gifts for people you hate | Will Tell Stories For Food

Once again, the holidays are upon us, and once again, people are telling me that in this trying time, the one thing I have to offer that they truly need is a hand-picked selection of the absolute worst possible gifts that they can give their brother-in-law. You know which brother-in-law.

If you’d like to push back on the idea that you’re socially obligated to give That Guy a gift, you one hundred percent have my permission to do that, especially given ::waves hands at the world in general:: and you also have permission from the excellent advice columnist Captain Awkward. But sometimes, you hate your brother-in-law but need to stay on good terms with him so you can be around for your sweet, sad-eyed nine-year-old nephew. Or you hate your brother-in-law but want to give the gift of “everyone together without drama” to your lovely mother-in-law who doesn’t have much time left. Or you hate your brother-in-law but just have better things to do with your energy than have a fight, and for $30 you can just not have that fight.

And that’s where I come in! Using my guide, you can carefully select a gift to present with wide-eyed faux sincerity while knowing he’ll take it home and think, “what the hell am I supposed to do with this?” (Bonus points if the nephew thinks it’s awesome.)

A couple of important caveats:

If I have ever given you a terrible gift, it wasn’t because I hate you (I don’t give gifts to anyone I don’t sincerely like and care about), it’s because like everyone else, I sometimes make a terrible call about what would be a good gift. (This is important. Those are the gifts that give deliberate passive-aggressive gifting the necessary camouflage.)
If you have ever given me a gift, I did not scrutinize it for signs that you hated me. I assume the best about people who give me presents. Actually I generally assume the best about anyone I’m on regular interaction terms with and I sail through life these days assuming that people like me and think I’m cool (this was not always true, but hey, being over 50 comes with certain benefits). If you hate me, I probably don’t even know it.
In the interests of official full disclosure, I have an Amazon Associates ID set up, so if you actually buy any of the Amazon items for someone using my links, I get a kickback.

On to the horrors!

Wildly Impractical Beverage Accessories

Helen Rosner (food writer for The New Yorker) (I love her work, for the record!) released a food-themed gift guide last week that’s, hmm, you know, very much the sort of food-themed gift guide you would expect from The New Yorker. For example, a lot of the ideas are very expensive, although she also suggested these $65 egg cups that are made out of actual somewhat-stale-by-the-time-they-get-to-you bread. (“Jen Monroe is a chef, artist, and food designer whose project, Bad Taste, is committed to exploring new ways of thinking about food and consumption, approaching food as fantasy and as a transportive medium.”) There’s probably someone out there who would be very excited to participate in this art project. They probably live in New York. I’m pretty sure there are also plenty of New Yorkers who would paste on a smile and say “oh! how lovely! They’re … they’re actual bread? Huh! Oh, the artist also did a dinner about the honey bee health crisis? How interesting. Let me just put these somewhere the dog won’t eat them…”

Also on her list: Neiman-Marcus’s lobster decanter. Alas, it is now already sold out. This is an impractical bad gift to buy unless you’re extremely rich, because it costs $450. But it’s kind of amazing in a “what the hell” kind of way so here’s a picture of it:

A blown glass sculpture of a lobster that also can be used as a decanter. It has legs and enormous claws. No one would actually try to serve wine out of this thing, I refuse to believe it.

Also, last I checked, Neiman-Marcus did still have the pufferfish decanter available.

This started me looking at decanters and I found some pretty amazing budget-friendly possibilities. Whiskey decanters, this time (I think the lobster is supposed to be a wine decanter but honestly, unless someone sends me photographic proof, I am going to assume that no one on this planet has ever actually put wine in that thing. Can you imagine trying to serve wine from something like that? Can you imagine washing it after?) Wine decanters serve an actual wine-related purpose, which is to aerate the wine. I was curious if I was correct about the main purpose of a whiskey decanter and Reddit more or less confirmed it: the main purpose of a whiskey decanter is so that your friends do not see that you buy the cheap whiskey. Whiskey decanters are actually not a good way to store whiskey unless you’re drinking it up very quickly because you actually want to protect whiskey from light; the whiskey bottle in a liquor cabinet will work just fine, while a decanter on your buffet, not so much.

So this one is actually kind of cool: it’s a whiskey decanter shaped like a Star Wars Storm Trooper’s head (with two glasses that are molded on the inside so that if you pour in whiskey or some other beverage that isn’t clear, it’ll look like you’re drinking your whiskey out of Storm Trooper heads. Like Ewoks.) However, you have to pour quite a lot of whiskey into the decanter to make it look cool (which means if you’re not drinking it quickly, and want to store it properly, you’ll have to pour it back into the bottle). It’s bulky to store and not dishwasher safe. It’s solidly in the sweet spot of “too nifty to just toss so it’ll take up cabinet space for years.”

There’s also this whiskey decanter, which looks like a gaming controller, and one that looks like a globe. (Also, I swear to god, dozens that look like different kinds of guns, which I decided not to link because guns are gross.) The thing is, again, that you’re supposed to be protecting your whiskey from light; these decanters are all designed to be filled with whiskey and then stored on a shelf to look cool, which is the worst possible way to store whiskey. So FYI, literally any of these is a particularly perfect bad gift to someone who’s actually into whiskey, like nice whiskeys, because people who are into whiskey generally know how it’s supposed to be stored (but as a non-whiskey-expert you can just say you saw it was a whiskey thing, you know they like whiskey, and you’ll look very thoughtful!)

