s/o-what terrible gifts have you gotten from ILs?

[meij]

Do you have your own angel nightlight hiding in your house?

H grandma gives us the worst stuff. Thankfully she lives far away and will never be in our house. She has an embroidery machine and specializes in terrible embroidered gifts that can not be donated since they always have our names on them.

The worst has been a throw pillow cover that was brown corderoy with lace edges. The embroidered picture is an overturned cowboy hat filled with wildflowers. Then there are bucking broncos in each corner. All of DH siblings got one and the rest of them actually keep it out on their couches.

She also makes my H sweatshirts with deer heads or eagles and his name lol. My FIL wears these. Once at my SILs high school graduation I was like oh, FIL wore a normal dress shirt. Then he turned around and there were three giant deer head on the back.


So what's hiding in your house?

[meltoine]

Nothing horrible, but my MIL has given us at least 4 fondue pots because she keeps forgetting she already got us one. I have never made fondue.

[Deleted]

My step-MIL a few Christmases ago got me a long-sleeve white lace nightgown. It's similar to this. WTF, does she think I'm a virgin Amish farmer's daughter?! I threw it out.

[shortstax]

A bust of David. I have no clue why. He now sits on our mantle as an inside joke and we put seasonal bowties on him.

[bullsgirl]

My grandma ( who was pretty much a nutcase, and also NOT an artist, may she rest in peace) painted this really weird portrait of me and expected it to be hung in a prominent spot in the house. I tried just hanging it there when she came over, but one day I forgot and she was pretty hysterical over it. I ended up convincing her that I was just moving it to my favorite room in the house, which was actually a room I never went in.

Also, my MIL dated this guy for like 5 years. Every year for Christmas he gave my H and his brothers each a toolbox. No tools, just a toolbox! Who needs a new toolbox every year!?

[oliviapope]

All from MIL

A pair of teal silk Capri pants 4 sizes too big (which she knew because SIL and I are same size

Perfume she knew I was allergic to

Candles from dollar tree wrapped in a Nordstrom bag

A super creepy Christmas elf/jingle man

[Deleted]

Oct 20, 2014 15:46:28 GMT -5 @esquirefish said:

A bird. An actual living bird. Whose cage requires weekly cleaning, money spent on food, etc. (First rule of gift-giving - never give a live anything to a house you don't live in.)

Oh God, this is my worst nightmare. That would be terrible. 

[electricmayhem]

Does it have to be from the IL's?  I say this slightly TIC, but my mother buys my kids terrible gifts.  She is big into thrifting (and I'd classify her own house as teetering near Hoarders territory) and we get boxes and boxes of CRAP all.of.the.time. Toys with broken parts / missing pieces.  Hideous clothing that is usually out of season, sometimes the wrong sizes, in styles I'd NEVER put them in and ALWAYS missing the tags.  A sleeping bag that she insisted she "bought new", yet was in a plastic case with no labels and smelled faintly of wet basement mold. 

Come to think of it, she buys terrible gifts for my sister and I for our birthdays as well.  I'll make an Amazon wishlist and put something on it like this:

Attachment Deleted
 Which is like $25 from Loft. And then what I'll get in the mail looks something like this:


Attachment Deleted

And she'll insist that she bought this one because she "fell in love with the pattern" and thinks it's just the same as the one I asked for. As an added bonus, the second one will be some brand I've never heard of with no tags attached.

Thankfully, she lives 1200 miles away and doesn't see how I usually flip her boxes immediately into the trash or Goodwill piles.  And I've tried telling her to stop, don't waste the money on postage, that my kids don't need more stuff--she will not hear of it.  I think, for her, it's all about the hunt.

My ILs always give cash, which is nice.  :-)

[jackpackage]

Oct 20, 2014 15:46:28 GMT -5 @esquirefish said:

A bird. An actual living bird. Whose cage requires weekly cleaning, money spent on food, etc. (First rule of gift-giving - never give a live anything to a house you don't live in.)

OMG, do they hate you?  

[Deleted]

Oh where do I start? I have to leave in 5 minutes but my (late) aunt once gave me a Dickey. I was also like 10 so not in need of a Dickey whatsoever.

DH's (also late) grandmother gave his niece a fake diamond necklace and let everyone assume it was real.

My inlaws recently tried to give me two framed photos they found in their house - one was an old timey photo of their family dressed up like the 1920's that you can take at tourist locations and the other was a headshot of my FIL from when he was working in an office and presumably needed one like 30 years ago. Mind you this was our congrats on buying a house that we didn't feel like visiting for eight months gift and I was literally like "we don't have any place to hang these, please take them back."

[stacyb1983]

Oct 20, 2014 15:46:28 GMT -5 @esquirefish said:

A bird. An actual living bird. Whose cage requires weekly cleaning, money spent on food, etc. (First rule of gift-giving - never give a live anything to a house you don't live in.)

I was going to answer, but you friend have won the internet for the day. WOW.

