moonrise

One year on my birthday, my mom took me out to eat. Afterwards, she gave me a very heavy gift. I opened it, and was very confused to see a big, ugly, baby-poo green rock! What in the world?!?

She saw my confusion, and started rolling with laughter. I turned the rock over, and it was a gorgeous, sparkly amethyst geode. Score!!! I've always loved pretty rocks, and that one was perfect.

The back side sure was hideous, though! We still laugh about it, especially because it was completely unintentional. That just happened to be how she wrapped it.

miriam

Oh dear was the leg still attached to that live turkey or was that a dead turkey missing the leg? Either way, it is right up there with some of the other crazy gifts.

This year my husband forgot my birthday. He was supposed to take me out to eat. So my Dad and Mom took me out and he joined us when my daughter told him it was one big birthday and he was in the dog house. He bought one of those little irons to do seams. So he didn't totally forget. Men can be pretty funny about what is important and what is not. They can be clueless what they think will please a woman. I guess there are some that have been trained. I have one son who didn't get the training and one that did. Sigh. Then there is my daughter who keeps all the men in line.

SewingSew

Sewbizgirl, One year my husband bought us both an AR15 for Christmas. When we were first married, he bought me a plastic collander and 2 corselets complete with fishnet stockings. On Valentine's day one year, he gave me a tool box. I asked for it instead of candy and flowers. He is wonderful and has given me so many beautiful gifts. When we were married 5years, he gave me a blue sapphire ring for our anniversary. Next year was a ring with 3 opals. Year 7 was a ruby ring. Eight was an emerald ring. Nine was blue topaz. Ten was a carat diamond anniversary band. 11 was a strand of 8mm pearls. 15 was a diamond and ruby tennis bracelet. Twenty five years and he gave me a 2 carat diamond ring jacket. One year he bought me a Janome Coverpro1000 coverstitch machine. He bought me a Babylock serger, and a few years ago a Husavarna Viking Huskylock 936. He spoils me.

One of the most unusual gifts that I have gotten was a bug-out bag from my son. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, it is for an apocalyptic scenario. It has water purification tablets, Pennicillan, surgical sutures, etc. in a waterproof box.

Stitchnripper

My late brother, who I miss every single day, was very funny. He knew I was tired of cooking and used the George Foreman a lot. One year he printed 365 pieces of paper with the "recipe"

1. Heat up George Foreman grill and spray with PAM
2. Sprinkle chicken with seasonings of your choice
3. Cook til done.

He put it all together with a cover that said "365 Chicken Recipes". I still have it. He was a character.

cashs_mom

Sadly, those bad gifts do seem to stand out, sewbizgirl. My husband has given me some really nice ones. He finally realized that aside from car stuff jewelry usually went over well so I have great jewelry

I did just remember, he bought me an MGW shifter for the Z06 on year. He had a shift ball made for it that I had asked for. It had the usually shift pattern on the ball, but in place of the 6th gear it said "F**king Fast"

I still love that shift ball. I'll probably take it off the car when I get rid of it.

SewingSew

Your shift ball sound so dang cool Cash's Mom!

lynnie

For one of our anniversaries, 8th, my dh gave me a white plate, with all the statistics of our anniversary.
It may sound tacky to some of you, but it showed he had to think of an 8th year gift, ceramic, and the dates and names, all that stuff. To me, it was so thoughtful. i love that man. Every year, he gives me a traditional gift.

I love hearing all the gifts given and relieved.

SuzzyQ

My hubby once bought me a GMC Jimmy for my birthday. Not really but we needed a second vehicle and it happened to coincide. Then our son arranged to have "Elmo" printed on the bug deflector on the hood. I loved it! - I name my vehicles - my first car was "Grover" so "Elmo" fit the lineup and the Jimmy was red. Still miss that truck.
Then that Christmas he gave me a card with a million dollar bill in it. And a weekend in Niagara Falls - which I had to plan and then navigate for him when we finally went.
But the absolute best was ... our first time without kids in about 25 years ... I came home from work and he'd made supper - steak, baked potatoes, salad (he didn't eat vegetables), candles, soft music... and he did the dishes! Nearly floored me. I'd said I'd be a bit late and had left steaks out for when I got home.
And then he got me a steam cleaner for Christmas. Our DIL was horrified but I'd wanted one...

Sewnoma

My DH usually does pretty good, plus I have a pretty good sense of humor so even when he messes up I am more likely to laugh than be offended.

For my 40th I was hoping for something really nice, and he gave me this very fancily-wrapped box that was unusually heavy for its size. I open it up, and there in the box is the most HIDEOUS glass clown. This thing looked like someone's practice piece that was unfinished, plus it was dirty (looked like it had been buried for a long time, lots of grunge in every little crack and crevice) AND it was broken, there were big cracks that ran through the body of it. The face was a trainwreck - eyes looking off in different directions, and a hat that looked just like a pile of poop...the whole thing was just horrible. I look up at my DH and he's standing there with this huge grin, "Do you like it? It's ART GLASS!" I thought he was SERIOUS so I had to be all nice about it. "Um, it's really interesting....", meanwhile I'm thinking I can probably bury it in the back yard at some point. Then he starts laughing his butt off, it was just a prank gift (which he had NEVER done before) - he had found it mashed into the dirt parking lot at an antique store - probably something that fell out of the trash. I was so relieved! But I also put the ugly clown on display, just for the sake of conversation. (I did scrub the dirt off first, though)

Then at Christmas he thought he'd try that again since it went so well with me. He wrapped that same awful clown up and gave it to my Mom, and we waited for her to be horrified by it. SHE LIKED IT! She now has the wall-eyed, poop-hatted broken glass clown on display in her living room, and NOT as a joke.

So there's my story of a prank gift that went wrong. LOL

miriam

Sewnoma, you better be nice to her, she might be thinking you forgot and is planning to give it back. Or she thinks you have bad taste and is too embarrassed to say any thing. Maybe she points to it when her friends come over and says THATS what my cheap skate crazy family gave me for Christmas... My son and his best friend have passed a huge unabridged dictionary back and forth - it is some obscure language. But both have a huge interest in linguistics... One gets it for a birthday, one gets Christmas, one time it was a wedding gift and so on back and forth over the years. I heard of some people that passed the same birthday card back and forth for years. Makes me think about who I want to give some crazy gift to this year... If I gave them each a sewing machine... but the sewing machines would probably come back.