It’s that time of year, folks! When friends (who should really know better or were tangential and distant enough in your social circle that you never would have expected it from them) will give you surprise Christmas gifts. Now, big or small, the social custom is that you are now obligated to respond in kind. This is under threat of them complaining about you behind your back or your own crippling guilt leading you to crawl to their doorstep in a drunken stupor on Christmas Eve with a beaten up old fruit cake crumbling in your shaking hand as the bitter December wind threatens to blow it away into the darkness with what little is left of your hope for peace on Earth. Yeah, it has been quite the year.
Now, it’s always worse when you are caught off guard and scrambling to find unopened liquor or a Hallmark card that was written in pencil to regift, so my present to all of you who deserve it (if you don’t, please stop reading now) is five gift ideas you can keep on hand in case anyone you know hates you enough to get you a gift.
Homemade pickled or preserved food
Got leftovers or questionable berries? Throw em in a jar and boil! If you don’t know how to make your own, just tear the label off of whatever is still in the back of your fridge. Don’t worry, it’s preserved, it’ll last forever. They’ll be fine. Probably.
Your old textbooks
Knowledge is priceless after all! Thanks to the soulless publishing industry, laughable book buyback programs, and the horde of flakes on books2go.ca, chances are you weren’t going to ever make back even a little of the hundreds you spent on first-year courses that were irrelevant to your program. What better way to spread the cheer than freeing up the space on your bookshelf or backseat of your car for things you might actually enjoy — like action figures or groceries.
A cardboard box full of dirt
Remember that future-documentary Waterworld? With the rate we’re going now, in a year’s time a cardboard box will be worth its weight in gold and cigarettes with most of the world’s arable land below sea level. This gift not only provides long-term value, but it also shows that you’re looking out for your friend and their future bloodline as well, as their mutant offspring will no doubt use the advantage of dirt to lay claim to a kingdom over the snivelling, seaweed-harvesting “wet-men” flotillas.
Your debt
Get them to sign some sort of legal document that makes all of your financial problems their problems. This will require some fun improvisation and creativity on your part, but it will teach them a lesson. You’ll also be respected more in a post-Trump world where deceit and trickery is the only measure of good business acumen. Heck, even if this ploy doesn’t work out you can always just declare bankruptcy or stop paying taxes — you’ll still be popular.
A fucking clue
If they had one they wouldn’t have sprung this on you.
