Oh yeah. And I'll have to blame being young and ignorant on my two.

The first one - mother use to collect S&H Green Stamps - anyone remember those? Well she had a place in the cabinet where she put them and as far as I coudl tell, she wasn't using them, so I put all those puppies in the books and went and spent them on her and my stepdad's Christmas presents. She wanted to know where I got the money to buy their gifts and I proudly told her I'd used the S&H Green Stamps. :-)

The next one - I bought this hidiously ugly lamp thing - I'll try to describe it - this was back in the 70's. It was a naked lady that stood inside sort of like a bird cage-looking thing but instead of a cage, it had these strings that ran top to bottom and when you turned it on, this oil dripped slowly down the strings. Man I was proud of that thing, and mother, God love her, actually hung it up for a time in her living room. That would have made a perfect white elephant gift.

I gave my sister the same cook book 2 yrs. in a row, which turned out to be a good thing, b/c I kept one of them and it's the cook book I get my recipe for seafood gumbo out of. My SIL sent me home w/ 10 lbs. of shrimp Thanksgiving Day. I made him some and froze it in 4 different containers and rumor is, he won't share. The boys in the family BEG for it. Yum

My mom is notorious for hiding gifts and then forgetting about them. Every years someone would get a Christmas gift from her a few months after Christmas. It is very funny her handing you a gift in June and she says "Merry Christmas!"

Not exactly a blooper; but, an insight into the efficiency of a mans mind.
DW comes from a large family, therefore a few years ago we agreed to draw names for our christmas gift exchange and limit the presents to a value of 20 dollars. Two of my BILs drew each others names. On Christmas day they each pull out their wallets, give each other a twenty, and sit down.
When in doubt, give cash, the size doesn't matter and the color is always right.
Ron

LOl at Ron!!! Love it!!

Reminds me of my BIL, on 4th of July, he takes money out of his wallet and burns it...... he says it's the same as buying fireworks.

Rita

I don't see anything wrong with those gifts. LOL! That's how traditions get started.

My youngest brother was about 5 yo when he decided to give TicTacs as a present one year. The only problem was that he had opened and ate a few first. We've given tic tacs every year since.

Dh and I bought a naked lady lamp for my single brother a few years ago. She was laying on her back with her legs in the air, balancing a globe on her feet. It was the perfect gift. He loved it, but his fiance made him get rid of it a couple of years ago when he moved. He put it on the curb with a free sign and a microwave and other usuable items. The lamp was the first to go.

My biggest blooper was probably buying a Fat Boys album for my then 8 yo brother. The Fat Boys and the Beach Boys had made the song 'Wipeout' so I assumed the rest of the album was clean. The song 'My Nuts' isn't about pecans. My brothers still tease me about it.

I'm guilty of buying gifts all year long and putting them away only to find them after the holidays. LOL Usually they are for DH, he's tough to buy for.

Not sure if this is a blooper, but...

When I was about 10, my dad was working in Wyoming in the oil field while my mom kept us kids at home in Oklahoma. Mom ordered my dad a pair of insulated underwear from Montgomery Ward, loaded the box with some other gifts, and drove my younger sister and I to Wyoming to spend the holidays with Dad.

Well, Christmas morning when we opened gifts, he opened his box to find a Crissy doll! She was the one whose hair "grew" quite long. I got the doll and Mom had to reorder the long johns when we returned home. Not sure how the mixup happened...you can imagine the look on Dad's face when he opened the box, but I was obviously THRILLED!

{{!gwi}}

I remember those dolls!!!

Okay, another one came to mind. A legend in our family. This takes place in the middle of the Depression.
My uncle was a terror when he was little. Or so says my Mom. One Christmas morning they rushed down stairs to see what Santa had left in their stockings. Mom had a couple little toys and a few pieces of candy. It was all Grandpa and Grandma could afford. Uncle Donald had NOT been a good little boy so in his stocking was a lump of pig manure! Grandma innocently asks, "Donald, what did you get?" "I had a pig but, he got away!"

Ron

An almost.
A local deaprtment store here used to have a super-sale day the first week of November. Deciding to keep to a budget for Christmas, I bought Christmas gifts (clothes) for the nieces and nephews, one of which was a nice sweater, and also picked up a birthday gift for niece. I decided to save the sweater for Christmas...glad I did.
The following week, I went to SILs house on DN's birthday with the birthday gift.
DN opend the door, wearing.....the Christmas sweater !

