66. A History Of Bad Gifts
I’ve got a few stories of terrible gifts, but this one takes the cake every time. Last year my grandfather got me a blanket for Christmas…except that he realized he’d forgotten to get my older sister a present so he gave the blanket to her instead. How do I know this? Because he told us while he was giving out his presents. When I was a little kid (going back about 25 years) I cut the legs off a pair of sweatpants and gave them to my dad for Christmas as “leg warmers.”
No clue where I came up with the idea. Found out a few years ago he still has them and it still cracks him up whenever he sees them. About 10 years ago, my uncle was giving out Christmas gifts to everyone in the family. He’s mentally handicapped but he makes sure to go to the dollar store to buy everyone something, typically mugs. Now, my uncle doesn’t really put much thought into who gets what mug.
He just wraps the mug and puts someone’s name on it. Sometimes people get multiple mugs and other times you get none because he doesn’t keep track of who has already been assigned a mug. Well, my cousin was married to a Muslim (it’s relevant, I promise) and her gift was a mug that said, “Jesus loves you.” It was the only religious-themed mug out of probably 50 and she got it. The entire family was laughing, including her. She thought it was great.