Wish it could be Christmas every day?

I have just opened my birthday present from my sister. As usual it proved to be spectacularly disappointing. Not to sound ungrateful but a magic-eye book is more suitable for a 12-year old than someone who has just turned 24. Not only that, but I have a rather bad astigmatism in my left eye and people with such a condition are unable to make these puzzles work. With birthday presents like this, you can guarantee I am dreading Christmas.

Without fail, every single sodding year, I get pyjamas for Christmas. Pyjamas that I have no intention, ever, of wearing. At least not in this lifetime. Pyjamas made of foul, cheap, synthetic, silky material in garish colours or pyjamas with prints more suited to the night attire of a, somewhat psychotic, eight-year old (Red Reindeer that even Pablo Picasso wouldn’t admit to drawing) and the very worst type; pyjamas in the colours I detest the most, pink and purple (frequently I get those from my mother). This means that every year, at the first opportunity, I have the pleasure of visiting my local Oxfam shop. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ungrateful. I’d just rather that the money was given to charity, and helped to benefit those less fortunate than myself, than spent on something that I will never use in a million years. That’s why I donate it, often still in its packaging, to the local Charity shop.

Looking through my own selection of carefully considered Yule-tide gifts (Dad – signed Vettriano book, Gran – brooch, Grandad – goat, no I’m not throwing insults about: it’s an ethical gift.), I contemplate the potentially hideous presents that will lie under the tree for me this year, I started to wonder; what is the worst present anybody has ever received for Christmas? I was set on a quest to find the worst.

First stop was a visit to one of the message boards I frequent – my most trusted source for the, sometimes ridiculous, views and opinions of the general public. Signing in - “What is the worst Christmas present you’ve ever received?” I typed. I took the precaution of disallowing any novelty clothing, selection boxes and anything else with a Christmas theme, as everybody has received at least one such offending item in their life. The whole exercise proved disastrous as it just provoked a debate over the true meaning of Christmas and the ethics of donating Christmas presents to charity. Should a well-intentioned gift be given away? Is it caring or callous to do so? Should it become a “boomerang” gift, to be forever passed between members of the same family only to end up back where it started?

After trawling through hundreds of posts without finding anything of use, I decided to give up on that idea but where else could I find some truly horrendous gift ideas? Got it! Internet shopping sites – home to the weird and wonderful. A quick google brought up www.prezzybox.com where, if you so wish, you can buy a Ducti Wallet, a wallet made entirely from silver Duct tape! The offerings at alt-gifts.com included some, rather rude, cat and dog towel holders (use your imagination) and a water powered calculator, no batteries, no electricity, just add water! If none of those ideas were to your taste, then a candy bra and thong set, vibrating soap (don’t ask!) and an Easter Island tissue dispenser (tissues are pulled through the nasal orifice) were available at iwantoneofthose.com. I wondered how many people, if any, would be pleased to unwrap any of these gifts, especially in front of Granny; and how much of a death wish the person who bought them had.

After several hours on endless home shopping sites, I started to get a bit bored and started randomly typing friends’ nicknames into Google. One in particular, Anti-Barbie, yielded the ultimate bad taste, but not the most crap, gift: Barbie poo. Bright pink and sitting in all its glory, it was a bizarre sight to behold. Some how I also came across a survey, organized through Tickbox.net, it asked respondents to name the worst Christmas present they’d received. Answers included: a bag of Bombay Mix, a hole punch, a tape of line dancing music, a packet of condoms, a bottle of Tipp-ex, a tartan wig, a worm farm, a bag of onions, an Easter egg and garden gnome.

Despite all this searching, I still had not found my ultimate crap gift. It was time to bite the bullet; I would have to ask actual people. Scary prospect, so I decided to ask friends in the first instance. Christine, an Aries, was given a pair of god-awful pants with a star sign print on them. Unfortunately the print was Taurus. Blair, the ultimate hell raising second cousin of the devil himself, aged 15 received a Power Ranger toy, much to his unamusement. Donna was the not so proud recipient of some Dolce and Gabanna perfume, which I know from experience smells like something your grandmother would wear. “Except my grandmother wouldn’t as I offered mine to her and even she said it was rank”.

Bad as all these presents were, I still had not found anything I felt was a truly thoughtless gift. Still I had still to talk to people at work. In the event I actually only got to ask one colleague (Christmas time is a bit hectic in the hotel trade) but with that one answer I struck gold. This gentleman used to be a soldier in Her Majesty’s Army during which time he passed an Army driving test. This was unfortunately forgotten by his father who later bought him a set of driving lessons as a Christmas present.

People say that it’s the thought that counts when giving presents; and I totally agree – the thought should count. If people put more thought into what they bought others for Christmas, then fewer people would dread the ritual of pretending to look pleased after receiving the heinous abomination that is their gift. Wish it was Christmas every day? Not with gifts like those I don’t.