What did your extended family gift you when you were a child?
Posted by dreamyduskywing@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 89 comments
Posted by dreamyduskywing@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 89 comments
brilliantpants@reddit
They always got me art supplies or craft kits and I LOVED THEM! I have many memories of chilling at grandma’s dining room table after the family gift exchange delightedly coloring, making beaded bracelets, or potholders. Good times.
ohio2az@reddit
My Grandma got me Fisher-Price roller skates when I turned 10. I totally blew it off and went to another gift. After the party my mom bitched me out. I still feel bad about to this day.
xRVAx@reddit
Fruit of the month club.
Cali_Anne@reddit
I accidentally read that as Fruit of the Loom club
CorgiMonsoon@reddit
It’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year
dreamyduskywing@reddit (OP)
It seems like fruit on Christmas has sadly died out.
Effective_Cable6547@reddit
We always have too much fruit in this house.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit
we still have a term of endearment, "uncle steve gift," which is something very thoughtful but verrrrrrry weird. a few that come to mind are a stunning gold grasshopper brooch, a picture book of shopping carts in the wild, a cd of some italian guys speeches...in italian, 23 and me...
PersianCatLover419@reddit
23 and me DNA testing is useful for finding relatives.
dreamyduskywing@reddit (OP)
Lol…the gift of DNA testing is how we found out that my uncle fathered a child out of wedlock in the 60’s.
PersianCatLover419@reddit
I found out via DNA testing my parents that both great uncles one younger great uncle on my mom's side and one great uncle on my dad's side had kids out of wedlock in the 1950s. The great uncle on my dad's side married six times and loved to have sex, get drunk, and gamble.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit
yes, he gave them to us loooong before they were a well-known company, so this kit to mail off our spit in a tube was definitely weird to us at the time 😂
none of what he has given me has gone unappreciated. like i said, thoughtful and weird.
PlatypusFreckles@reddit
The year everyone realized my grandma had Alzheimer’s was when she gifted 4 of us Barney and BabyBop piggy banks. We were 9, 12, 12, and 14.
KW5625@reddit
Legos!
My family was good about asking what kids wanted
PlatypusFreckles@reddit
My extended family all bought me Anne of Green Gables the year I was 9. FOUR sets between the different sides. I don’t know how I managed to thank the last aunt without crying. To this day, I don’t enjoy the books at all. I’ll watch the Megan Follows movies anytime though.
CobblerNo8518@reddit
Bibles. Bibles and hand embroidered sweatshirts lol
DrenAss@reddit
I got the Precious Moments Bible. 🤣
Massive-Resort-8573@reddit
Strange gift for a child
Pretzelpixie@reddit
Donuts sent to me in a package for my birthday that we always used to get when we were at our cousin’s cabin in the summer (the variety pack of waxy “chocolate” and powdered), from my grandma. “That’s it?!”, I exclaimed. It was the first and last time I ever got spanked.
dreamyduskywing@reddit (OP)
I loooved those donuts! We bought them every time we’d go to our cabin, too.
RuDog79@reddit
impliedapathy@reddit
One time we got post it notes. We all sort of quietly agreed we’d have rather gotten nothing from them.
red286@reddit
By entirely random chance, my two oldest possessions are gifts that my paternal grandfather gave me for Christmas when I was 9 and 10. When I was 9, he gave me a pair of maracas that he'd picked up in Mexico that have my name on them (my parents were SUPER not impressed). When I was 10, he gave me a silver and mother-of-pearl belt buckle that he'd also picked up in Mexico that I have literally never worn because the last thing I want closing my belt is a gigantic silver and mother-of-pearl cowboy belt buckle.
The only other possession I have that's about that old is a book of Mensa puzzles that my uncle's parents (no blood relation) gave to me for Christmas when I was 13.
Torchness9@reddit
My grandma would give me the free gifts you’d get with purchase from cosmetic brands
1Frazier@reddit
A plastic candy cane filled with Bonne Bell Lipsmackers. I was happy with it. I don't remember getting much at the big family Christmas party. There were so many people there I think we just didn't do many gifts. But some aunt/uncle did a great job with that little "something to open." I also had a great uncle that was a baller. He gave us a decent amount of cash each year at the party.