But OK: maybe instead of a container for the liquor you’re interested in some barware (i.e., fancy glasses) that would be annoying to use and impossible to clean. How would you like a set of four tiny stemmed glasses that allow you to sip cocktails out of a bird’s ass? Or! A set of two diminutive martini glasses with a built-in straw to drink from the bottom of the glass? (These would not merely be a pain to clean properly but pretty nearly impossible.) Perhaps you’d like to gift someone a pair of jellyfish wine glasses where the stems of the glasses are the dangling jellyfish tentacles. (These are easier to clean than some because at least you’re not drinking out of the tiny narrow tentacles but I would estimate two uses, max, before at least one of the tentacles just snaps off.) Along similar lines is this set of two wine glasses shaped like roses with cute little leaves coming off the side. So cute! So romantic! So doomed! (And so annoying to clean!) Finally there’s this set of funky shot glasses, which could be a good gift, but if you’re not regularly drinking shots with friends it will quickly land in the “we might use it someday and it’s cool” category of household dust-gatherer.

All of these are alcohol-related gifts; if you’re buying a gift for someone who doesn’t drink (especially someone for whom that’s requiring a lot of effort) I would encourage you to buy off another section of this guide, even if that person is an asshole.

Dreadful Decor

If you’re stuck giving a gift to the sort of guy who uses images of white marble statuary for his Twitter profile, my suggestion is that you buy him a replica of Michelangelo’s David. Sadly, the larger-than-12-inch ones tend to go up in price really quickly (though if you need to buy someone an expensive gift you could get them a 20-inch-tall David lawn ornament for $109.) The main thing either way is that it’s a bjig knickknack that will take up space and gather dust and if the recipient has hang-ups about western art they’ll feel like a bad person if they just straight up get rid of it. Along the same lines you could get someone a set of ten mini statues or a poorly done replica of Winged Victory.

If you can’t bring yourself to give something that’s just truly useless, you could also give someone Marcus Aurelius’s bust as a headphone stand. (OK, this is one of those gifts that can be either a terrible gift or an awesome gift.) Somehow the 27th US President, William Taft, got turned into one of these as well and again: could be terrible, could be awesome, kinda depends on the recipient and their opinion of grumpy walrus mustaches. Or their opinions of tariffs.

For a somewhat broader range of people there’s this disembodied hand that you can install on a wall to hold flowers (or whatever fits in that little tubular vase). Or a giant eye sculpture. No, really, it’s just … an eye. Comes in blue, green, pink, or orange. Especially great if the person you’re gifting it to has an Elf on the Shelf (“now you can have surveillance decor year round!”)

Horrifying Housewares

A long-time reader mentioned this year that she bought a saltshaker for someone with holes too small for the salt to actually come out. I love this as a passive-aggressive gift idea and this sent me down the rabbit hole of novelty salt and pepper shaker sets. One of the weird things about housewares is that certain items, you can choose from this amazing array of novelty versions and others there just aren’t any. There are relatively few novelty sugar bowls but so many novelty salt and pepper shaker sets.

One of my favorites was this knight-and-dragon set. It’s cute, bulky (for salt and pepper shakers), annoying to use (the dragon wings stick out, shaking salt on anything requires maneuvering around those wings), and there’s no obvious coding for which is salt and which is pepper. There are actually a number of sets where there’s no coding at all for which is salt and which is pepper, like this set of identical “male and female” Bigfoot shakers. (The two genders: the one that has two holes in the head, and the one that has three.) Finally, from the department of Licensed Kitsch, you can get a Baby Yoda salt and pepper shaker set where one of the shakers is Baby Yoda and the other is his floating stroller.

Novelty teapots are also abundant, and much like the whiskey decanters for a whiskey fan, you can say “I know how much you like tea!” and you get credit for having considered the person’s interests, but very few tea drinkers have much use for novelty teapots. For one thing, they tend to be impractical for actual use. (Most of them don’t have a steam hole and lots have a badly placed handle and/or don’t pour very well.) This one is a sort of spherical cow with a chicken riding on its back as a handle. Also — you know how the Uncanny Valley is the term for images of humans that just look slightly off — realistic and yet off just enough to be super creepy? Here’s a Schnauzer dog teapot that poses the question, “what if dogs, too, could come from the Uncanny Valley?” And here’s a teapot that looks like a Chihuahua that hates you. As a bonus, you could pair any of these with a gift of tea, but the wrong sort of tea, if your recipient has some well-established preference. For example, some people drink only unflavored black or green tea; you could gift that person fruity tea. Or chamomile in a fancy tin.

