The 7 Hardest People to Shop For: A Holiday Gift Guide

With the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, we enter that long, grim death march known as the holiday season. It's a time marked by cold weather, wet feet and societal pressure to buy thoughtful gifts for your family or, depending on your circumstances, the group of circus oddities who have become like a family to you.

We here at Cracked want to help, or more accurately, to pretend to help while we make cheap jokes at your expense. To do this, we've enlisted the aid of thousands of spies to track our readership and identify the most problematic people they'll have to shop for this holiday season. Then, using the personal shopping abilities granted to us by a powerful alien ring, we compiled the following Gift Guide.

#7. Gifts For Someone You Don't Like Very Much

Most folks try to avoid people they don't like very much, but around the holiday season that can prove difficult, especially if one of them is your kid. Should you find yourself in the circumstance of having to buy a present for some prick, here's a list of gifts any prick will be sure to hate.

Non-Alcoholic Whiskey

To the uninitiated, whiskey possesses a flavor best described as "angry fire." It is generally agreed to be an acquired taste, and if it weren't for its great redeeming attribute -- lots of sweet, nourishing alcohol -- few people would even bother acquiring the taste at all.

And here is the drink for those few people. Arkay Non-Alcoholic Whiskey Flavored Beverage is a mockery of nature and human accomplishment, a war-crime against common sense, the single beverage guaranteed to please no one.

Its very existence is a testament that when left unrestrained, science can produce monsters.

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A Boobytrap

This gift is less for someone you don't like very much, and more for someone you think would be better off with less hands. That might sound extreme, unless you were raised by a television and don't really understand consequences, in which case it sounds fine, and you're also angry at us for using long words like "consequences."

Just be careful. Maybe get it wrapped at the store.

Classic treachery-themed presents include:

- A stocking with a mousetrap in it.

- A stocking with a bunch of feral mice in it.

- A Pringles can that contains a snake and few Pringles.

- A wooden horse full of soldiers.

- A huge basket of acid.

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Anything Touched by Your Dick

If you don't like to mix your gift-giving with jail time, consider this low-key approach: purchase a gift and put your genitals on it. Any gift at all can work for this, so long as it can be purchased in a container that's easy to reseal.

Obviously though, some objects are better than others.

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#6. Gifts For Someone You Like Way More Than Is Appropriate

Whether she's a crush who doesn't know you exist, or a really attractive aunt, you've got a certain special someone in your life. Regardless of whether she (or society) wants her to be that special someone in your life, a gift is in order. And you need something to make a statement; something that when unwrapped will make her gasp, and stop all conversation in the room, and really, all conversation for miles.

Something Way Too Expensive

There is a certain natural relationship between the expense of a gift and how close you are with the giftee. Someone whom you don't know very well would typically expect a token gift, something which implies more thought was given than money, and not much of either. You don't want to do that. You want to fly way past that, like two-months salary past it, blowing the fucking doors off standard gift-giving conventions.

In that case, try this diamond tennis bracelet:

The 36 diamonds says, "I just spent seven thousand dollars on you," and the tennis bracelet says, "I am so dangerously out of touch with reality that I don't know that no one wears tennis bracelets. Isn't that quirky and fun? Who wants to go for a car ride? In my van?"

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Underpants

Nothing too sexy obviously, because you don't want to come off as creepy. Maybe pajamas or, if you're feeling bold, really small pajamas.

"I got you the golden lasso to go with it, but I got it ... dirty ... before I could wrap it."

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A Teddy Bear With a Webcam In It

Not a big webcam obviously, because you don't want to come off as creepy. These things are often marketed as "nanny-cams" and are intended for parents to surreptitiously monitor their childcare workers, but no one really checks that when you're buying them.

"It even comes with a clear dome-shaped playhouse that we can mount on the ceiling!"

#5. Gifts For A Single Person

This is likely to be a pretty common shopping chore for many of you, if only because of the later age at which we're all marrying these days, and the fact that Cracked readers and their friends are so clammy and unlovable.

