‘Tis the season for gift giving! Christmas time is most certainly the right time to give gifts to loved ones and friends and show them in quirky, fancy designer paper wrapped ways that you are thinking about them. But when does receiving or giving a Christmas gift to someone become strange, weird and just a tad creepy?
Now we are not talking about giving a gift to your brother, sister, mother or father, nope! We are not even talking about giving a gift to a close friend. We are talking about those odd moments when you receive a gift from someone very unlikely. Someone who may admire you from afar and one that you simply don’t have a connection or relationship with, on any level.
When we say ‘gift’, we are not talking about a cheesy #Christmas card accompanied by a three inch candy-cane. We are talking about a gift that has thought behind it, more so, too much thought behind it.
History does go to show that men are typically the creepiest of gift givers in the following situations. But please know, there are some very creepy women gift givers lurking around, waiting to make their move.
Here are some examples of when gift giving turns awkward.
The Creepy Client or Customer Situation
When a customer or clients casually hands you a gift and just prior to handing it over says “Oh wait, I almost forgot…I have something for you, Merry Christmas (insert name & creepy eye to eye contact)”.
Upon opening the gift you realize that the gift is a rather thoughtful one, personal almost. You also realize that the gift you are holding is something you had talked about with this person many months ago, meaning they took mental note and waited for the right time to smother you with their weirdness.
This type of situation truly can’t be avoided. The creepy level of this gift giver is a cool and calm 5 out 10 however.
The Overly Expensive Gift
Now if you find yourself in the following situation, you will most certainly be knee deep in a 7 out of 10, creepy level factor, situation.
This situation usually starts with the gift giver approaching you in an overly excited manner and most definitely catching you off guard. This gift giver is more than likely just a distant acquaintance of yours or maybe even a friend of a friend, but with your social media account wide open for public display, they somehow feel close to you.
This person will hand you a gift, neatly wrapped with some quirky b.s. Christmas message on the wrapping paper. You will be in a state of shock and awe as you take the gift from their hands and this feeling will escalate as the gift giver requests that you open the gift right in front of them.
When you open the gift, you are hoping for some cheesy coffee mug from the dollar store, maybe even packed with some hot cocoa packets…but no…that is so far from what you are about to open.
You open the package and BOOM, there it is. A fucking $200 gift card to a restaurant you absolutely can’t stand accompanied by a shitty little stuffed Jesus with a Santa hat on. You will no doubt be muttering under your breath at this point ‘wtf is going on‘.
The gift giver will smile and make an awkward joke or two about going to the restaurant together or how cute the fucking stuffed Jesus is. (Note : Stuffed Jesus’ should not be made, period).
There is no way out of this situation other than to laugh at the gift givers corny jokes and say things like ‘OMG, that would be so fun, you didn’t have to do this…awwwwww….Merry Christmas’. And then you walk away…you don’t look back…you just walk and keep walking…maybe while you are walking you change your security settings on Facebook.
When A NON-Facebook Friend Gives You A Personal Gift
This situation brings a whole new level to ‘creepy gift giving’.
Imagine that you are at work or maybe even out and about running errands and you ‘bump’ into someone that you kind-a-sorta know, but have never really had a conversation with. This person hands you a ‘little something’ and proceeds to tell you that they thought of you when they saw this while out Christmas shopping.
First off, this gift you are about to receive is not ‘just something they stumbled upon’, it is a gift that took planning and a little bit of Facebook stalking to bring to fruition.
You awkwardly say thank you as you take the gift from their hands, all the while trying to remember who they hell they are. You know the face, but you have no clue what their name is.
The mystery person lets you know that you don’t have to open it right away (which is great because the situation is already terribly uncomfortable).
The gift giver will more than likely ask to ‘hang out’ sometime or say something stupid like ‘are you on Facebook? We should totally be FB friends’. Then they will say they have to go and take off.
Phew, it’s over. But really it is just beginning. You find a quite place and open this sketchy gift you have just received and you find it is the exact item you had just posted a picture of on social media a few days prior. You desperately want to think it is just a crazy coincidence, that is until you read the card that accompanied the gift.
‘Something tells me you have always wanted one of these. I hope you enjoy it. Merry Christmas’ signed (insert name).
Yay! You finally have a name for the sketch ball, but know you are forced to wonder why this person is giving you this gift, how they know you wanted this item and now you are probably wondering how they knew where you would be, so they could ‘bump’ into you. You clearly are not FB friends with this person so there is a level of stalking clearly taking place.
To top off the creepy factor, your phone vibrates, you check it and you have a Facebook friend request from this yahoo. Decline! Thanks for the gift….but decline!
This creepy gift giving situation is a major 9 out 10 on the creepy gift giving scale. Typically this would only be an 8 out of 10, but the level of stalking that took place bumps it up the scale a wee bit.
The Christmas Gift Drop & Scoot
This situation is one of the worst. It is like a sick and twisted game of ‘Secret Santa’, except there really is a secret and there is no fucking Santa. Just a creepy person leaving you strange gifts.
This could happen anywhere, the workplace, your home (extra creepy), or maybe a gift is just left on the hood of your car.
The Christmas Gift Drop & Scoot goes like this.
You open your front door in the morning to find a neatly wrapped package with a name label flapping in the breeze. The label reads ‘For You’. That’s it…just ‘For You’.
At first thought you think ‘bomb’, second thought you think ‘what the fuck is this shit’ and last but not least you think…’who the fuck left this on my doorstep like a psycho’.
You take the gift box inside, open it up and find a pair of inexpensive wine glasses with a block of cheese and some processed meat sticks. Now you are pissed. You don’t know who was creeping on your doorstep at all ours of the night, you now have processed meats and cheeses that you have to explain to your family as to why they are in the fridge and you have two fucking wine glasses with no wine. Great!
You set all the junk aside and make your way out the door to start your day. Once you arrive at the workplace, you find another gift sitting on your desk. You will mumble under your breath something to the effect of ‘son of a bitch, not again’.
You now know it is the same creepy gift giver because it is wrapped with the same god damn Christmas paper covered in glittery fucking snowflakes that make a hell of a mess when you unwrap the crappy thing.
This time, the name tag reads ‘Merry Xmas’ with an ‘XO’ on the bottom. An ‘XO’ you think…what the F is that? Who is this person and are they watching me right now? You feel violated, strange, uncomfortable and insecure. You absolutely hate how this creepy gift giving person is making you feel.
You finally open the gift, but you don’t open it in a ‘fun’ manner, you do so in a bottled up, pissed off sort of rage. Paper goes flying, your co-workers are wondering what is happening and then you see it, you see the gift. It is a travel coffee mug that is personalized to you. It even bears your companies logo on it, like you fucking want a travel coffee mug with your companies logo on it, so that you can be reminded about your crappy job every time you take a sip of hot, soothing, roasted cocoa beans.
After all settles you will take your new mug over to the coffee station to fill it up. Why? Because you need something to calm your nerves. This creepy gift giver is messing with your head and no doubt…watching you as you lose your shit.
While at the coffee station you encounter a mystery person. Someone you have never seen at the coffee station before. They are snacking on a processed meat stick and you can’t help but wonder…is this is C.G.G. (creep gift giver). You are fucked. You have no way out and you will forever wonder who this person is. You will live in a state of paranoia, and for that…we give this situation a 10 out of 10 on the C.G.G. scale.
Be careful this Christmas folks and don’t be that guy.