[Deleted]

I got a huge piece of slate one year with an oil painting of a Yorkie one time. I have a Yorkie (that used to be hers, but then she didn't want it so we took it when we got married), but it looks absolutely nothing like our dog. and it's ugly. I used to set it out when she would come over, but unfortunately it "broke" a couple of years ago. I was devastated. 

[brooklyn]

An obnoxiously loud ball popping toy last Christmas after I told her loud toys trigger my migraines.

[meij]

Oct 20, 2014 15:46:28 GMT -5 @esquirefish said:

A bird. An actual living bird. Whose cage requires weekly cleaning, money spent on food, etc. (First rule of gift-giving - never give a live anything to a house you don't live in.)

Noooooo!

[redheadk]

My MIL brought us a purple/blue/green metallicish glass vagina vase from Seattle with dried lavender in it. It's about to go live upstairs in DH's office, where everything she gives us ends up

[kershnic]

A DVD of the Carol Burnett show. Which I was then quizzed about at the next holiday gathering.

[jloww]

Every Christmas she gives me a set of festive salt and pepper shakers. I'm up to 7.

[Deleted]

Oct 20, 2014 15:48:13 GMT -5 @supergreen said:

My step-MIL a few Christmases ago got me a long-sleeve white lace nightgown. It's similar to this. WTF, does she think I'm a virgin Amish farmer's daughter?! I threw it out.

ooh, H and I actually got matching flannel nightgown's last year. MATCHING!

[kangaroo11]

It doesn't hold a candle to some of these, but MIL is clueless. She told me she wanted to get DD "Classic English stories". Okay, no prob. Except she bought a huge hardback with 400 paper pages of Beatrix Potter for DD's first birthday. The kid still rips paper and I'm not letting her near it until she's 5.

[drloretta]

Our house is full of them

This horse that was DH's. Except it's old and broken



ShamWows that were my 40th birthday present

A contraption that lets me microwave spaghetti

A 3' x 4' x 4' cardboard castle for DD

Not terrible, but she just got us a set of Belleek china that DH and I aren't fond of. It could be worse

Old decor from DH's grandma that had been in the ILs' attic for years.

A tan and pink floral sofa

[redheadk]

The vagina vase.

[ssmjlm]

FIL gave us a 8x10 headshot one year. It was so weird and random. DH put it in the garage where it proceeded to fall on my head when I was trying to get something else down. I threw it out.

MIL gave me some random hair thing, a jewelry scarf?, and last year a pendant that says E's name on it, but is huge and gaudy.

My SIL always gave a basket of random shit. One year it was broken cheap jewelry and runny shower gel that gave me hives.

I'm so glad we do kids only now.

[hrp22]

Oct 20, 2014 15:46:28 GMT -5 @esquirefish said:

A bird. An actual living bird. Whose cage requires weekly cleaning, money spent on food, etc. (First rule of gift-giving - never give a live anything to a house you don't live in.)

I wouldn't even accept that.  Did you?  That's so awful.  Who does that?  

[thejen626]

Haha this is long but worth the read. My MIL gifted me a cookie jar two years ago...then told me to wrap it up for other SIL...so strange! Lol

pandce.proboards.com/thread/110954/wwmmd-crazy-christmas-gift-long

[Deleted]

Well my MIL is bipolar and when she is manic she shops. We end up with lots of weird things. She once brought us 13 bottles of.juice and 17 bottles of various kinds of lotions. Not kidding. She also once brought me three bags of dresses she had purchased at a thrift shop. I was pregnant with the girls and these dresses ranged in size from xs petite to 4x. It was ridiculous.

[Deleted]

My MIL gave me a Vaporizer last Christmas. I dont smoke pot.

[panicked]

My exMIL used to send me half eaten boxes of cracker and cereal so we "wouldn't starve." I have absolutely no clue where she got that, since we were better off than she was. She wasn't trying to be nice either.

My aunt got me a short-sleeved, turtleneck angora sweater one year. It sounds nice, but no. My neck was boiling, my arms were freezing, and literally went with nothing.

[chickadee77]

There are ever so many.

I got an embroidered pillow and a book of inspirational sayings with cat pictures. I've gotten some of the ugliest clothes I've ever seen. Thankfully, my MIL seems to be moving toward gift cards. I've never gotten a gift from my SIL. Lol.

[Yankees21]

Mine aren't nearly as bad as some others, but MIL buys me Coach purses for every occasion (H's aunt is high up there and gets discounts). Some have been cute but some are totally NMS. Last Christmas she asked if I wanted one, and I said "no thanks, I have plenty for now" and I got one anyway. She said, "I know you said you didn't want one, but I couldn't think of anything else." Then she asked me later in the year why I wasn't using it, lol.

[shellbear09]

Humm my sil tends to give lots of little random gifts that I hate. Oh and for awhile she was on a kick of giving a homemade oranament to each family member. One was this little clay angel that looked to be painted by a 5 year old with my initial on it. I really hate doing adult gifts.