Alcoholic Whiskey

"I don't need your fucking rules, wall!" your friend will scream, attempting to show a wall who the boss of their apartment is, an interaction indebted to the magic of alcoholic whiskey. Reveling in the successful roughing in of a new door, your friend will forget all about his relationship troubles, as per the instructions on the accompanying card: "To Help You Forget Your Relationship Troubles."

The preferred brand of alcoholic whiskey is Old Grand-Dad Whiskey, due to its distinct "alcoholy" nose and body.

A whiskey for those who are single, or who soon will be.

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Deodorant

This cuts right to the heart of the matter, or perhaps the hairy patches a little to the sides of the heart of the matter. It's a fact that stinky people don't get dates, unless they work in a town with a pulp mill (and even then, the dates are pretty grim). The deodorant we're specifically recommending is Aspray, because of its promise to combat "beastly butt odor."

Implying that a dear friend has bum smell problems in front of their friends and family is an unkind blow, but it might also provide you some cover, assuming that this collection of people agree with you. "That's why we switched to the real Christmas tree when you turned 15, son," his mom says, nodding sadly and standing behind you in support. "For the fresh pine scent. It's also, probably, why the dog ran away."

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Something With A Hole In It

Getting someone an inflatable sheep is pretty tasteless, the kind of thing an idiot would do for his friend's bachelor party. But getting something stylish and discrete with a hole in it, that shows that you put a bit of thought into your gift. And also a squishy aftermarket orifice into your gift. We're not going to Google squishy aftermarket orifice, but you go ahead and see what that gets you. Instead, here's a picture of a classy and sturdy lectern you could install said orifice in.

"Yeah. Uggggh. Oh ... Yeah ..... Oh. Oh. OH! ORATION!"

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#4. Gifts For A Father Embarrassed By You

It's become harder for the youth of today to get ahead in the world. Back when our parents roamed the earth, it may have been possible to get a good job with a high school education, but today? Even a bachelor's degree is no guarantee you're getting a job where you get to sit down.

Also, we have Xboxes now, and those take some time.

In any event, you now have a dad who lies to his friends when they ask him how you're doing. Here's what to get him for Christmas.

A Job

In The Secret Of My Success, Michael J. Fox parlays his position working in the mailroom of some kind of business-company into a wheeling-dealing executive role. He does this by showing up in a suit and sitting down in an empty office. He walks the walk and talks the talk -- that's all it takes.

He also forgoes the use of elevators, traveling everywhere by champagne.

You probably have a job of some sort, even if it's volunteer Xbox Live tester, so you're going to try this for yourself.

- Go down to the thrift store;

- Get a suit;

- Put on the suit;

- Bullshit your way into a better job;

- Panic when someone looks at you funny;

- Spend the rest of the day hiding in the washroom;

- In your panicked confusion, take a picture of yourself in the washroom to prove to your dad that you got a good job;

- Give that picture to dad;

- Hold back your tears when he stares at you and ask if you're doing "Weird bathroom porn" now;

- Mumble something about dental benefits.

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Home Emancipation Kit

For 15 dollars and a few hours of fun and Christmas afternoon paperwork, your dad can finally, legally disown you.

A sturdy handshake, a Ziploc bag full of leftovers and the sound of a deadbolt turning as you crunch down the driveway -- that's what Christmas means to you now.

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Something You Made Out of Wood

This is the gift to try if you're still pretending you can win back dad's approval. All fathers have an innate appreciation for wooden things, and if you claim that you made it yourself, you're sure to win many style points. "Claim" is the key word here, because obviously with all that Skyrim to play, you're not going to have time to actually make something.

Get something simple, something you could plausibly make yourself. Find the crappiest thing you can find on Etsy. Or maybe one of these wooden spanking paddles -- something which will cause dad to recall happier times when he could still beat the stupid out of you.

A third option is to just make another one of these ...