The toxic present list
How to avoid offending anyone this Christmas
With any luck you haven’t started your Christmas shopping just yet because, before you do, it’s crucial that you’re up to speed with the current toxic present list. These are the ones that could be worse for you than buying no presents at all.
The I Got This Free Present
If you work for Revlon, sadly you cannot give all your female relations a bumper Revlon make-up box, or not more than once anyway. This is a great pity when most of them are longing for an autumnal eyeshadow palette, and would certainly prefer that to a set of pretty lavender bags*. Still, that’s the rule. Stuff snaffled from work, even if you paid a bit for it, puts you in the zero effort, here’s something I didn’t choose for you earlier, category.
The Benefits Everyone Not Just You Present
Unless someone is gagging for a coffee machine for their WFH shepherd’s hut at the end of the garden (you never know, some people do live like this), the coffee maker present is the equivalent of receiving a new boiler. Will it really ever be their coffee maker? No.
The Couple of Years Too Late Present
Most presents do not date, but the hot cookbook of the moment, for example, definitely does. Anyone likely to appreciate this gift must be given it within a restricted time period or, guaranteed, they’ll already have six copies. Furthermore, even if it’s not the case, giving them 2018’s hot cookbook will make you look as if you were given it in 2018, never opened it, and decided not to waste it.
The Pass Along Present
Aka one from the present drawer, this is toxic in two ways. Firstly, everything in the present drawer is a dud waiting for a home, which automatically puts it in the not
special or thoughtful category. Secondly, when giving a Pass Along, unless you are a Bafta-nominated actor or Botoxed to blank mask point, you will always look slightly uneasy (knowing as you do that this present has been gathering dust for four years and… is the person who gave it to you approaching with the eggnog?). Never ends well.
The Totally Pointless Present
A change purse. What? *A set of decorative lavender bags. Why? Some really tiny saucers. Are they for salt? How many salt saucers does a person need? The decorative… what is it? A soapstone ring dish? Please, no.
The Too Intimate Present
Does anyone want to open some mocha chocca latte satin undies in front of their 13-yearold nephew and nonagenarian parents? They do not.
The Why Me Present
There is nothing wrong with this. Possibly it’s very nice and clearly cost a bit, but still this present is unnervingly unrelated to its recipient. It will make them question everything about their relationship with the giver (they think I’m a scallopededged napkin person) and then question if they are, in other people’s eyes, simply a woman with nothing much to distinguish her from all the other females who enjoy browsing linen shops.
The Slightly Too Improving Present
Should a husband give his wife hair straighteners she never asked for? A trial introduction with a personal trainer? A week in a German spa? No.
The Thing We Know You Already Have Only Yours Is Much Nicer and Bigger
You already have the big luxey earrings with the luscious drops, then you get her the mini-mes, which will feel to her like watching the grownups tuck into beluga while she’s stuck with a Happy Meal.
Does anyone want to open mocha chocca latte satin undies in front of their 13-year-old nephew? They do not
The Brown Box Present
There are some presents that act like coolers in casinos. They’re the ones bought in a spirit of “This will definitely do!” But when you come to wrap it up, you realise it has no gifty zest, no ooh-aah fireworks, and on the day it will feel like receiving an Amazon delivery of moth traps.