I hate getting books for Christmas in general because I’m such a mood reader, and I’ve plastered a fake smile on my face many a time and repeated internally ‘Its the thought that counts.’ as I unwrap a book I will not read.
But the worst one by far, given to me by my own Mother , who I know loves me, when I was fourteen years old! was >!Men are from Mars Women are from Venus.!< I am sitting there horrified thinking what is she trying to tell me? As my sisters are flat on the floor laughing to the point of puking. We eventually came to the conclusion she just saw an attractive cover on a bestseller table and grabbed it. Love to know your terrible gift stories.
You must log in or register to comment.
My mother got me The Secret once as a gift. The Secret is one of two things: irrational bullshit or dangerous black magic. (It’s the first one)
I collect Stephen King novels and his books usually come out right before my birthday. I had to politely ask everyone to not buy me the new Stephen King because one year I got like 5 of the same book. So not a terrible book but too many of a good thing.
My in laws got both me and my husband really nice travel guides for Alaska. I think we got 3 in all, covering everything you would want to enable you to plan the perfect trip regardless of budget. (The clever ones might see where this is going…) We were not, in fact, planning a trip to Alaska, nor did we have any interest in going. My in-laws were, though!
If I’m interpreting it extremely generously, maybe they were trying to convince us to go with them and make it a family trip. We had already told them firmly no because besides not wanting to go to Alaska in the slightest, I was pregnant and not feeling like traveling.
My mother in law also has gotten me Dawn dish soap and bulk red lentils for Christmas, and has given her son, my husband, saran wrap. So perhaps interpreting it generously isn’t warranted. 🤣
For reasons beyond fathoming, multiple people thought that the perfect gift for a teenage girl (me) who loved reading (specifically sci-fi, fantasy, and horror) was harlequin romance novels. Like no hate to those who enjoy them but I sincerely loathe the bodice-ripper genre as a whole.
My friends back in school knew I loved to read, but didn’t really care about what I liked to read.
So when 50 shades came out, they decided to gift me the box-set. Usually, I’m opposed to book burning but I wanted to make an exception for this one. It was boke-rama.
Not Christmas, but someone gifted my daughter a very sexist first Bible for girls board book for her birth. A lot in there about obeying men? It went straight in the trash.
The book itself was great, my use of it in the first 30 seconds after opening the gift was questionable. I was about 10 years old and liked to learn unusual words and obscure vocabulary. A sibling bought me some book for Christmas, the title was something like DICTIONARY OF UNUSUAL WORDS AND OBSCURE VOCABULARY. The extended family (other siblings, aunts, uncles, my parents) were gathered around and someone said, “Go ahead, teach us a new word!”
So I opened the book at random, saw a word I didn’t know, and (after looking carefully at the pronunciation key), announced, loudly:
“COITUS.”
Evidently, I was not the only person who didn’t know the word, because someone said, “Huh? What’s the definition?” Which I then read aloud. During the immediate and profoundly awkward silence, my mom suggested it was time for cookies and egg nog for everyone!
This book was quickly set aside on the shelf and not consulted publicly again, that I can recall.
I think I like you and your family. I can really see that! You told the story well.
Thanks.
A book by Joel Osteen… I’m an atheist.
Love Reading and my family knows that this but won’t get me a book unless I directly ask, so the worst one has to be either the bible or the French dictionary, I lost both of them
No book at all. :( (Seriously, when I was a kid, they wouldn’t buy me books because “That’s not a present!”. Now that I’m an adult with grown kids, it’s “You work in a library, you don’t need it!” :stomps foot in temper:)
I did get an inappropriate book for Christmas when I was 14 - my Dad bought me a Robert Heinlein box set (great!), which included “Stranger in a Strange Land” (awesome), and a book which included some of his more sexually-charged works. One featured incest! My dad eventually read them all, and I got a cryptic “If you read something you don’t understand, you come ask me, ok?” When I got to that book, I was horrified, paralyzed by the knowledge that my DAD knew exactly what I was reading. :laughing:
Robert Heinlein […] book which included some of his more sexually-charged works.
That… doesn’t really narrow it down.
One featured incest!
Neither does this.
Haha okay that tracks. I haven’t read much Heinlein but I remember being very confused at the end of Time for the Stars when his brother’s granddaughter was like “Hi uncle time-dilation with pop-pop’s DNA. Welcome back to Earth. We’re getting married now.”
“Sorry, what?”
“I grew up trading your thoughts. It’s not incest if you’re psychic.”
A large, ornate family bible.
It’s not even a book you can regift to someone when you’re done reading it. It will remain in a drawer forever, because I also can’t bring myself to throw it away.
