Am I wrong to feel hurt about this?

Simple - return the teabags as requested....end of.

I got the oddest set of gifts from a good friend of mine the other Christmas. She always gave me a bag of such lovely and thoughtful presents that I asked her outright did she still want to exchange pressies at Christmas. Turned out she was having a few difficulties and felt Christmas was now too much of a financial and time consuming pressure. We agreed to just gift each other a candle for Christmas instead, which has removed the burdens but kept the pleasure. Another friend and I have put a price cap of £25 max on whatever we buy for each other and whatever it is has to be eatable, drinkable, readable, burnable or useful and usable! Christmas should bring pleasure, not stress. ?

When he was young my husband sent a sympathy card to his mum and dad on their wedding anniversary - and not by accident! ?

singingnutty I took a big tub of Twiglets as a contribution to a hamper for a Christmas raffle at a group I go to.
When I got home I realised I'd taken the open tub rather than one of the new ones in the same cupboard ?
I then had the embarrassment of arranging to replace it ☹️

teacheranne why not check with your brother?

This thread has cheered me up after a gloomy day. When our next door neighbour was 60 we were invited to the party which was next door, and took him some whisky as we had just bought a couple of bottles. However, later I realised that we had taken him the bottle we had already opened and had a couple of drinks from. I had to go next door with the unopened bottle and apologise!

I once gave an employee a nice box of chocolates for doing something over and above her normal tasks. The next day she left them on my desk with a note saying the chocolates were “cloudy” and maybe I should return them to the shop!
I took them home & we ate them. Never mentioned them again to colleague. Thought she was really rude.
Maybe the moral of the story is to accept gifts with good grace!

A month before she was married, DDs’ MiL gave her a hideous yellow satin evening bag which she had recently used at a family wedding. It had a stain on it. They gave DDs’ husband to be, their son, a return air ticket to Brisbane where they were living at the time. Needless to say their relationship over the last 18 years has not improved!

A few years ago, my Secret Santa from work was a book, "How To Poo At Work "

Anyone who knew me even a tiny bit, would know that it wouldn't be at all "up my street". And it made me paranoid for ages afterwards

Fortunately my daughter's boyfriend thought it was hilarious, so I happily handed it over

One of our neighbours received a lovely card from her husband which said to my wife from your loving wife!
In his defence he had bought it on his way home from night shift as a paramedic

I had a giggle today when I got a thank you text from my SIL for the gift card I sent them. I usually see them on Christmas Day but Covid changed our plans. I gave all my siblings a voucher for £100 plus a token gift each, usually something edible. My brother had asked for a voucher from Amazon as they wanted to buy some luggage.

The text said she had bought a mop for my brother to use! I hope it was gold plated if that was all she bought! Seriously though I am a tad concerned as she is visually impaired and I hope she spotted the voucher was for £100 not £10 and then thrown the card away thinking it had all been used up!

She might have thought I was having money problems this year and cut back on my gifts, I think next year I will make sure I hand the gift card directly to my brother so he has control over it - he will at least read the attached receipt and know the value!

LtEve, that made me laugh, that's the sort of thing my Dad would have done, and not because his mental health was in question, but because he and his friends had the same warped sense of humour!

My FIL sent a Christmas card to someone last year and wrote in it 'I'm not sure if you're dead yet but if not, Happy Christmas'. Fortunately we managed to intercept it but it did make us realise that his mental decline was worse than we thought, he'd always been 'direct' but not that bad.

I know some people who regift things, especially books. I put a small black dot somewhere on the copyright page, and have received a number of my dotted books back as gifts to me. I have dropped subtle hints, so they know I know.

I regift presents but I write on a sticker who gave me it.

My SiL one year gave me the free gift of miniatures in a zip bag that you got when you purchased a certain number of No 7 products. I knrw because I already had it.
My best friend gave me two sake bowls and saucers this year identical to the ones she gave me about 5 years ago which I gave to the charity shop. They aren't on sale now. Must have got a good reduced price on them. I love her. She's a great friend. I just thanked her.

I think re -gifting has been around for a long time, there is a short story ( may be by Dickens or Twain) called The Smoking Jacket ( if memory serves me well, which it may not) all about a ‘smoking set’ comprising of velvet jacket, hat and pipe which is constantly given as a present to somebody else, it’s very funny.

These posts made me laugh, some truly awful presents.
I think you are right Growingold just laugh off the incident and the suggestion of coffee and a mince pie is a good alternative.

Aveline

A dear elderly friend sent a Christmas card with a note saying, 'Please give the children £10 each.' Fair enough, but no cheque was enclosed!

?
Bet you just had to laugh though.

Thank you all for the tales of some truly terrible presents! They've given me a giggle! I have binned the tea, as it smelled really fusty, but will see if the little wooden box it was in is useful for something. Unfortunately she was specific about the gift she wants back so I can't hand the tea back, which was a box from a well known high street gift shop chain which ceased trading many years ago - the box was bottom up showing the label when I unwrapped it, which is why I moticed it. I'll just consign this episode to history without saying anything to her and suggest we just do coffee and a mince pie or lunch out somewhere instead for future Christmases, to save us both a bit of time and money.
Anyway, a big thumbs up to everyone for the Christmas chuckles!

Allsorts, thankyou, I have decided that is what I will do. I don't want to prolong any feelings of hurt, as we lean on each other so so much. But yes, it will be simpler to cut out the present giving and just do cards, Thankyou all for your thoughts, it has really helped.xxx

Why don’t you decide to just send cards.

A friend of mine was telling me once about an awful book she had been given for Christmas, completely forgetting that she had re gifted it to me. That might explain some of the truly weird presents I have had from her over the years.
A few years back we agreed no more presents much happier all round.

My DB and SisIL once gave me a lovely silky camisole for Christmas. I was delighted until I realized it was a size 16 and I was a size 12. I decided to return it to M&S and say nothing to them except thank you, and get something the right size. When I took it back they couldn't get a price for it when scanned. It turned out it must have been more than 3 years old - M&S gave me £1 for it! It's funny now but I had to wonder how long it had been circulating as a gift and why they didn't even realize it was 2 sizes too big ?

You thought it was lovely and quirky, and it sounds as though you liked it until you saw the price. Maybe your sister bought it because she thought it was lovely and quirky and you would like it. It’s the thought that counts, after all, so try to focus on that.