spinners and pretending to get very excited.

I opened the gift and went "what the?!" and mum went "get it?! It's a SALAD SPINNERRRRR!" in a pretty decent impression of the way my sister would do it. I turned to my sister, gave it to her and said "I think this one was meant for you..."

- TubaDude84

Weird family bonding but ok....

Last Saturday was my birthday and we decided to celebrate at my grandparents' house. My cousin shows up forgetting it's my birthday runs back outside to the car and comes back with a take out box. She tell me happy birthday and gives it to me. I open it and it's one sigliar frozen cheese ravioli.

Then my dad walks over picks up the ravioli smells it and says if I don't want it he'll take. So then my brother wants to smell it so then everyone was passing around the ravioli smelling it.

- Subtly_Existing

Some "gift".

One year for Christmas my grandma gave me the free socks and disposable toothbrush she got on a flight. From her trip to Europe with one of my sisters.

- BabyBelarus

That's sketchy AF.

So I had a therapist (for anxiety and ptsd) who realized that I was really good with kids, so she asked me to help at her ADHD kids group. I knew it was sketchy, one should never work at their therapist, but I needed the money and making music with the kids was so much fun. So every two weeks she'd give me 150€.

But after some time things changed and she sort of used therapy hours to tell me about her problems and I felt, I had to go, because she was more interested in who I was good for (she tried to set me up with other clients to become friends, because she thought I'd be good for them).

So I just waited for the last straw to tip me over the edge and then one day, instead of giving me the 150€ she usually paid me she instead gave me a WEIRD CELLULITE MASSAGE THING that she swore helped so much and literally said: "You could be such a pretty girl". I was just dumbfounded at what the hell she was thinking. I thought about what to say for a few days and then quite literally broke up with her. I had to calm her down and she didn't understand why that gift was just a big wtf.

But hey, I have a much better therapist now, she knows what is appropriate and is awesome.

- CuriousKathie

I had one of these with my Nana that turned into a fucking Hallmark life lesson.

High School, 1998 or so. At some point in October or so I mentioned casually during a visit that my bedroom was chilly at night. Come Christmas, I open my gift from Nana. A space heater.

As a teenager who was hoping for video games or CDs or other such things, I put on the forced-smile rictus and thanked her for the gift while internally bemoaning all the loot that could have been. I must have been grossly unconvincing because she got a bit anxiously-defensive, "You said your room was cold! I thought it'd help out!"

Later that night we head home, I plug the space heater in when I go to bed because why not?

My God. My God, you all!

The DIFFERENCE that space heater made. Actual f'king comfortable sleep for once. No waking up halfway through the night shivering, or getting shocked awake by my foot straying too far from out of the covers.

The next time I went to her house I gave Nana a giant hug, and told her how much better my room was at night with that space heater, and gave her an actual genuine thank you. I didn't even mind the following "I told you it'd help!"

Ever since that Christmas, when I get something practical for Christmas from Nana, I thank her sincerely, because it WILL be useful. I still use that space heater twenty years after the fact, too.

- Strawberrycocoa

It might be the thought that counts, but maybe some of these people should have thought a little more.