Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear panda, happy birthday to you! Now blow out your candles, and make a wish! Did you wish for some used socks, an expired gift card or a box of cookies that you’re allergic to?

Your birthday should be one of the most magical days of the year. But unfortunately, loved ones can sometimes find a way to ruin it just by gifting a terrible present. Redditors have been recalling the most disappointing and insulting birthday gifts they’ve ever received, so we’ve gathered some of their worst replies down below. Enjoy reading through these presents that might inspire you to get a gift for someone you hate, and be sure to upvote the things you can’t believe were considered presents!

#1

Cigarettes and deodorant, from my gross grandfather's drunken girlfriend. When I opened it, she winked and said she knew I smoked. I was EIGHT.

Image credits: Bennington_Booyah

#2

My boss gave me a pack of expired coupons for fast food joints. It was like getting a slap in the face... with a stale burger.

Image credits: Antique_Resolution43

#3

Golden girls wine glasses, when I was a few months out of rehab for alcoholism.

Image credits: Ok-Contest5431

#4

Not a gift to me, but I still don’t understand what we did so wrong to the person that they gave my 5 year old daughter a karaoke machine.

Image credits: finzaz

#5

I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma *on my 21st birthday* - thanks universe, you suck ?.

Image credits: justyules

#6

When I was six, my paternal grandparents gave me a... Potato. They said "It looks like a cat or a doggie! You can play with it, and you should be proud - we grew it ourselves!" They also gave me the cheapest set of crayons. Their other grandchild received a very cool and rather expensive toy piano a week prior. Yeah, my paternal grandmother never liked my mom, and the mother of the other grandchild was her daughter.

Image credits: Teriin

#7

I got a check from my elderly aunt for $5. It bounced and cost me $10 fee from the bank.

Image credits: austeninbosten

#8

My mom was a real f*****g a*s hole. I was heavily bullied at school and abused at home.

One day during christmas, mom handed me a present and when I opened it, it was a doll that had similar features to my school bully. I didn't realize until she started laughing and said "She looks like her doesn't she". Little me was scared to her core.

Image credits: leafyfire

#9

He got me a juicer that 'had to stay at his house'.

Oh, so you got yourself a juicer.

BYE.

Image credits: Putrid-Garden3693

#10

A coat hanger. When I saw it, (10yo) I was so confused. Then I was told it came from my family members trip to France, which furthered my confusion, lol.

Image credits: MilkMan1880

#11

A goldfish. I was 18, 31 now, he is still going strong. I HATE him. Omfg do I hate that fish. Unfortunately as he is my responsibility I feel obligated to give him the best life possible. I’m going to be so happy when he finally dies. Until then that f****r will keep living the life of luxury.

Image credits: Solid_Internal_9079

#12

My mom gave me a book that I made when I was 8 so she could laugh at me for how terrible it was. I drew the illustrations and wrote the story. It looked like s**t because again, I was eight. She loved to humiliate me and then get mad at me for “having no sense of humor”.

Image credits: Wrong_Variation_8084

#13

*cracks knuckles*

I was turning 17 and had friends over for my birthday for the very first time. As a fat, AuDHD girl I struggled to make friends throughout my childhood, so this was a major milestone. It was a great day, too- after school my friends came over, we hung out a bit, ate dinner, had some cake, and were about to go see "17 Again" starring Zach Efron in theaters. It couldn't have gone better... until my mom handed me my presents.

Most of them were typical birthday gifts- I think I got a scarf and a DVD or something- until I unwrapped the very last one. This was obviously a book and it was wrapped in different paper than the others. I love to read so I got my hopes up until I saw the title. It was "Eat This, Not That," the diet book that was all the rage in 2009. My face must have fallen because my mom immediately started singing its praises. She waxed poetic about how it's so educational, it'll really change up my diet and I'll lose weight in no time, etc. I didn't want to cry in front of my friends so I muttered my thanks and returned to my cake, pushing it around my plate until it was time to leave for the movie. I couldn't look at my friends until my sister, who wrapped most of my gifts, pulled me aside and said that she told Mom NOT to give me that book and she refused to wrap it. She apologized for not hiding it from Mom and saving me the embarrassment in front of my friends.

