My family is already asking me what I want for Christmas. The things I want, they can’t give me. They either can’t afford them or just can’t work those kind of miracles. Besides, I really don’t know what I want. When I’m pressured with a question like that, be it my birthday or Christmas, I just shrug and ask for world peace. Or a strap-on. Either one leaves them blinking at me.
Instead of hurting my brain trying to come up with a list of things I want for Christmas this year, I’ve come up with a list of things I don’t want. That should make it pretty easy for those buying me gifts. Just take a look at this list, make a mental note of what’s here and buy me anything but.
1. The Octodog.
It’s not a dildo. It’s not a vibrator. It’s not a really kinky way of acting on your animated hot dog character fantasies.
It’s just a marketing tool to make parents feel guilty about using a regular old knife and fork to cut up their hot dogs.
If you buy me one of these, I will use it to turn your penis into an octopussy. If you don’t have a penis, I will just beat you to death with frozen hot dogs.
2. Spaghetti ice cream maker (see also lasagna, asparagus ice cream makers)
This must be one of those things they advertise on tv at 3am to really stoned people. Someone is buying this thing. I want to know who. Who on god’s green earth would buy something to turn ice cream into shapes? Not just shapes, but…asparagus? WTF? Here kids, I know how much you hate dessert, so I made your ice cream look like a vegetable. Served with eggs. Raw eggs. This is like the opposite of the vegetable flavored french fries they had when I was a kid.
Gets my vote for most useless kitchen gagdet ever.
3. 
. An umbrella hat
I swear on everything that is holy, if you ever buy me one of these things, I will take it and stab you in the face with it. More than once. Until you bleed out.
Why do people purchase gifts like this? It’s one of those things you just don’t assume someone will like or use. Is it a gag gift? When you open something like this do you think, “gee I wonder if Aunt Mary really loves me and doesn’t want to see me struggling with grocery packages while trying to keep dry,” or do you think “gee, Aunt Mary must really fucking hate me and wants me to look like an idiot. Guess she never got over the time I had sex with her poodle.”
4. Crust cutter.
This gadget makes me weep for humanity. This is the height of laziness. Use a knife, ok? And stop making your kids think that food should be fun in order to be eaten. Stop turning sandwiches into shapes and meatloafs into cupcakes and mashed potatoes into sculptures of famous Greek statues.
Ok? I know, you’re a creative mom. You’re artistic. You cry yourself to sleep at night knowing that your talents are going to waste on a couple of kids who don’t appreciate that you can make a plate broccoli look like a topiary of characters from the Wizard of Oz. You could have done better. You should have listened to people when they told you a liberal arts degree was a waste of time. Computer Science was where it was at, but you thought being a starving artist was romantic. Look at you now. Cutting crusts off of bread for two midgets who piss their pants and throw peas in your face and don’t appreciate your efforts to teach them shapes through organic peanut butter and banana sandwiches (this rant may or may not be personal).
6. vacuum cleaner
Goes without saying, no?
7. tshirts with clever sayings
Yea, yea. I know. My mom says hi. Your girlfriend is out of town. If I can read this I’m too close. You love beer, you love tits, you’re horny and you have a funny drinking problem.
I don’t care. Just because you think these tshirts are the ultimate in fashion sense and/or humor doesn’t mean everyone else in the world does. In fact, the only other people who think your tshirts are charming are wearing the same ones. Notice I’m not.
8. donate money to charity in my name
Don’t do this. Please. Don’t. First of all, I don’t want my name on the mailing list for Mother Anne’s Toy Hospital and Pyramid Scheme, Incorporated. Second, your favorite charity may not be mine. If you’re going to donate to the Rev. Phelps or the Moonies or Sarah Palin 2012 fund, I’d rather you didn’t do it in my name. And I know my relatives. Some of this is quite possible.
If this is something you want to do as a gift, finding out a little bit about the person before you do this may be a necessary step. Then you will know that I would rather my money go to the Home for Aging Porn Stars than the Let’s Throw Bombs at Abortion Clinics charity.
9. porn
Porn is a delicate thing. You can’t be too sure what someone will like. Unless you’ve been sleeping with them. Just because you saw Barnyard Babes Volume 6 in my VCR doesn’t mean I actually enjoyed it. I was testing it out. For research. I swear.
And really, sitting around with your family on Christmas morning while the yule log burns away on tv and Silent Night plays softly in the background is not the time nor place to be opening up a DVD Special Edition copy of Big Trouble in Little Vagina.
(If you insist on buying me porn, stick to the classics. Nothing says Merry Christmas quite like Marilyn Chambers on a pool table.)
10 Scratch off tickets
You might as well give someone an envelope and write on it “There may or may not be a hundred dollar bill in here” and then watch as they rip open the envelope, hyperventilating in anticipation, and then giggle when they realize they got the MAY NOT side of the present. “Well, there could have been 100 dollars in there, and that’s what counts, right?” No. If you want to give someone twenty dollars worth of fleeting pleasure for Christmas, buy them some acid or a few minutes at a glory hole. Don’t give them something that’s only going to end up being nothing.
Lottery tickets are the Russian Roulette of gifts.
And there’s my list. So what’s on your DO NOT WANT list?
Sheets and towels. You know, like my mom’s already told me she’s getting me, because why listen when I babble “LUSH gift card, LUSH gift card, LUSH gift card” at her for ten straight minutes? Clearly, that only proves how much I must want sheets and towels.
They’ll have flowers on them, I know it.
Some call me a Grinch, but I am simply happy if no one got me anything.
If I really need something, I buy it. If I don’t need it, I don’t.
So buying me a gift runs a rather substantial chance of getting something I don’t need, so why bother?
Freaking hilarious.
I keep trying to get my family to go with the idea that the only gifts we can exchange are those from a dollar store. Or – from a resale shop.
I realize I’m going against the American Way here, but:
gift cards.
Getting gift cards seems like such a rip. Unless the person who bought it packages it creatively (and 90% of the people who give gift cards do it because they’re too lazy to be arsed to actually BUY a gift, so why are they gonna put effort into wrapping?), you see the stack of little envelopes under the tree, and you’re all, “Oh great. It’s Dec. 22 and I already know what I’m getting.”
And also, unlike (supposedly) most women, I HATE shopping. HATE shopping for clothes, shoes, housewares, all that. I ONLY like to shop in bookstores and small craft stores and maybe online.
People – put in a little effort. Even if you just buy me a fricking box of tea. You know I like tea. You know I like chocolate. Buy me something I can eat or drink. Or buy me soap. Or, you know? I have an Amazon wishlist. You could go check that.
For that matter, I’d even welcome some new sheets and towels. Why? Because it means I won’t have to truck my ass off to Dillard’s and get some when my cheap-ass old towels finally wear through.
Just don’t give me some damn department store credit card and go, “I thought…maybe…you could go get yourself some pants or something.” Because I will have to go somewhere and cry quietly. (Because it’s Christmas and I don’t want to offend Baby Jesus by hurting another person on His day).