The last-minute- crappy-gift guide

Well, you f****d up.
You spent all your holiday money buying yourself snow cones, monogrammed pants and the entire Boyz II Men discography. Oh yeah, booze, too. Lots of booze. Anyway, you got to find something for all those people on your list or risk being ostracized by your loved ones till next Christmas. Well, you selfish bastard, once again the Daily Lobo has got your back.

Adopting the spirit of holiday guides to replace journalism, cough IQ and Alibi (really, two gift guides in one month?), we created a last-minute-crappy-gift guide.

Note: While these gifts cost little, the Daily Lobo cannot be responsible for emotional or physical damage they inflict on your relationships. Tuck in!

For the “Go-Green” fanatic
This friend will love a homemade gift made of recycled materials, regardless of how shoddy a job you put it together. With this gift, it’s the thought that counts. And when going through recycle bins, you will be surprised at the material people get rid of. Let your creative self go crazy, and it will be easy to construct a personalized and visually interesting gift.

For the artsy type
You don’t need artistic talent to be an artist!
In fact, if you’re visual aptitude and creative ability is borderline childlike, that only will make your creation even more enduring.

Forget that terribly advanced “Photoshop” nonsense or whatever it is. We have need for that. A good round of MS Paint is all you need. If you know the person well, you litter your digital canvas liberally with inside jokes and insanity. Possible subject ideas: a toothless wombat panning for gold in space; Batman wearing a wig and crying while the cast of Glee slaps him in the face, or if your shallow creative well enviably runs dry, just follow this simple format “Animal X, holding Y, fighting Z, with a (BLANK) demeanor.”

For your female friend
Because they aren’t readily offered, most people don’t know that the perfume and makeup counters at department stores offer a wide selection of samples for those who ask. Your friend may be put off by what appears to be a cheap and thoughtless gift, but you can convince her otherwise. It is possible to collect enough samples to equal the size of what you would buy, and as long as you do this you can tell her you didn’t want to limit her to one perfume or eye shadow, since this could never satisfy every desire.

For your male friend
Visit places like Planned Parenthood and other birth control clinics. Gather up as many free condoms as you can without pissing off the receptionist. Deposit all the condoms into some random box that won’t attract attention — an old tea box might work — and then give the gift of STD-free sex to your friend. If there’s any protest on his part, just remind him of some the skuzzy people he’s slept with and that should shut his mouth.

For your mother
Find some bad habit of yours, whether it be smoking, excessive drinking, or that thing with prostitutes, and then make a certificate on Microsoft Word that says you’re quitting that bad habit.

So the form would go something like this, “Mother, this Christmas I want you to know that I am quitting ‘insert bad habit here.’ I finally realized that you were right all along, and I want to do you right.” Mothers love nothing more than being correct, but this does mean you will have to hide your bad habits more effectively in the future.

For your father
Find your father’s favorite musician.
From here go online to your favorite torrent tracker, and download said artist’s entire discography. Now, he might already own all the musician’s CDs, but it’s unlikely he owns the bootlegged versions floating around online, and with a good torrent, you’ll get it all.
Finally, burn them all to some CDs and write on one of them, “And Now Something You Haven’t Heard.” Be sure to tell him one of your friends had the collection and let you borrow the CDs instead of telling him his child is an online thief.

For a younger sibling
Offer to teach them some skill that you know they admire about you.

If the sibling has always wanted to know how to pick up girls or guys, smoke, or fight, then teach him or her. Remember, it’s important to say this to your younger sibling’s face, so it’s like you’re actually acknowledging their existence for a change. Also, you can blow them off when it comes time to reimburse them.

For an older sibling
Tell them you will stop doing that thing that drives them crazy.
Maybe it’s the way you pronounce “maybe,” or maybe it’s the fact that you always tell their dates they aren’t as pretty as the last person he/she was dating.

Either way, offer a cessation of activities with the statement, “Because you deserve one less annoyance in your life.” Cease activity for one week, and then immediately start up again.

For your significant other
The best gift is the gift of yourself. That being said, give them a lock of your hair and say they have a piece of you forever. If you feel that won’t cut it, take pictures of yourself in the place where you first met. Be sure to look sad in these photos and add the caption, “Where I would have been without you.”

Feel free to alter the photo formula too. You could take a picture of yourself in a dumpster with rats gnawing at your feet and add the caption, “You saved me.” If the significant other doesn’t love it, just tell him or her that he or she doesn’t love you. That should work.

Other cool ideas that we couldn’t shoehorn into a stereotype
Buy things that come in packs or with many individual parts. Buy a six pack, and suddenly you have six gifts down! If you increasingly desperate, try buying a LEGO set, then giving out the blocks one by one to your friends. Then, encourage them to work together to make the final product! (This works best if you give the directions to someone none of your friends don‘t know or talk to, like a great aunt, or Student Advisement)

Re-gifting is an art in and of itself. Switch out the name on the card for crappy gifts you get and pass them on. Wrap and give random things you find in your house — loose-leaf paper, cell phone chargers for old phones, expired cleaning supplies, your brother’s video games. Even if you don’t have anything cool enough to be passable, you can wrap and gift your friends stuff back to them. At least then you know they’ll like it.

Take a picture of a gorgeous tree that the person has never seen before. Show the person the picture and say you planted that tree just for him or her. Bask in the appropriate affection sure to follow.

All those free books and magazines at the library are just going to go to waste if no one bothers to take them. Snatch those suckers up, wrap them, and give them out as you see fit.