At least my friends immediately understood who my mom was that day.

#14

A KitKat bar. Would have been okay, but the explanation was they were 3 for $2. I got one.

Image credits: PechugaDude

#15

My mum bought me a hot pink suitcase when I was 17. That was all I got. Really felt like she wanted me to move out lol.

Image credits: craftybugger1989

#16

I'm pretty sure there is still a picture of me looking absolutely defeated sitting on a couch surrounded by the school supplies everyone got me.

To make matters worse, my birthday was usually on the first day of school and I hated it.

I remember after the party my mom felt so bad that she took me to the store and let me pick out a video game I wanted, so that was nice.

Image credits: FuddleGump

#17

My little brother bought me a framed painting from the op shop, cost him $2. Absolutely no thought put into it. I wrapped it up and gave it back to him for his birthday?.

Image credits: SkittleMonk3y

#18

A f*****g carton of canned liver was sent to my hostel by my uncle. My roomie ever since has become inexplicably suspicious of me. I hate liver by the way. I'm just confused why he sent 25 cans of liver to a student who doesn't even like cooking.

Image credits: tevogrid

#19

A note saying that she was combining my birthday gift and Father’s Day gift together. The combined gift was telling me that she wanted a divorce.

Image credits: Skyrick

#20

Underwear, socks. id be extremley gratful for it now, but when your nine and your expecting f*****g legos, not fruit of the loom.

#21

As a straight man, a p*nis shaped charcuterie board.

#22

Pots and pans so I could “cook even better food” for him lol.

#23

My ex-mother in law got me a “margarita Ferris wheel” where the seats were various mixers, salt/sugar cans and cups, but it was all horrifically low quality, expired 3 years earlier and still had the $1.99 closeout sticker from JC Penny on it. I don’t even care about my birthday or gifts but this actually felt like an intentional insult. I also rarely, if ever, drink.

#24

Not only did they not get me a present but my parents completely forgot about my 19th birthday. I lived with them and my dad even drove me to work that morning.

#25

My boss gifted me a photo frame for my birthday.

For context—he hired me as part of a program for hiring teens with no family who recently aged out of the foster care system.

Thanks bud, think I’ll put my non-existent family and non-existent pets in the frame.

#26

Not me but my brother.

For his 30th birthday our parents got him a knock-off brand roomba. Not a bad gift in itself, you're right.

Except they got his twin brother a brand new car.

#27

When I was around 14 for my birthday my mom brought me my grandmother and my aunt to this nice buffet. The food was good but at the end my mom was having trouble presenting her voucher to the cashier because the place didnt have wifi and she didnt have data at the time.

She turned to me and asked me if I had data to which I said I didnt. She kept asking me to just check if I still had some left but I really didnt and so she ended up telling me that I was useless and that she shouldnt have bothered asking. I ended up crying in the car ride home with my aunt telling me that I shouldve had data and that I shouldve been prepared in case something like this happened.

#28

I have struggled with my weight since I was a child. When I was 12, I was gifted a book about dieting written by Dr Phil by my great aunt. The discount price sticker sloppily scratched off the top corner.

I have always been a big reader, and I knew it was a book, so I was excited to see what book she got me. Everyone was watching me when my heart sank, realizing what kind of book it was.

The plus side is my mom is ride or die for her kids and she was f*cking piiiiiiisssssed, so it was handled.

Still messes with a kid's head, though.

#29

A handbag. It was ugly and I was 12, I didn't care about bags. It was the only gift I got. I felt so sad that day.

#30

Married 20 years. On my 50th bday, I got a card ftom my dad. Nothing from my wife and kids.

#31

A lawn mower for my 14th birthday...

#32

I got a straw once. It was extra special because it was a combined party for family members with birthdays near each other and my cousin got a cd player from the same person.

#33

Coming home from school to immediately be told my dog died.

#34

Box of cereal from the main "family" I had left.

Receipt showing they used a coupon the get it to $3 still attached.

Life is difficult enough, being forgotten is better than shoving how absolutely little you matter right in your face.... on your birthday, when you are missing those who brought you into the world but were cruelly taken, the most.

