What's the worst gift you've ever received and ever given?

Joanne's FAVORITE answer:
Given - I once started dating a girl about a month before Christmas but due to her work schedule, we were only hanging out once a week. Not knowing her all that well, and not having spent all that much time together, I was stumped on what to get her for Christmas, if anything at all. One day wandering through the mall, I ran into a friend of hers that I only met once, and for only 10 or so minutes. Thankfully, she remembered me and I asked her what I should get her friend for Christmas. She told me that she liked frogs, anything frogs... So I went to a store and bought a collection of little porcelain frogs. What the hell do I know? I wrapped them up, got a card, and was quite proud of myself. I gave it to said girlfriend on Christmas Eve and she freaked out. Not only did she not like the present, but it turned out that she was somewhat deathly afraid of frogs. The friend had set me up. I told her that I ran into her friend and she told me to get them, the friend denied it, so I looked like the idiot. I think it goes without saying that we did not date for much longer after that.
Received - Anything from my sister. Ever.

Joanne's answer:
To be honest, I love getting gifts and just the fact that someone has gotten me something is very exciting in and of itself, and I really can't recall a time that I was markedly disappointed with any gift I've received. That being said, if I MUST pick something, the one thing that does come to mind is when I was in highschool, my boyfriend at the time (Scott) bought me (among other things) a t-shirt with an airbrushed picture of some cartoon character on it. The thing that made it a weird gift was that the character was from a show I totally didn't watch and had never talked about before (and basically, just had zero opinion about)...it just seemed like such a weird gift and didn't at all reflect my interests. Thumbs down on that one, Scott! And the worst gift I've ever given? I think that must be a set of cat PJ's that I bought for Rene for her bday one year. I thought this would be the most fabulous gift because she loves cats to a totally unhealthy degree...but as it turns out, she does not love PJs nor does she love any clothing with cats on it (due to her desire to hide her cat craziness, I guess!). She never once wore them. Ever. Damn her!

And the other answers:

I fancy myself a good gift giver. I am pretty certain I have never regifted anything! However, I always seem to get screwed over on those white elephant parties. Last year I got a $10 gift card to Blockbuster, and when I went to redeem it, there was nothing on it! So that really sucked, esp. since I had brought a nice gift to give! And movie rentals are now $5! No more of those parties for me!

The worst gift I ever got was from a Yankess swap, at a school Christmas party. I opened it and it was a Donald Duck Chia Pet. I turned around and gave it to Peter that same year as a gag gift. He then sold it to my dad to for 10 dollars and my dad wrapped it for our family yankee swap. However, charma came back to get my dad b/c he won it back in the Yankee swap! It did return the following year...my dad rewrapped it the next year for our Family Yankee swap. So...needless to say it was many people's worse gift! :-)

Worst received, a chair for my 15th birthday from my mom. (http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/comfortstore_2028_28774436). I don't give bad gifts.

If it came from the heart, then it can't be a bad gift, right? However, one year I told my husband I wanted flowers for Christmas. What does he come home with? A POINSETTA! In my mind, a poinsetta was certainly not a flower and didn't count. Needless to say I wasn't very excited about it and, of course, my husband was completely offended. We got into a huge argument about it, and it was many years (3-4!) before I got any flowers from him. Now we laugh about it anytime we see a poinsetta. I guess all women have a certain flower they dislike - kind of like Charlotte's disdain for carnations on Sex and the City.

The worst gift that I ever gave or received was nothing. I felt like I was telling the person that they meant so little to me that they weren't even worth a little bobble or trinket. I felt the same way with the receiving at times also. These days, I at least send a card.

Nothing comes directly to mind but I'm sure if I had hours to think about this I would come up with something. And I'm sure whatever it was, I turned around and "re-gifted" it as quickly as possible so that would answer the second part of the question.

Herpes

I had this boyfriend who was an A$$ - lets just get that out of the way. He was an avid golfer. I would often find his tournament prizes under the Christmas tree as MY presents.

This included but was not limited to: A purple velour golf sweater that was a mens XXL. A cheap gold putter even though I owned a $200 ping putter. And I won't get started on the used engagement ring he bought from a friend who's relationship ended for $50 bucks and tried to pass it off as an "antique". He is one of the many reason why I don't celebrate my birthday or ask for gifts of any kind for those uncelebrated birthdays and christmas.

I can’t say that I have ever received a bad enough gift to warrant mentioning on the QOTD. But, my husband has received some pretty bad ones from his brother. He once got a Mr. Potato head and a “Legends of Zelda” t-shirt. Those aren’t necessarily bad gifts – for a child. Too bad my husband was in his 20s. His brother also gave him this bendy magnet thing one year. It was actually a pretty cool gift. Too bad that they both got the same thing a year before…from their mom. Yup, his bro re-gifted. It was pretty bad considering that his family, including his mom, was there when he opened it. So, his brother offended my husband and his mom by re-gifting. A little piece of advice for those that want to re-gift…make sure you don’t re-gift to someone who would know that it was a re-gift. By the way, we no longer exchange gifts with my husband’s brother and his wife.