My husband of 15 years bought me a set of beginner's golf clubs for my birthday.  I HATE golf... I've NEVER golfed, don't like to watch it on TV, and certainly have never displayed any interest in learning how to golf.  What you must know about my husband is this... He's cheap; he will only likes to buy things that are "On Sale".

The set of clubs he bought me was a JUNIOR SIZED set... meaning they were for KIDS!!  They were sale priced at 60% off and although it was a good bargain, they were a set I could NEVER (and would never) use!  Oh, it's not that I didn't try to be good spirited about it... I actually went to the driving range in attempt to learn to use them but because they were WAY too short, I ended up throwing my back out horribly on my first swing!  I came home, tossed the bag of clubs onto the ground in front of him and told him "TAKE THESE BACK!   IF YOU WANT TO WASTE MONEY BUYING THINGS THAT ARE USELESS, THEN BUY YOURSELF A BOX OF TAMPONS... YOU'LL GET AS MUCH USE OUT OF THE TAMPONS AS I WILL GET OUT OF THESE CLUBS!"

He couldn't return the clubs because they were on sale...  so for HIS birthday I gave him a beautifully wrapped box of Tampons!  To this day, neither of us have used the birthday gifts we gave each other that year!

LOL!!  I shall place the cookie jar in a place of honor. :)  Thank you.

When I was 7, I bought my brother a pair of gray Puma soccer cleats, that I thought were so cool. My brother, who was 14,  was not impressed but my mother made him wear them to school, anyway. We laugh about that to this day.

My mother in law gave me a shower curtain for Christmas--we have enclosed showers.  I took it back to Montgomery Wards and got $4.00-true story-the worst gift ever.

I had been with my boy friend 10 months at the time and it was our first xmas together.  I helped him shop for all his xmas gifts for his family and when xmas day came he hadn't bought me anything.

My husband and I were still young married and were on a tight budget one year.  Anyway, I had asked him to pick me up a deodorant because I was out.  The day of my birthday, he came home with the deodorant, put it in front of me and said "Happy Birthday!".  I didn't really get upset because I knew we had very little money in our checking account.  Three days later he came home with a $1500 paint ball gun.  Beat that.

Many years ago, my youngest daughter was very carefully counting all the presents under the Christmas tree.  How many for who and so forth. She was always trying to compete with her older sister in the "how many did you get?" category.  After several years of this, I decided to teach her a lesson.  I "name-tagged" all the gifts opposite.  Her's were her sister's and vice versa.  You shoulda seen the look on her face Christmas morning, when I told her.  The "I've been had" expression was priceless!!

I have to vote for Possummamma and her scarlet fever.

Mattloch, have you read the story about the two brothers who kept regifting the same pair of pants year after year, but each year, the wrapping became more bizarre and more difficult to get into?  If not, go to snopes.com and look up "Panting in Anticipation".

At Christmas time, my family used to exchange what we called "Santa gifts."  The tradition started with my great-grandfather and continued until about ten years ago. It seemed to lose steam after some of the most hardcore "Santa gift" givers passed away.  Occasionally the gifts would include such pranks as you described, Mattloch.  More often than not, however, a "Santa gift" would be something useless or down right gross.  Some actual examples were:  a knitted candlestick holder; swim goggles that had the plastic lenses popped out; a pair of sunglasses that my sister thought she had lost, only to find out she had dropped them when she got out of her car, and when she found them later they were covered with bird poop; the ceramic mouth impression from one of my siblings who had braces; the staples from my father's cancer surgery; and an industrial size can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. 

The latter was a favorite that got passed around year after year.  Sometimes that year's recipient would hide the can of soup in another family member's house only to be discovered months later.  That happened to me once.  My brother came to visit one February.  A few months later while I was doing some thorough house cleaning, moving furniture around, etc., I found the can of soup behind the sofa.  What a laugh I had!   The original can was rumored to have been put in my grandfather's casket by my father. 

Some years ago I was shopping at Costco, and to my astonished surprise they had industrial sized cans of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup!!!  I bought enough cans to send one to all of my siblings, my mother, and even went so far as to send one to myself.  I mailed them via UPS and for the return address I wrote "Santa Claus, North Pole."  When everyone opened a gift Christmas morning to find a huge can of mushroom soup, the accusations began to fly.  But since everyone had received a can, no one could figure who the culprit was that sent them.  I could honestly say I had received one, too!  My brother went so far as to call UPS and try to trace the package, but all they told him was their records showed the sender was "Santa Claus."  I almost got away with fooling everyone until my mother asked my son, who was around 4 or 5 at the time, "Bobby, did you send Grandma this big can of soup?"  "Oh, no, Grandma.  Mom bought those at Costco."   BUSTED.

Possummomma, have you ever heard the epic "Cows With Guns?"  "He was a scrawny calf, who looked rather woozy, no one suspected he was packing an Uzi." 

http://www.guntheranderson....

while I would get a pack of pens (,99cents)

Ouch.  But, you could've turned it on her and wrote glorious manifestos about how evil she was. :)

This is blatant prejudice against cows.  *crosses arms and pouts*  I hope that cookie jar throws of the shackles of it's bovine oppressors and finds a loving home. 

;)

I love cows!! LOL 

The worst gift I was ever given was scarlet fever.  No.  Seriously.  When I was ten, I went (with my parents) to drop a relative off at LAX.  While we were waiting at the gate, this was before the days of  "homeland security", I started talking to this really nice gentlemen from Nigeria (he spoke English).  Well, right before he was supposed to board the plane, he handed me two, $1 bills.  They were the bills left over after he had re-exchanged his money to go home.  He also gave me his address so that I could write to his daughter (who was my age)... my mom wrote our address down for his daughter.  .  I was thrilled!! We went home and, within a couple of days, I got REALLY, REALLY sick.  Fever of 105.  Strep.  Rash.  Seizures.  The whole nine yards.  I was quarantined with scarlet fever.  On day three, when the health department was trying to decipher where I'd picked up this illness, it came to be known that others, in Southern California, had it and our common contact was the guy from Nigeria.  *boggle*  The health department took my money and it tested positive for this mutant strep.  The cash changer and a concession stand operator were the other two cases.  The health department contacted the man, because we had an address and they were able to get a phone number, and he had been sick while he was here on business.  So, yeah....worst gift I ever received: $2.  Kept me out of school for a month and made me sick as a dog. 

...but, I still have a Nigerian penpal. ;)