Holiday Gift Ideas for The People You Hate
I’ve always felt that those I love, and like, and enjoy, deserve my time. For them, I’ll go ahead and invest a good chunk of my fall and winter making their gifts myself. Yeah, I spend money on the supplies, too, but I really prefer to save the better portion of my Christmas shopping budget for the toxic people that I’m stuck with every holiday season. Because the only thing more satisfying than seeing a loved one’s face light up at a present you spent time and effort making or finding, is seeing your adversary’s face drop when they get a WTF gift, then watching the wheels spin in their empty little heads as they try to figure out what the hell it means.
Here are some super helpful gift ideas to satiate the psychopath in you this Christmas.
Dennis Skley | Flickr Creative Commons
Passive-Aggressive Hint-In-A-Box
When “hate” is too strong of a word to describe the entirety of your feelings for a person, but there’s still that one thing about them that you just can’t stand, go for a passive-aggressive, hint-in-a-box type of gift.
You can grab some alcoholic-specific face wipes for that relative who always gets a little too wine drunk and brings everything down, or get an obviously juvenile drinking game for that 40 year old uncle who’s stuck in his 20s and never shuts up about his partying escapades. That cranky old relative who voted (proudly) for Trump: get him some Trump memorabilia that makes your feelings on the matter obvious.
Passive-Aggressive-Of-The-Month Club
When your loathing of someone runs so deep that sticking them with a thoughtfully unthoughtful gift just once isn’t enough, you can always remind them of their insufferableness monthly. There exists an of-the-month club for just about everything…
Your cousin’s hipster boyfriend of ten years (“because the institution of marriage is an archaic ownership ritual”) who’s so vegan he won’t even eat honey bee’s spittle: exotic-meat-of-the-month club! Your snooty aunt who somehow manages to complain about her lactose-intolerance while simultaneously judging the cleanliness of your house: cheese-of-the-month club! Your sister’s husband’s brother who doesn’t have a job and lives in her basement but always lets you know he’s classier than you by dictating his distaste for beer: beer-of-the-month club! That snot-nosed little niece or nephew who’s super allergic to chocolate: get them an educational book about not spreading germs.
Wait, what did you think I was going to say? Chocolate-of-the-month club?! Are you serious, bruh? DO NOT get them chocolate.
You… you may be a sociopath. You should get some professional help.
Douchey McPushy Pants
Sometimes, cash or gift cards make sense. But eeeveryone hates that douchebag who insists on only being gifted cash because “they’re saving up for something special.” What a great way to say, “I don’t want anything your puny budget can afford and would rather take all of your meager offerings and conglomerate them into one grand present worthy of my stature!”
Make sure Greedy McMiserly over there gets exactly what they want with all the pomp and circumstance you can muster. Print up a giant freaking check and present it to them in front of everyone. If you want to go the extra asshole mile, get a huge pair of scissors and a massive ribbon too.
Smells Like Revenge
You know that person who’s intrusive, invasive, uninvited? And once they’re there, you just can’t shake them no matter how hard you try. Give them a taste of their own medicine by gifting them one of the most awful smelling perfumes or most offensive colognes on the market. Watch them open it with excitement and then urge them to try it on so it can barge right into their nostrils and make itself comfortable until they go home and shower it off, kind of like you do after being covered with the slime of their presence.
You can also use fragrances to make subtle hints toward those with exacerbated qualities. Give that bitter boss of yours some essential oils for anger, or that unnecessarily high-strung teammate some anti-anxiety scents. Get that irritatingly insecure coworker some lovely lavender-scented candle and let them know you hope it helps them sleep, because they’re looking more and more haggard every day.
The Worst of The Worst of The Worst
Sometimes, repugnance and loathing just aren’t sufficient adjectives to describe your feelings toward someone with whom you have no choice but to associate with. For those whose very being pricks your nose hairs and turns your stomach, you need to make your antipathy clear. Just get straight down to business. When you need a way to tell someone that you think they’re a giant dick, get them a bull penis walking cane. This is not a joke. They are “naturally 36″ long or longer”so you’ll really be going the distance with your statement. And given the caliber of delusional douchebag you are gifting to, they will likely flaunt the classy thing around for years before knowing what it’s actually made of, and you can chuckle yourself to sleep every night knowing that you’ve given the world a little justice.
Bonus For Those With Great Big Balls
When you don’t think you can stand another word out of that big-mouthed, yip-yapping, somehow-obligatory-to-your-Christmas person’s mouth, just get them a shock collar. I know they’re technically for dogs, but the behavioral science is there. I promise, it works for loquacious relatives too. It’ll shut ‘em right up so you and your loved ones can enjoy the rest of the holiday in peace.
Not all of us have the luxury of spending our holidays with only the most stellar people. But, we can make them a little more enjoyable for everyone with the spirit of giving. Good luck out there, folks…