My great-aunt was the worst for this -- she was on a very limited fixed income, but she was lonely, and so she filled that hole by spending ridiculous amounts of money on "as seen on TV" plastic crap, which she would then happily wrap and box up and send up to us for Christmas. Probably the biggest hit was the toast press: you make toast, and then you press this thing into it and it makes a smiley face pattern -- that one generated paroxyms of laughter (tbh, that one might have been worth the $2.95 or whatever she spent on it just for that laugh). It just made me sad, though, because every year, she'd ship these big boxes of stuff, and every year, we'd put it directly into the Goodwill pile.
I do have to say, though, my favorite of all time from her was the first few years after DH and I married: one year, she gave him one of those candle mobiles, where the heat from the candle makes the mobile spin, with angels and trumpets and such; the next year, she gave him a full nativity set. DH is Jewish.
Then again, as he said, "well, she knew I didn't have one." :-)