If you’ve ever received a bad gift and struggled to contort your face into something resembling happiness rather than the horror you truly feel, whilst mumbling your thanks, you’ll know that it can be an incredibly awkward experience. Nobody wants to appear ungrateful, but some people truly suck when it comes to finding gifts. People shared the worst Christmas gifts they ever received on the AskReddit forum, and some of these will blow your mind!

My husbands step mother gave me, a 36 year old at the time, a kindergarten size back pack and when I opened it she said, “I actually bought that for ——- (a child) a few years ago and she hated it so I threw it in a closet and I saw it and thought you’d like it. None of us did, we all think it’s ugly.”

That same year they gave my 3 kids gifts totaling all together $15 with the clearance stickers on them while her biological granddaughter opened a $300 unicorn. Which they made sure we knew cost $300, and then they pointed out to everyone our clearance stickers and what great deals they were (they weren’t), and then they made my kids leave the room so the grand daughter could take pics alone with her unicorn.

It was the last Christmas we visited them. Lol (deleted)

A dishtowel.. I was 8 years old. (Ghostly0be)

A set of miniature butter knives with ceramic fruit and vegetables as the handles. From an aunt who said that I was “So hard to shop for”

I was 7. (vodkaenthusiast89)

My cousin once gave me an autographed picture of himself. Which was funny as hell so I didn’t mind. (TheZ)

When I was eight or nine, my grandma gave me a Christmas ornament. It was a little stuffed cherub with pink cheeks and yarn hair.

I cried because I had saved up my allowance to buy it for her the year before. (DogtownPD)

A Spam calendar.

Twelve months of…pictures of Spam.

I was a 14 year old girl. I didn’t know what to do with my face when I opened it. (neeighteen83)

It wasn’t the gift itself, but my dad misspelled my name on the packaging.

It really hurt my feelings but he made it out to be a big joke. (kindamymoose)

My mother bought me a 4 probe bluetooth equipped meat thermometer….I’v been vegan for years. (Feelin_Dead)

My ex husband gave me a gift of half the cost of my monthly bus pass. Half. Like, you have no idea what to give me, so you’ll pay for me to get to work for a month, but not the whole amount because that’s too much. (Grumblegrumblehiss)

Girlfriend at the time gave me a turtle. Like just handed me the little guy with a “Merry Christmas”. No tank, food, or supplies. Loved that turtle though. Shitty gift, awesome turtle. (kobewan420)

I’m 2 years older than my sister. When she was 5 we walked up to the tree a couple weeks before Christmas and found a huge box with her name on it. I was pissssed. I would cry and she would brag about it every night.

Then Christmas came and she opened the huge box. It was a large reading lamp. She couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t stop laughing.

Best Christmas ever. Wait what was the question? (vgavaldo)

My mother has a morbid streak, loves cemeteries, serial killers etc. One Christmas she gets me a tacky little marble box. She says it’s what she wants me to use for her urn after she dies. I know she’s serious. I was polite at the time, but had to explain to her later that mental images of my mother’s corpse doesn’t make for a merry Christmas.

It’s still in her office, but when she dies I’m throwing it out. Sorry not sorry mom. (DownBeat20)

So I was dating a guy for a few months when Christmas rolled around. He had recently started a new job that required travel and this was before smart phones and built in GPS in your car were common, so I splurged a bit and got him a Garmin to help him find his way. Thoughtful, useful, but not too sentimental; it felt perfect for where the relationship was at the time.

Due to schedules, we couldn’t get together until a few days after Christmas. In my haste to go see him, I walked right out the door without his gift. I didn’t realize it until I got to his house and I felt terrible, but he said, “No worries, I’ll give you your gifts now and I’ll just get mine later.”

Cool. So he goes into the other room and comes back with two wrapped gifts. I noticed some of the paper was messed up like it had been rewrapped, but didn’t think much of it in the moment.

I carefully unwrapped the first package.

It was a MMA magazine. That had clearly been read.

I was… confused.

I do not like MMA. Not even a little bit. Nor have I ever expressed interest in MMA. Not once.

He, on the other hand, loved all things MMA.

Trying to move on, I politely thanked him, set the magazine down, and refocused on the next gift.

I could tell it was a DVD from the shape of the package.

And indeed, it was a DVD. A Forrest Gump DVD. With the cellophane wrapper missing.

Now don’t get me wrong, Forrest Gump is a solid choice. Except, I already owned a Forrest Gump DVD. And now here I was suddenly the proud owner of a second copy that appeared used.

I again thanked him and sat there quietly, trying to wrap my head around how he could have arrived at the conclusion that a used magazine on a topic I didn’t like and a secondhand DVD of something I already owned would make for good Christmas gifts.

He also got a little quiet, then sheepishly volunteered, “I, uh, got bored so I watched the movie yesterday.”

I just stared.

“And then I, uh, hadn’t seen that issue yet… so I went ahead and read through it. I think you’ll really like it!”

I slowly responded, “So… you got me a magazine because you wanted to read it and then watched the movie you got for me because you were bored?”

His only response was, “Well yeah, I guess so.”

I left not long after.

The next day, I returned the Garmin for a full refund.

About a week later, he called and said he didn’t think it was working out. “No problem,” I said, “I don’t think it’s working out either.”

As we were wrapping up the call, expressing well wishes and all that, he paused for a beat and said, “Hey, uh, were you still going to give me that Christmas present?” (beehaw7)

What’s the worst Christmas gift you’ve ever received?