The 3 types of Christmas gifters that we fear more than Scrooge

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What is the worst Christmas gift that you've ever received?

Christmas morning is a glorious cacophony of children's laughter, clinking glasses and your mother shouting at you to take it easy on the Bucks Fizz because she doesn't want you making a holy show of yourself in front of neighbours. Again.

The Snowman is to be found playing in the background while ribbons are untied and wrapping paper is ripped. We all love the excitement and the anticipation of seeing what's been left under the tree for us; who carefully chose you a gift, deliberating and looking forward to seeing your face light up? And who found a half-eaten selection box in the boot of their car and decided you were the kind of person who would love the somewhat nibbled Curly Wurly?

There are three types of Christmas gifters that should be banned from all civilised present exchanges. And if you are one of these, shame on you - you're going on our naughty list.

'I thought I would like it so I bought for you' gifter

This gifter would argue that they did put thought into their gift. And they'd be right.

It's just that they thought about what they would like as opposed to paying an iota of attention to your preferences. It's the gamer who buys you the latest Call of Duty despite the fact that you wouldn't know an Xbox from a selection box. It's the hipster who buys you a beard comb and a bottle of craft beer that's been distilled by blind hedgehogs despite the fact you are fuzz-free and on a detox.

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The re-gifter

C'mon now, we are all guilty of this to an extent. That bottle of perfume that is just too floral for you but is your friend's favourite? That gets a re-gifting pass. That bottle of wine that is no longer to your taste since you did that wine-tasting course for your birthday? That's perfect for the annual office Secret Santa because sure who knows what Fintan actually likes apart from making spreadsheets and obsessing about the shared google documents.

Where the  re-gifter gets into trouble is when they start recycling presents willy nilly, flinging a pack of mince pies at the gym bunny and a Beano annual at Granny. And you know you have reached peak spiral when they give you back the present that you gave to them last year, or indeed if there's an inscription on the item. The best approach in this case is to say nothing but to give it back to them next year in some kind of re-gifting hell.

The passive aggressive gifter

This type of festering festive hostility always rears its head at this time of year. And it's actually my favourite out of these three ghosts of Christmas gifters.

It refers to that intersection of gift and insult, of thought and knife-in-back. It's the mother-in-law who buys you a dress two sizes too small with the encouraging words of 'To a healthy and happy 2017!' written on the card, it's the co-worker who buys you a litre of shower gel from the supermarket, it's the flatmate who buys you a pair of feathery rubber gloves. Hilarious.

Ho ho ho.

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Avoid falling into any of these three categories and pick up your gifts at The Loop this Christmas. Make sure to check out our top beauty picks and exclusives from The Loop here and we also asked some shoppers at The Loop all about their favourite beauty products and if they had ever received an especially bad present from Santa....

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