Worst Holiday Presents: And the Winners Are…

?Good lord. I asked for no genuine tragedy in last weekend’s TR contest, but you guys really know how to take it right to the line. The tales of holiday gift woe included some actual death (gift-wrapped death, like I totally set myself up for), some horrible mean-spiritedness, and a surprising amount of canned goods. Now for the Honorable Mentions:

? Beretta Paige, red and green tights at age 17
? Deacon Blues, squeaky dog toys
? Marjorie, notebook of blank lined paper
? D, tattoo on her boyrfriend’s ass reading “100% Grade A Prime Beef”
? electronsexparty, presents covered in (fake) dog shit and puke
? kevsama, shampoo and a comb (while bald)
? seasix, a Black and Decker Scumbuster
? Clever Name Pending, dead fish
? kris, coin purse with one penny — two years in a row
? Rockwell Dingo, used silly putty in a plastic grocery bag
? Drunken Fist, a 25-cent Hello Kitty diary at age 12 and male
? Blahblahbalah, kitchen utensil organizers at age 11
? Mickey Stabs, Pokemon cereal bowls that he had won from Quaker Oatmeal himself (oh, and one was given to his sister)
? Hmmm…, a skirt as an 8-year-old boy
? Hollowedout, a dead guinea pig
? Tom Wu, a bootleg Teletubbies key ring at age 23
? Zoinq, a large eraser of Quasimodo from Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame
? Talking Cricket, a travel mug while his siblings all got computers
? Mak, Harry Potter plastic rocks
? Kayla, a pink cowgirl shirt
? Scortia, an American girl doll and a mandatory tea party
? DeathorGlory, a memo pad from the home office
? Will, an iridescent purse with polka dots, containing brooches and Kleenex, as a grown man
? Zach Lawrence, a bottle of Joy dishwashing soap labeled “Zach’s Bathtime BubbleStuff”
? Capt Ireland, a can of Beefaroni
? DJGigabyte, sweets that he’s allergic too
? Aramea, dollar-store necklace that cut her
? Tank-N-Spank, mocking laughter for wanting roller blades
? stackedhat, two cans of apricots
? Jeffers, deodorant and a very passive-aggressive note
? baron vonKlyff, a chocolate-covered, melted Disney cassette
? Tigerlily, pink satin coathangers
? songhanuk, jack shit
? Spybone, a puzzle of a picture of himself in last year’s shitty Christmas sweater
? dmnyo, pantyliners as a 10-year-old boy

In picking the actual winners, I ended up excluding those gifts that were
given by the insane or the thoughtless, and picked those poor sould
who received gifts solely designed to make them feel bad. I think when
you see the winning entries on the next page, you’ll understand.

And here are the “winners” — I have put it in quotes because this shit that happened to them is fucked up. How awful do you have to be to give someone a gift on Christmas — or any holiday — designed to make them feel like shit? That’s truly, truly low. And again, a surprising amount of canned goods show up.

SpookyElectric said:

A jar of pickles. A Giant Jar of Giant Pickles.
Not so bad, if you’re like me, and love pickles. Not so awesome if 1/2 of your family happens to be cuckoo for coco-puffs and vindictive as hell.
My parents divorced when I was quite young, and my dad moved back in with his parents and lived there for much of my childhood. While visiting my dad at their house sometime in the two months or so before Christmas when I was about 7 or 8, I was unable to finish a picture I was drawing because it was time to go back to my mom’s. I grabbed a random book off my grandma’s bookshelf so I’d have something hard to draw on while my grandpa drove me home. I finished the drawing in the few minutes it took to drive me home, left the book in the van and didn’t think anything of it.
About a week or so later, my grandma calls me down to her sewing room. Generally, being called down there while she is working is a Very Bad Thing. Sure enough, she accuses me of attempting to steal a book about trains (a subject in which I have never shown the remotest of interest) that grandpa found under one of the seats in the van. I explain that it must have been the book I was drawing on, that I didn’t want to steal it, and it must have slid under the seat after I got out of the van. To which she replies “Don’t lie to your grandma, grandma always knows when you’re lying”. I refused to admit to trying to steal a book I had no intention of stealing, so she sent me away crying. Of course, my lovely father refused to back me up on any of this.
Soon after, Christmas decorations go up, and over the weeks, the presents start piling up under the tree. There is, from the beginning a Giant. Jar. Of. Giant. Pickles. No tag, but I know it’s for me, I am the only one who loves pickles that much. As the weeks go on, while visiting my dad I notice that there are a godzillian presents for everyone else. and The. Giant. Jar. Of. Giant. Pickles. for me. And nothing else. A few days before Christmas Eve -the night my grandparents had everyone over, I hide the hated jar, intending to show that I know why it’s the only present for me under the tree and I would rather have nothing than admit to something I didn’t do.
Christmas Eve rolls around and to my horror the FUCKING JAR OF PICKLES IS BACK. I stuff myself into a corner and refuse to pay attention to anything that is going on. The family starts opening presents. Once all gifts are handed out, grandma scoops up the seething ball of Spooky, and asks if I thought I was only getting pickles. “Do you know why?”
….And out come the rest of my gifts. She made the entire family hide their presents from me to make a goddammit point about not lying to grandma about trying to steal a book that I didn’t goddammit want so I would think all I was getting was a goddammit GIANT JAR OF GIANT PICKLES.
Unsurprisingly, I now have 0 contact with my father’s side of the family.
(Apologies for length…)

Paul said:

My parents bought me a bra from Victoria’s Secret. It was a subtle hint to lose some weight. And by subtle, I mean I don’t speak with them anymore.

monkeypicked said:

Okay, so back when my sister and I were in grade school (late 80’s early 90’s) all we really wanted was a SNES. Sooooo very Badly.
But my Mom was married to the biggest DOUCHEBAG ever. He made it fervently clear that he didn’t have any interest in what we wanted for Christmas, let alone the huge hints we’d been dropping for the SNES. At least we thought.
Low and BEHOLD, Christmas morning arrives… (my Mom was always great about presentation, the living room looked amazing!!) my sister and I saw it.. the box was the perfect size and weight.. the tag however said it was from “DoucheBag.” Odd.
We rip into it… its a huge box… filled with cans of Peas and Carrots and Green Beans, WTF?
Douchebag seemed to think it was really funny and began to laugh really loudly and really hard. Sister and I cried, those were the vegetables we hated the most and wouldn’t eat.
To top it all off he told us that if we made it through the next year and ate all the cans of veggies. MAYBE, we’d get a good present next year.
ASSHOLE.
I still hate Green Beans.

That’s wo families actually destroyed by genuinely mean-spirited Christmas presents, and that’s not counting monkeypicked, whose mom divorced DOUCHEBAG after a few years. But still — I wish I could give more than shirts to these poor bastards and bastardettes. SpookyElectric, Paul and monkeypicked, you ever see me, you also get a hug in addition your TR shirts. Actually, everyone who entered has my condolences, and you all get hugs as well. Sure, it’s another cheap-ass gift, but it’s the thought that counts — and my thought is not to make any of you depressed. So that counts for something, right?