David Mitchell has a rant on WILTY about receiving a gift and putting it away somewhere for someone else to deal with after you’re dead.
My family knows not to gift me books unless I specifically ask for it, but a family member gifted me the box set of V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic series when I was like 11-12. That series is just awful, and I read it at such an impressionable age I still don’t know what they were thinking (or why I read all 4 of them)
That’s terrible. They’re all about incest. I guess my complaint of my mother giving me Nicholas Sparks books isn’t too valid.
I’m a late Gen-X and everyone I know read those books way too young.
Exactly what I was going to say! Weird rite of passage.
I think we were all issued ‘Pink Floyd’s The Wall’ too.
Early Millennial and I totally read my mom’s copy. I’m pretty sure my friends did as well. Those got around for at least a decade! 😂
For a certain generation of girls born between 1975-1985, V.C. Andrews was a tween-age rite of passage.
It started much, much earlier than that. Flowers was published in 1979. I remember all of us girls freaking out in 9th grade Spanish class one day (1984) because the class clown was casually giving out spoilers to Seeds of Yesterday. (IYKYK)
I had a stint in eating disorder treatment right before Christmas one year as a teenager. A couple in my extended family, who I have little in common with and don’t know very well, got me an ENORMOUS book of “positive thinking” platitudes. Genuinely it was ~500 pages of the kind of corny quotes you see MLM types post on Instagram ripped from their original context. I tried to comb through it to find something of value but not a single quote meant anything to me. A lot of them were religious too, and I am not religious- the atheism of my immediate family is actually a huge source of drama in the extended family so that was awkward.
I ended up giving it away to a book donation drive shortly after. They really did mean well and I appreciated the thought, but it also showcased the ignorance that my family had around the situation in an uncomfortable way…
At 13 I received The Ultimate Weight Solution for Teens by Jay McGraw (son of Dr. Phil) from a family friend. When I opened it they said “because you’re a teen now.” Apparently it was the best way to celebrate that. This was 2003ish so a toxic time for body talk but I remember thinking why tf should I have to thank them for this obviously rude gift? No one in my family acknowledged how weird it was and it sat on a shelf for years.
I would’ve thrown hands. I’m so sorry!!!
Side story: one friend’s father was recovering from Big C surgery and being grumpy. Someone gifted him “Deep Thoughts” by Jack Handly. He laughed so hard he almost hurt himself.
“It’s a shame how a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs.”
My favourite Jack Handy was ‘People think clowns are funny but I don’t. In fact, I think they’re kind of scary. I think it’s because when I was a child, a clown killed my dad.’
Probably not remembering it exactly right but I laughed so much.
God I hate that shit. I’ve had my own mental health issues and getting angry on my own behalf has dragged me out of more depressive holes that positivity ever did. I might do a self help book of my own. How to get angry and set boundaries by I Jackdaw.
Very glad you survived your dangerous illness.
I’d read that one, too. Positivity has its place, but that’s not the be all/end all.
Not me, but my friend’s terrible father bought her a book about STD’s and a book about how to be a Proper Lady one year when she was like 10. Gag.
My BIL bought my niece a Bill O’Reilly book when she was about twelve. She’s now 31 and a raging liberal, lol.
You’re having me flash back to the Glenn Beck book someone got me as a kid. Same outcome lol.
I was not gifted it but told I could read his copy of Sarah Palin’s book. I opened it, read a couple random trash pages, and declined.
How many brain cells did you lose during that time?
I could literally feel my neurons cry out in agony and had to slam the book shut and throw it across the room.
Could you see Russia?
M
Ugh, yes, I got an etiquette book when I was 16, already too polite a teenager, while my three brothers burped and farted and cursed their way to adulthood
I always get suspicious when people describe themselves as polite.
Ok
Girl what
It was Hanukkah. My cousin and I were the same age, we often fought, so we were always given the same gifts each year. One year, my mom got my cousin the new Kirby game for Gameboy. She said she got me something different from my cousin this time, and it was a little bit crazy.
I was pumped, because obviously this meant I was finally getting a pet chameleon.
It was a dictionary. A big, blue fucking Costco dictionary. My disappointment was immeasurable and my Hanukkah was ruined.
Please tell me you were given an explanation later in life. Those two things are so vastly different that there must be one.
No explanation, my mom is just kind of crazy and doesn’t understand a lot of things. 🤷 Like, she was a nurse working with doctors who actually knew how to push their children to academic excellence and she often tried to keep up with the Joneses without understanding how it actually worked. Hence buying a dictionary for her child so she could probably go brag to her work friends about doing that.