And some final odds and ends that I just kind of adored in that “yes! this is horrifying! this would be a hilarious gift!” kind of way (all of these are solidly in the “great gift for some, terrible for others” category):

a French bulldog that is also a bodybuilder, holding little trays for … I don’t know, stuff.
Cat appetizer plates. These are genuinely very cute. The problem is, they’re a weird shape and they don’t stack neatly, which means they’d be incredibly annoying to store.
One of my very favorite items this year, a change dish (or candy dish) that looks like the fossilized jaw of a dragon with a baby dragon perched on the edge. Oh, what the heck, I’ll put in a screen shot of the photo, this thing is AMAZING.

I mean this is like the perfect embodiment of “good gift for the right person, terrible gift for MANY OTHERS.” Even if you think it’s cool, it’s got pointy bits where you’d put your change. Eventually it will collect dust and it will be genuinely annoying to try to clean the dust off. It’s way too nifty to just dispose of, though. The epitome of a modern White Elephant! (Except you don’t have to feed it.)

Catastrophic Clothing

For that guy you know who thinks way too often about the Roman empire or maybe fancies himself a Spartan, how about a t-shirt with realistically printed armor on it? Bonus points if it’s someone who has actually done enough research on armor to know what’s totally wrong here (aside from it being, you know, a t-shirt, not actual armor). (Maybe it’s fine. I know almost nothing about armor. I get strong “Hollywood’s idea of what the Bronze Age looked like” vibes from the picture, though.)

Or perhaps you’d like a Three Wolf Moon variant that uses T-Rexes instead of wolves? (There’s something that looks horribly wrong with those T-Rexes but not in an “AI Generated” way, as far as I can tell.) Alternately someone did an edit with iguanas but apparently couldn’t find photos of them with open mouths, so it’s Three Iguanas Hanging Out Under a Full Moon (with a listing claiming that they’re howling).

Or maybe someone in your life likes patriotic stuff? is into flags? Here is a shirt with a cat, wearing a flag as a cape, riding a unicorn, which is jumping over a shark. Enjoy!

Gift Card Strategies

Someone on Bluesky made the following observation about gift cards: “If you are thinking of taking the easy way out again this year for the hard-to-please people on your Xmas list, you might consider that there is an estimated $27 billion stored on unused gift cards in the U.S.” This is a really excellent point, and the lesson I think we should take from it is that hard-to-please people should be given gift cards not to Starbucks or Amazon, but to small local businesses and arts organizations that could make good use of whatever money you put on it. For example, in Minneapolis & St. Paul, Theater in the Round and the History Theater sell gift cards; so does the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. In the “lovely small local businesses” category, Mischief Toy in St. Paul sells gift cards (and FYI to locals, if you haven’t been there you should check it out, it’s one of the best geeky gift shops I’ve ever seen); so does I Like You, a gift shop that stocks a variety of items from local artists, and Moon Palace Books. Check the local area of your recipient and think small.

Books That Send a Covert Message

Books are amazing gifts! For example, you could give my books as gifts, and whether the recipient reads them or not, I’ve made a sale so it’s a win for me!

Anyway, a couple of targeted recommendations for books I read this year that can be presented innocently but might make your recipient feel deeply uncomfortable as they read. All of these are good books that would be excellent gifts if given sincerely, to be clear:

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell. Depending on who you’re gifting to, you can say that you heard it was a horror story about a monster OR that it was actually a very sweet romance without any explicit sex. It’s both of those things, and also a very queer story where the real monsters are shitty family members.

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis. Gav wakes up with no memories of who he is or why he’s in an evil wizard’s lair. Turns out he is the evil wizard. This is a delightful setup and an easy sell as “I thought you’d enjoy it” to anyone who likes fantasy novels. However, as Gav tries to figure out why he turned evil the first place, the answer is strongly implied to be, “basically, he was an incel.”

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh. “Military SF that won the Hugo Award for Best Novel this year!” It’s about radicalization (and deradicalization) and how sometimes, you realize that you’re one of the bad guys.

Jane Steele by Lindsay Faye. This is kinda a retelling of Jane Eyre but the Jane in this book deals with the assholes she encounters by murdering them. Would be a fun gift to someone who lives in blissful ignorance of how many people have fantasized about disposing of his body on a pig farm.

Passive-Aggressive Charitable Gifts

Good news: the Minnesota Zoo still lets you sponsor any animal they have at the zoo. They still don’t list their cockroaches on the big list of all the animals they have, but they do list prairie dogs (cute but carry bubonic plague), Great Horned Owls (owls are associated in US culture with wisdom and intelligence, but are in general some of the dumbest large birds flapping around), pigs, chickens, and sheep.

Also, in my usual hunt to find charities with interesting symbolic gifts, I discovered that Habitat for Humanity has a gift catalog. You can symbolically gift someone with a doorbell set if you wish to symbolically call them a ding dong; a box of hammers if you’d like to symbolic compare their understanding of the world to that possessed by such a box; and if you’d like to give them symbolic coal, I actually think furnace filters come pretty close. (Oh, and hard hats! I feel like the “hard headed” symbology there is pretty clear. But still subtle enough to get away with it.)

You can also give people tribute gifts to Doctors Without Borders.

Happy holidays!

Passive-Aggressive Gift Giving Guides from Previous Years:

Will Tell Stories For Food

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Gifts for People You Hate, 2024