Image credits: omegaoutlier

#35

This year I got precisely nothing - so that’s probably be the worst.

But I once got my fiancée a pair of Tiffany earrings for her birthday - and got a balloon for mine.

Image credits: Kell_Jon

#36

I was a chubby kid, I want to say I was something like 8-10 years old and wearing medium shirts. My s****y aunt got me and my two brothers matching plain yellow sweatshirts. They both got their sizes, a M and a L. She got me, the youngest, a XXXL, and told me at the rate I’m going I’ll be wearing it in no time. F**k you Anna.
Edit: this was a Christmas present not a birthday present.

#37

Hahahahaha I love this story.
My ex boyfriend, we had just ended for real this time a very toxic on again off again relationship from when I was 15-17 and he was 18-19.
He told me to come by for a gift, and he hands me a little dime baggy with 3 eye lashes inside.
He gave me his wishes.
I couldn’t help but laugh lol.

#38

I got a used Victoria secret tee shirt that said SINGLE JINGLES.

#39

It wasn't so much a gift, but...

When I was going through my divorce, my future ex wife offered to take me out to dinner on my birthday. The last one we'd celebrate as husband and wife.

It seemed like a nice gesture. A final act of civility on the eve of an ugly process.

So we were sitting there over the appetizers at this restaurant, and I asked "so, how did you find this place?"

"Oh, this is me and (guy she was leaving me for)'s favorite restaurant!"


Worst birthday ever.

#40

Not a gift but a card. This is now legendary in my family: I have an aunt (she’s pushing 70) that is extremely extroverted and loves to celebrate everything and be extravagant. I am an introvert. I don’t like my birthdays. I don’t like to celebrate my birthday for reasons. I don’t like attention. When I turned 40, my aunt sent me a card- and inside she wrote how I should be happy for my life and celebrate it…. Then she proceeds to write not one, not two, but SEVEN obituaries in my card of people she knew who were dead or dying. In detail. It was the most hilariously morbid birthday card I have ever seen. We now have it in our family safe as a legendary artifact. I know her heart was in the right place, but oh it was so bad. ?.

#41

A flat pack desk, for me to put together myself…

Parent threw a fit that I wasn’t exactly excited at receiving a desk for the one and only birthday present at 13.

Thankfully, a couple of years later, I had the pleasure of witnessing the absolute meltdown that took place when my parent’s partner bought her a laptop bag as her main Christmas gift. She’d got used to receiving hugely expensive gifts for Christmas, but this Christmas went very much Love, Actually.

Christmas was absolutely f****d, but I was grinning all the way through it, internally of course.

#42

A FURBY - ON MY 16TH BIRTHDAY.

#43

My cousin gave me a signed picture of herself when I was like fourteen or fifteen, I mean, she put it in a frame so that was nice, I guess?

#44

I got baby dolls every year for every holiday until I was 13 because “girls love babies” I never liked them or children ?.

#45

I was 9 at the time and they were doing one of those things where you could buy a Christmas gift from the school to give to a parent or friend, ect. Bought my dad a Thomas the train DVD. I knew exactly what I was doing, and it was hilarious.

#46

Lizzie Mcguire activity book. I am a male and was 15 at the time, thanks Gma.

#47

One year on my birthday (which is in March), my mum gave me a ticket to Phantom of the Opera as my gift. I’d never expressed any interest in going to such a show, and I thought it was odd to get me a single ticket like that. Turns out, the date of the actual show was not until late December, so this would be my Christmas gift as well apparently.

When the date got closer, I found out that it was part of a bunch of tickets that were apparently given free to workers at my mom’s husband’s workplace. So I ended up going to this show with a bunch of his coworkers.

#48

When I was 12f, I told my mom I wanted a skateboard. She got it for me when I was 16. I did not want a skateboard by the time I was 16. It was also swirly green plastic and incredibly cheap.

#49

That time my boyfriend was too much of a coward so he got someone else to tell me I was dumped. Yeah that was pretty much the worst gift.

#50

One year, my parents had the audacity to give birth to me... all down hill since there.