Every year at Christmastime, people
around the world gather together to celebrate the birth of
Jesus/winter solstice/school holidays/Hanukah/Kwanzaa/the day off
from work, and part of that celebration involves exchanging gifts. Of
course, buying a gift for someone else can be harder than it sounds.
It’s often difficult to know what someone else will enjoy,
especially if, like me, you spend the rest of the year avoiding the
people you must now buy gifts for, or you’ve got one of those “man
who has everything” situations to deal with.
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| Hint: The man who has everything wants a singing fish. Go get him one right now. ~Toby Dylan |
Over the years, I’ve gotten my share
of Christmas gifts that kinda sucked. Seriously, I’d rather get
nothing than:
Clothes That Are Too Big
It seems like every time someone gives
me clothes for Christmas, they’re too big. I don’t mean they’re
a size too big. I mean I wear a small/medium and I get an XXXL. When
I point out that the clothes are much too big, I get an irritated
“Well you weren’t always so thin you know Marjorie” in
response.
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| Actually, I was, bitch. |
A Bottle of My Elderly Aunt’s
Favorite Perfume
More than once in the past, my oldest
aunt has given me a bottle of her favorite perfume for Christmas. I’m
not sure if she genuinely thinks I like the perfume, if she
isn't aware that other types of perfume exist, or if she simply
wants me to re-gift the perfume back to her the following year.
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| Every year for Christmas, my oldest aunt gets a bottle of her favorite perfume. |
Some Bright Red Hooker Lipstick
I got this when I was twelve, and it
was “time [for me] to start acting like a lady.”
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| As far as I'm concerned there are only two shades of lipstick -- "Streetwalker" and "Serial Killer." |
Twenty Pounds of Knitting Wool
To be fair, I had asked for some
knitting wool that year. I see now that I should have been very, very
specific about what I meant by “some.”
 |
| Overboard: You went there. |
A World Almanac for the Year 1996
To be fair, it was 1996 when I received
this gift. It was still kind of a weird thing to get.
My grandma gave it me “because [I
was] always calling and asking questions.” She had a set of
encyclopedias, which were these things we used to look up information
in before there was an Internet.
 |
| You've probably never heard of them. ~ Surya Prakash S.A. |
For the record, I don’t think I ever
managed to find any useful information in the almanac. I was 14, so
it wasn’t like I was getting in pub arguments every weekend.
A Washcloth and a Bar of Soap
Really, guys? Really?
Cherry Cordials
When my granddad was alive, bless him,
he used to buy everyone the same gift every year – a box of cherry
cordials. I, for one, always hated cherry cordials. I should have
known he was on his last legs the year he unexpectedly broke the
lifelong cherry cordial pattern and gave me twenty bucks instead.
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| R.I.P Grandad |