YarItsDrivinMeNuts@reddit
I received beautiful and authentic nut crackers from my grandmother every year starting when I was 6. Great idea except as a 6yr old boy I would make them fight and ultimately destroy them. She didn’t find out till much later and was rightly a bit miffed my mom didn’t keep them put up as a keepsake. She started to send them again once I was an adult and they are some of my favorite Christmas decorations. Looking back I wish I had all those old ones as well as they were so well done.
HangryHangryHedgie@reddit
Hotel shampoos/soaps.
GeetarEnthusiast85@reddit
My grandmother would make each of us needlepoint creations that had no point. As an adult, I can appreciate the effort and thought. However, that's all going to be lost on a little kid.
My aunt though, would always get me the soundtracks for films I loved. She's the reason why I love film scores to this day.
wait_ichangedmymind@reddit
At 14 my grandmother gave me a teddy bear in a pink lamé, antebellum style dress (what a choice) that she made entirely by hand, bear and all. It had a hat, tons of ruffles and lace trim everywhere.
At the time I was -so- not impressed because I was well past the age of collecting dolls and bears and I thought it was so ugly. I was a goth kid with a personal vendetta against the color pink.
As an adult I realize how much work she must have put into it. Kids who have never made things by hand or been around to see something being made are never going to appreciate that kind of handiwork.
GeetarEnthusiast85@reddit
Aww, do you still have the bear?
2cstars@reddit
My grandma did cross-stitch too. I received a few of them for birthdays and Christmas' an so many hand sewn barbie doll outfits. As a child I vaguely understood the effort and love that went into them but was more enamored with g.i. joes and gadgets.
Now these handmade gifts are the most precious things I own.
Fuck consumer bullshit culture. I want another cross-stitch that took 100hrs to make.
Miami_Mice2087@reddit
I had a "cool aunt" who got me what I actually wanted too. One year it was a Star Trek episode guide (pre-internet, no websites for this) and another time it was very cool neon clothes that my mother wouldn't have ever bought for me. I can't express to a kid your age how transgressive wearing neon was for a kid in the 80s. It was like, fuck your 70s mom, I'm listeing to Cyndi Lauper and becoming a punk.
GeetarEnthusiast85@reddit
It sounds like your grandma tried to lean into what you were interested in with her crossstitch. Mine would make Christmas -themed decorations as presents.
It also sounds like you had a close relationship with her. Mine lived several states away. We only saw her and my grandfather every 3-4 years. And outside of sending cards/gifts/money for birthdays and holidays, they didn't do much to foster relationships with their grandchildren.
Scoginsbitch@reddit
When I was 12, every single person in my family got me a porcelain doll. I had no interest in them. I had grow out of Barbie dolls. I had 13 creepy dolls and nothing I could play with.
I wasn’t a hard kid to buy for! Art/craft kit or dig your own fossils/rocks/artifacts kits are all I wanted.
SteveEcks@reddit
I'm not kidding I would get some of the ugliest sweaters.
Like today people have "Ugly Sweater" parties and they're all wearing "sweaters" that have been manufactured and marketed to be "Ugly" and they're all so gimmicky and silly...
I don't think any of these people have any idea what it was like to have Mom very sternly explain that "Aunt Sherry got you that sweater, you're going to wear it at dinner tonight. That cost good money."
Not only ugly but itchy AS FUCK. It was not fun to wear this sweater. It was not worn whilst having a good time . It was not worn in jest . It was not consensual.
Dizzy-Ad1673@reddit
A favorite family story about me is when I was 7 at the big Christmas Eve extended family gathering, opening a present from my aunt, and exclaiming “A Chia Pet?!? Who gets a 7 year old a Chia Pet?!?”
I learned a lesson about gratitude that Christmas. 😂
OkBiscotti1140@reddit
Bahahahaha I dreamed of having a chia pet as a 7 year old!
TheLakeWitch@reddit
Same. I asked for one for several years but never got it.
caramelpupcorn@reddit
Me too! I remember telling my friend at school how cool I thought it was and she had no idea what I was talking about. I even sang the chia pet jingle for her!
OkBiscotti1140@reddit
lol I feel like we would’ve have gotten along well.
caramelpupcorn@reddit
Probably 😂 Sing it with me, friend! Ch-ch-ch-chia!