Seems her mother also shopped the sale.

I had one of those Crissy dolls! I can still remember the smell of her "hair". Funny how even a picture can bring back memories.

My father was nortious about playing practical jokes. One Christmas, as we were all taking turns opening gifts, he opens one small flat box. Then he turns to all of us and say, "What a lovely tie! This is great; who gave it to me?" We all look around at each other and then my dad can't contain himself any longer! He had bought himself the tie and wrapped it up and placed it under the tree.

He was laughing so hard at his own joke - it was hysterical!

I had a blonde headed Chrissy doll. Can't think of any stories to tell.

I thought of one that happened a couple years ago. I brought in small gifts for a few people I worked with. One of these ladies was very religious but I had no idea she didn't celebrate Christmas! She accepted it, though, saying that we would call it a friendship gift. LOL! I was pretty embarrassed.

The worst gift I ever got was from my mother, when I was in my first year of college. It was a Fortune Telling Magic-8 ball, the kind you shake and it gives a dubious answer like "Perhaps" "only time will tell" "If you really want it". I was so very sophisticated, age 18 and in no mood for a stupid kid's toy. I remember being very disappointed. What a really wanted that year was a suede jacket.

Not really a blooper, but I usually stick an ornament on the outside of all the presents I give. Last year I put a snowman on my friend's gift with her name on it. She sent a gift to me before she received the one from me and she had the exact same personalized snowman ornament on my gift.

Well, kathsgrdn, that explains the lady we have in my office. She also doesn't celebrate holidays. I've always wondered how she justified attending the office Christmas dinner the boss gives and accepting his gift of a Christmas bonus. It's just dinner & a "friendship gift".

I guess the worst thing that's happened in my family is a mistake in "regifting". I received a gift from my SIL one year that I had given her the year before. Don't tell her though as I didn't say anything. I've probably done the same thing in the past as years ago when the kids were little and cash was short, I was known to put aside gifts I couldn't use for one reason or another and "regift" later. Stopped this practice later on when cash wasn't so tight hence the reason for not saying anything to SIL. Just on the off chance she was doing it for the same
reasons I had years before.

I thought of one that happened a couple years ago. I brought in small gifts for a few people I worked with. One of these ladies was very religious but I had no idea she didn't celebrate Christmas!

Well, sort of OT, but we had the best neighbor next door for several years who was Jehovah Witness. We went away for 2 weeks and she gathered our mail and generally kept an eye on things. I bought her a pictorial calendar from the Hudson Valley but didn't realize that it showed all of the important revolutionary battles until after I had given it to her. I was mortified, but she never said a word.......

my major bloopers is not buying something when i first see it! like this year...wanted to get a cyber pal a certain cookbook at costco...they'd run out!

or shopping at tjmaxx...same thing...if you don't buy it then it's gone...

When the kids were at home I wouldn't put labels on the gifts until Xmas Eve. I would wrap and stick a little number on the bottom with a master list of what went to whom. This really bugged them (tee-hee). They would pretend I was making a big deal out of nothing and tease me about my "obsession" for secrecy but I know it drove them crazy wondering what was what.

I would wrap things of similar size, type or value in the same box and paper for each. One Xmas I must of got confused. DS got his opened first and pulled out a cute little tank top. A moment later DD opened a package and extracted "Born to be Wild" type motorcycle t sized extra large. LOL

wildchild - your story reminds me of when I was in high school - I wrote everyone's names in shorthand that year. lol

I'm really dating myself - I bet they don't even teach shorthand in high school now.

DH's family draws names for Christmas and we have a $25 limit. One year my FIL drew my name and asked me what I wanted. I had seen some Christmas themed dishes at Zellers for $25 and asked him for those. He wanted me to go and get them myself, but I didn't think that would be as much fun so I asked him to take care of it. Then my DH asked me what I wanted our small kids to give me. I told him the same thing, thinking that then I would have Christmas dishes to serve eight people as each package was a service for four. On Christmas morning I opened the gift from the kids and of course was thrilled to be surprised with my set of Zellers dishes. At the in-laws, I opened the same size box. Inside was a beautiful service for four of really expensive Christmas dishes - FIL didn't think the Zellers ones were nice enough! So then DH had to take back the Zellers dishes and we had to buy the rest of the service of the expesive one. DH had travelled to five stores in four towns to buy that set of Zellers dishes!

