Some people have a knack for picking out just the right present, and some don't. My mother, two of my aunts and my DD have always had the gift of finding really neat items and I've always had an adrenaline rush when I saw their names on the tags. I suspect I am more guilty of giving weird presents than getting them.

People my age remember when the stigma wasn't attached to cigarettes and old Mom and pop stores on the corner sold little packs of candy ones with one end of the cigarette dipped in red dye to look like it was lit. You'd prolly be drawn and quartered if you ever gave those to a child now. But, I found a WHOLE CARTON of them and gave them to my niece and let's just say my sister wasn't impressed. I bought my sister in law's kids a set of snare drums because she bought mine a set of finger paints the year before and they painted my carpet and walls with them. So I don't think my SIL was impressed either. I have seen that rather deflated look on the recipients faces more times than I care to remember.

OTOH I have gotten a few whoppers where gifts are concerned. A garbage can from my ex husband and a twenty two rifle. The rifle I was actually happy about. I have never figured out the garbage can. What bothered me most was not the gifts, but he was so excited about coming up with that combination, he showed them to me before Christmas. That is a no-no. I was peeved about having the surprise ruined.

I've receive a statuette made of cow dung. That's a close second.........from my sister vis a vis the candy cigarettes. She also got me one year a casserole set what looked vaguely familiar. It was familiar because it was the same gift she got me for Christmas the year before.

Hmmmm---I guess I can only think of one odd gift that sticks out from all the others. I was 17 and full of myself. Really thought I was a grownup young lady. My step mother gave me a pair of pj's. Snaps at the waist, drop seat and feet with non skid soles. I was mortified. Especially since it was opened in front of the whole family. Took years to not be teased by my brothers for that one.

My SIL got a broom for Valentine's day once. Does that count? Every year, my sister and I always got the same gift from my father's mother. Sis's was usually pink and mine was usually blue (it could be blankets, sweaters, dolls, you name it!). We learned the hard way, if one of us picked up hers, we had to alert each other to also pick up yours, and we would simultaneously unwrap it, all the while giggling our head's off trying hard not to show each other the gift until they'd seen it, so as not to ruin the surprise. Man I miss my grandmother. Those were the days.

My brothers, twins, used to get each other the most outrageous, awful Christmas presents.

One year, one of 'em got a box of feminine hygiene products (he thanked his brother gravely & said he'd been needing some of "those" to light campfires at the lake), & the other one, who was losing his hair, got a Chia head.

LOL. I always wondered what you could really do with one of those Chias. Now I know. Do they even have them anymore? Do they still have those lamps you can clap on and off?

I sent my youngest daughter a preserved alligator head last year and she didn't even think it was funny. Other things too, but I thought an alligator head was a memorable gift. She didn't share my humor.
theo

I would have to say the worse present years were when the dd was 10 and when I was 10. We had a mother daughter tradition that I would buy her a new outfit for the Christmas Eve service. I would wrap it all up and let her open it that night. No one else got any presents till Christmas day. I found a really darling, I thought, outfit at Lazaras (THE department store in the Columbus area). It was a plaid skirt, a little white blouse with a Peter Pan collar, and a matching sweater with Scotty dogs. Her expression was priceless, but she wore it any way. After that, we changed the mother daughter tradition to buying the outfit together. When I was 10 my grandmother bought me a scratchey, lacey "bra", a sort of half camasole and lacey panties. UGH. DD would have been thrilled. Ten is just so much older now.

Lazaras is where our rural mailbox cover came from. LOL

Steve gave a horrible gift to his sister a few years ago. Actually, the gift was nice, but the post office made it awful. He bought a gourmet meat assortment from a local pheasant farm. (They love to cook, and would have appreciated his selections.) Some of the pheasant meat was smoked, some was fresh. It is shipped frozen on ice packs. Except for some unknown reason, the post office opened the package and removed the ice packs (you could see the package had been opened and re-sealed). His sister and BIL were out of town for a day. They came home to a box of bloody, leaking, warm pheasant meat on their front step. The company reshipped, and it was flawless the second time around... but I think his sister was too grossed out at that point to care...