No_Today_4903@reddit
Same! I wanted one so bad! Any of the as seen on tv products, I’d beg for didi 7 as well!
hypo11@reddit
My 12 year old is getting a Chia pet this Xmas (as a stocking stuffer - not a main gift). He got into classic Simpsons this year and it’s the chia pet of Homer backing into the bushes.
GarminTamzarian@reddit
Expensive-Day-3551@reddit
I always wanted one. ChChChChia!
Dizzy-Ad1673@reddit
In retrospect a Chia Pet would have been awesome but that Christmas Eve I apparently wasn’t feeling it.
Rpd840@reddit
I wanted a Chia Pet so bad when I was 7! I asked for one every year but never got it
dreamyduskywing@reddit (OP)
I always wanted a Chia Pet. Never got one.
OG_Cryptkeeper@reddit
A children’s dictionary… with pictures.
I was in junior high and took honors English.
I’m still speechless. I’d never get a teenager an illustrated dictionary as a gift. How dumb do you have to be?
itsjakerobb@reddit
I am in the middle of reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to my 7yo daughter. In the first chapter, Peter’s dad’s business acquaintance gifts 9yo Peter a picture dictionary. 🤣
Baby-cabbages@reddit
For the time period, a decent gift (although childish). Pre Internet, dictionaries and encyclopedias were needed.
lisette729@reddit
A local service organization just gifted dictionaries to all of the kids in my daughter’s grade. It’s a very nice dictionary but she was so confused why they’d need it when we have the internet.
SDNick484@reddit
To be fair, a dictionary back when that was written was dramatically more useful than it is now. Not necessarily what a kid wants, but still not a bad gift at that age.
OG_Cryptkeeper@reddit
Love me some Judy Blume.
Miami_Mice2087@reddit
"They like to read and are, what, about 6 now? They'll like pictures of words."
As someone who buys for neiphs I don't see often, someone loved you and was doing their best.
Spamberguesa@reddit
I had an aunt who consistently sent me children's books even into junior high. I was at a very advanced reading level by the age of 8; to be fair, she might not have been aware of that when I was a kid, since she lived in another state and didn't know me particularly well. Still, giving The Magic Tree House series to a 14-year-old is a bit of an...interesting choice.
LovelyGh0ul@reddit
My grams was the best at getting you practical gifts. I always loved getting socks and pajamas from her. My cousins hated it. She would also give us things she crocheted. One year it was a table runner that my cousins all complained about (I liked mine; it was pretty green colors). Another year she made a beautiful pink/purple/white blanket for me.
Eventually she realized she wouldn't be able to crochet for much longer and worked through her yarn stash. That year, we all got odd length blankets in some very weird color combos. I don't think she even thought about who would get which color. I ended up with an orange and brown sorta throw blanket. I don't dislike very many colors, but I really dislike the color orange. My love for my grams was greater than my dislike of any color, so I thanked her and then packed the unusable-as-a-blanket blanket away.
I miss her and her usually thoughtful, practical gifts.
lemonheadlock@reddit
Some kind of "hey there fellow kids" bible. I think I've been to church like once or twice in my life.
GoodOlSpence@reddit
Yeah, I had an ex that got us little Christian books one year. Neither of us are Christians.
Roobix9@reddit
My grandmother really wanted me to love dolls. I hated them, and vastly preferred stuffed animals. She would gift dolls to me over and over. As a neurospicy child (though I didn't know it then), I was very bad at hiding my disappointment. I was probably 15 or so when she finally gave up.
Epicardiectomist@reddit
my father's parents lived in Florida, so we barely saw them. They were adamant about sending Xmas gifts, and those were the ones we got to open on Xmas eve.
When I became a teenager, I started getting Craftsman tools (this was in the mid 90's so legit Craftsman). Wrenches, screwdrivers, a hammer, one of the hand-held metal toolboxes, and I hated it. They were fucking lame for that age.
In hindsight, they were best gifts I've ever received. Many have been lost to time, but I still have the toolbox and some random ones leftover.
