Whether you’re dreading the inevitable hoover from your boyfriend’s mother, or you’re busy wrapping some socks for your dad (sorry, Dads), take solace in the fact that someone bought me a tin once, and I opened it (in front of them) thinking that there would be more gift inside, and there wasn’t.
1. A Flat Cap.
Who am I, Madonna circa Guy Ritchie? My mum bought me a tweed flat cap and she was really happy with it and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings so I said I loved it and then it lived happily inside my wardrobe.
2. A Second Flat Cap.
A herringbone friend for the first.
3. Another Flat Cap.
Seriously. From my mum again. I gently reminded her that she’d bought me a very similar if not identical tweed flat cap the year before, to which she replied: ‘Really? But I’ve never seen you wear it’.
4. The Empty Tin
It was pink and round and 100% empty. Proof that Secret Santa is basically just a chance for people that work together to buy passive aggressive and/or funny-but-actually mean gifts for people that they work with. NB: I just shouted across the office to ask for input, and Lauren Smith was given an unscented white candle by her Secret Santa once, which confirms my theory.
5. A Saucepan
Natalia Bagniewska’s grandmother got this for her mother. I assumed that it was her paternal grandmother. But I was wrong. Go figure.
6. A Grow Your Own Boyfriend
Again, Secret Santa. This was accompanied by a Pez.
7. A Toaster
Jess Commons’ parents gave her a toaster for Christmas during her first year of uni – some kind of coming-of-age present, I guess. She already had one.
8. A Shayne Ward CD
Bad enough without the fact that on Christmas eve, my friend (the lucky recipient of this gift) heard him on the radio, and told her Gran (the gift giver in this scenario) that he was an annoying prick who couldn’t even sing and she hated his Christmas song.
9. A Slow-Cooker
Chemmie Squier’s dad bought his now-fiancee a slow-cooker the second Christmas that they were dating. Opinion in the Debrief office was divided on whether or not this was a good present (Jess was for, Natalia was against) until Chemmie pointed out that the rest of her family had clubbed together to give their soon-to-be-stepmother a sewing machine the same Christmas, so it probably felt like she was being instructed on household duties and/or inducted into a homely cult.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.