Receiving, er, we mean giving Christmas or holiday gifts is the best part of the holiday season. Especially when you hit a home run with an amazing present that you scored for a super cheap price. You look like a baller afterward and, most importantly, you’ve made someone’s day a little bit better.
Of course, the favor isn’t always returned. Sometimes you’re on the receiving end of a truly awful, useless, and junky gift that should go straight from your hands to the dumpster and ends up being more disappointment than delight. Trouble is, you have no idea what you’re in store for until you tear that wrapping paper open. In order not to offend anyone, you need a Christmas poker face so you can appear jolly when you’re really feeling jilted. Your best and most realistic way of doing so is to always prepare for the worst. Always. Even if it’s someone who has been reliable in delivering amazing gifts in the past, don’t count on them.
The worst thing you can do is offer one of these faces. They’re dead giveaways:
#1. The “You Totally Faked Me Out” Face
When the present looks like it could be something cool — it doesn’t squeal when you kick it and has some weight to it when you hold it up and shake it — but you open it and it’s … a commemorative plate of The Royal Family’s trip to New York. That’s been chipped.
#2. The “This Is Super Awesome … 15 Years Ago” Face
In the mid-1990s if you got yourself a sack load of pogs and slammers you’d be riding high. Get one in 2014 and you might ask what the hell you did to piss the person off. Smile, even if it’s forced, and remember those pogs can be used like mini Frisbees to launch at siblings or in movie theaters.
#3. The “My Gender Is That Ambiguous?” Face
Old people can get confused. They might zig when they should zag or make the horrible mistake of sipping a urine samples instead of their lemonade. It happens. So if one of your grandparents accidentally gives you a pink Lululemon headband — or whatever they could shore up from their dusty basement — roll with it. If it’s new and name brand you can always turn to eBay.