Miami_Mice2087@reddit
My family is large so the aunts and uncles did a round robin, one grownup each got a kid to buy for. Grandmom usually got each of us something, but I think parents chipped in or even bought the present bc Grandmom wasn't exactly flush. Often all the girls got a particular popular doll (once it was the one with makeup you put on with ice and took off with warm tap water, another year it was one that grew up when you cranked a crank in its back). I don't know what the boys got? Sportball things?
itsjakerobb@reddit
I was (still am) into computers, so EVERY FUCKING GIFT was a mouse pad. 😡
foxontherox@reddit
My step-grandmother would send $5 birthday checks... I felt bad, and I don't think I ever cashed a single one.
TrixieLaBouche@reddit
Children's Scrabble. I was 12 and regularly played the normal version with my family.
fraghead5@reddit
Thats called "stopping at the walgreens on the way over and getting something"
cloudydays2021@reddit
Had a great aunt give me one of those countertop banana tree things (to hang bananas so they’d ripen) when I was 6.
dreamyduskywing@reddit (OP)
Sounds like a regift!
cloudydays2021@reddit
This was actually one of the more normal things she gave me. One time she gave me a box of disposable plastic spoons. She (obviously) suffered from mental illness and we just accepted her gifts graciously. I mean, at least they were useful! 😂
InvestmentMain8414@reddit
When my kids were 4 and 2, my mom's father gave them deodorant for Christmas. To be fair that was the year all great grandchildren got deodorant...and they were all way too young for it.
But this is the guy who for my 7th bday gifted me 5 random used hangers.
Dimplefrom-YA@reddit
cash.. we only work with cash in my family.
midnight-dour@reddit
My aunt gave me an ornament every Christmas until I was 18.
babygotbooksandback@reddit
I was 7 and I got a coloring book. That's fine, but my 4 year old little brother got the crayons.
stegogo@reddit
Hangers...cheap plastic hangers
CorgiMonsoon@reddit
At least they weren’t wire hangers
upnytonc@reddit
When I was about 8 or 9 I was gifted Liz Claiborne perfume, in the red triangle bottle. It loved it and felt so grown up getting it. My mom hated the fragrance and claimed she was allergic to it. My mother never had any reaction to that or any other perfume. Looking back, I’d say it’s probably too mature of a fragrance for an 8/9 year old. I certainly wouldn’t buy my 9 year old that!
No_Today_4903@reddit
We always got an ornament every year as a kid for Christmas. Usually one from our grandparents and one from our aunt. Usually some sort of clothing item too. Our aunt was the cool aunt so it was usually like an iou sweatshirt, something our mom wouldn’t get us. I don’t remember being disappointed in anything they gave us.
dreamyduskywing@reddit (OP)
This was my family. Ornaments or clothes. I don’t remember getting toys from extended family.
No_Today_4903@reddit
I guess we got some toys too. I don’t really remember. Santa mostly brought the toys I assume.
A-Supurb-Owl@reddit
Always matching pajamas with my sister. They always got us the same thing but each a different color or pattern. At the time I didn’t appreciate how thoughtful a gift it was that my parents didn’t have to buy new pjs after every growth spurt.
dreamyduskywing@reddit (OP)
Clothes were expensive back then, too! It’s an interesting exercise to look at a catalog from the 70’s or 80’s and plug the prices into the BLS inflation calculator.
ginger-inside-007@reddit
One year when I was I think 7 or 8, a family member gave me a hula skirt and coconut bra.
WhysAVariable@reddit
My mother-in-law gets my wife and I each one or two of these Hallmark ornaments every Christmas. We have enough to fill a tree with them on their own now.
dreamyduskywing@reddit (OP)
I love ornaments! I buy a new one for myself each year.
Physical-Name4836@reddit
My grandma would visit Haiti on catholic missions. They named a freaking school after her. She would buy all the local made items and give them as gifts. She gave me this sick box I used to keep my weed in. (I know, dude it was the 90s)
Anyway my mother hated all the “cheap crap” she gave us. Looking back they are the only gifts I really remember. Grandma was a real angel.
dreamyduskywing@reddit (OP)
That sounds pretty cool!
xRVAx@reddit
Overpriced brass pencil sharpener
I_like_flowers_@reddit
toddler sized plastic jewelry while in middle school was a real head scratcher.
PersianCatLover419@reddit
Books of literature: Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe, and later gift cards to bookstores.