To this day (about 25 years later) we still use those expensive dishes for the month of December.

I haven't told this to anyone yet. *L* Friend K brought to me a gift bag with baked goods for a neighbor, E, who was a week-ender here at the lake. I was to give it to E since K would be gone when E came here.

A few days later I saw a little bag on the counter with brownies, peanut brittle, etc. in it. (I had a period of "temporary insanity" I know.) I asked DH if someone had dropped off a gift for us; he didn't know of course. So I put the goodies out and we ate them!

Then in a rational moment I suddenly remembered the bag K had left for E. I stayed up half the night making brownies & cookies to replace the ones we'd eaten! Next morning I ran to a bakery & bought other goodies. E and her family came and I gave her a cute little bag of baked goods from K. No one else has ever heard about my big goof!

When I was a teenager I bought my brother an LP Album he had been coveting - I wanted to disguise it so I wrapped it in my favorite pullover sweater.
When he opened the gift he thought the sweater was part of the gift, put it on immediately and wouldn't give it back. He liked the record, but the sweater was by far the hit of the birthday - dang him, ROFL!
When I explained that the sweater was just filler, he got so upset and sad that I told him he could keep the sweater...
Suzan J

My very first job ever was a gift wrapper in a local department store during the Christmas holidays. One day a very irate little old lady came to our counter. It seems I had gotten some of the packages mixed up. Instead of the tie she had bought her preacher, there was a very sexy pair of panties that some DH had bought his wife.

Oh, great one, wireweiners!
Thar reminds me of last Christmas. DD and husband returned from 3 years in Italy in the middle of December. He was in the Air Force. They had gone to Florence and she found "David" boxer shorts. The picture on them was anatomicaly correct. She had a pair for each of her 4 brothers. Christmas Eve we were at Grandpa and Grandmas for dinner and then opened our presents. What none of us knew was at the last minute Grandma decided to invite the minister and his wife to join us for dinner. The presents were already under the tree. It was pretty embarassing, but, we survived. Just last week the minister remarked that he and his wife had been invited for Christmas Eve dinner again, and he asked if DD had done her shopping yet.
Ron

Our family often does a white elephant exchange, and for some reason, it never occurred to one of my uncles that my then seven year old niece would be in town and a part of the exchange. His contribution was a ceramic mug in the shape of a woman's breast... the nipple on which served as a drinking spigot. We allowed a certain amount of forced exchanging of the gifts before they were opened... the looks on my uncle's and niece's faces when they realized what her gift was was priceless. The family still giggles about that one.

I think I've told this one before, but when we were younger, my mom would give my little sisters money to buy presents. There are four of us girls, and I think me (the oldest) and the next one down may have had jobs so we could pay for our own. We would pick a name so we would only have to buy for one sister instead of all 3. My youngest sister (always a trouble maker) had picked my name and my mom gave her ten dollars to buy my present. Well, she wanted to keep the money, so she spent $1 on a horrible remake of Tarzan that was in a $1 bin at the video store, and she pocketed the other $9. On Christmas morning, as soon as I opened the gift, I knew what she had done, but the movie was so horrible and ridiculous that we all just laughed and laughed about it. I vowed to give her this same movie back as a gift for a future Christmas. I still have the movie in it's original plastic packaging, waiting to give it back to her someday. I've been holding onto it for probably about 15 years now.

One year, either my grandmother or her sister bought my dad a really nice tie -- only problem was that it was 'Junior' size for boys!

jenmonkey, that Tarzan remake sounds like an excellent potential wedding present.
Ron

Once I was engaged to a young man and we spent Christmas Eve at his grandparents' house with his family. His dear grandmother handed me my gift, and said it was "the start of our life together". I opened it to find a Blue Willow sugar and creamer....smashed to smithereens! She said she had left it with gift wrapping while she shopped, and picked it up on her way out. I asked her where she got it, and she told me. I took it back after Christmas, insisted that they must have broken it when they wrapped it. They actually wanted to argue with me, but I did not give up, and ended up with another lovely Johnsonville sugar and creamer, which I have to this day. You see, Blue Willow had just been discontinued, and she had bought it on clearance.

It came out later that she had dropped it taking it out of the car, and was ashamed to tell me, especially after all my trouble getting it replaced.