8 of the Worst Gifts to Give Your Friends ...

One of the worst gifts to give your friends is a gift card. To be honest, I disagree but I find that with gift cards there are two extremes – the people who love gift cards and fund a mini shopping spree with each gift card they receive, or the people who feel gift cards are impersonal and require no thought, time or love. I love gift cards but I know many people don’t. To stay on the safe side, try to stay from gift cards unless your friend has specifically said that he/she does not mind a gift card.

Talk about an impersonal gift. Body sets? Really? Your friend most likely has a body wash, shampoo, and conditioner that they have spent a lot of money on and are of better quality than that of the body set you have purchased. Unless this body set has 24 karat gold flakes in each of the bottles or is one of Oprah’s favourite things, I would steer away from body sets.

If your best friend is a newborn baby then by all means give him/her an array of stuffed animals. Otherwise, stuffed animals prove no use in the lives of adults. If it’s an inside joke between you and your friend then a stuffed animal gets a pass. But other than that, I think a gift card would go further than a stuffed animal.

We’re all on a budget and as much as we would love to buy our friends the world, it isn’t always possible. Another alternative you might consider are drugstore fragrances – they seem fancy enough, they’re pretty to look at, and they’re easy to wrap. However, even though a lot of these fragrances might even say “our version of (insert expensive fragrance name here),” they usually smell nothing like them... sometimes they even smell worse.

Maybe your friend collects candles but it’s usually not a common hobby (or maybe it is, what do I know?). Candles, other than as a housewarming gift, are pretty boring and irrelevant. Although they do make for good home decor and some candles can be pretty pricey, candles lack pizzazz, creativity, or a wow-factor.

Many drugstore hair appliances are good only for a short time before they start to burn out - you definitely don’t want to be known as someone who gives presents that are low in quality. Although gifting a drugstore hair appliance is great for someone who loves to style their hair on a regular basis or for someone who has mentioned they are in the market for new appliances, it best not to give hair appliances from the drugstore. Many, not all, hair appliances found at drugstores lack stamina and you don’t want to give a gift that will end up in the garbage in a few months!

Jewellery is fun to give as a gift - even if it’s not what the receiver would have chosen for themselves, the sentiment of jewellery is always appreciated. However, when you’re giving jewellery as a present, remember one thing: quality over quantity! It’s better to give one bracelet that’s $40 rather than a handful of ran jewellery for $30. Although it will seem like you gave a lot more, cheap jewellery is usually fragile, the paint is more likely to chip off, and worst of all cheap jewellery can leave green marks!

Unless your friend and you have a long lasting tradition of giving the same gift every year then this should be avoided at all costs. If you gave your friend a sweater two years ago, please do not buy them another one unless it’s one he/she has been eyeing. To give the same present two or more times pretty much means that you have no interest in putting any more thought into a present than required.

Presents are hard to find and give because we want it to be perfect but we can’t read the mind of the person we want to give the gift to. However, creativity and thinking outside of the box go a long way! What are other presents to avoid giving to your friends?