The holiday season can be a hectic time for just about everyone. There’s a lot of pressure to get the right gift for every single one of your loved ones.
Sometimes, we procrastinate our shopping until the 11th hour and we’re stuck with whatever is left on the bare and picked over shelves at the store. Or maybe you wanted to do some online shopping and realized it wasn’t going to be delivered in time.
There’s so much stress around Christmas gifting that one study showed it could even cause a heart attack.
When it comes to procrastinating Christmas gifts, this list might be your saving grace.
We went to AskReddit to see what procrastinators go-to Christmas gifts are so we could take a little stress out of your holiday season.
Redditor johnsanny wanted to know:
“It’s 48 Hours Before Christmas and You Realize You Haven’t Bought Anyone Anything. What is Your Go-To Last Minute Gift?”
With two days left, now’s the time to get yourself in gear.
You’ll just know.
“That’s definitely a ‘go to target and walk around until I see it, and I won’t know it till I see it’ kind of thing.” – Raze321
“That’s how I ended up giving my dad a coffee mug that looks like a toilet.” – SirVelocifaptor
“Yes!! I go into target and let target take a hold of me. It’s really a spiritual experience having target do my Christmas shopping for me.” – rufusmaru
“I don’t wander around Target without a list anymore because when I wait for Target to tell me what I need, my bank account suffers. Do I need new towels? No, but I do now. Maybe my family member will like this gift I found? Oh and this other one too? Might as well get both. RIP budget.” – EponaShadowfax
“As an employee of Target it is deeply enjoyable to notice people ‘see’ the thing.” – predoucheous
Try TJ Maxx too.
“If we’re talking non-money gifts you know what’s a great go to? TJ Maxx. They are just a hodge podge of random stuff and they have bailed me out so much when it comes to gift giving because with all the things they have you are bound to find something for everyone.” – PM_ME_HEALTH_TIPS
“This or their sister stores, Marshalls and HomeGoods, and their slightly lower end competition, Ross and Burlington. Always hard to leave those stores without buying something.” – CumboxMold
“Barnes and Noble has also successfully pivioted to be a store full of junky stuff. Probably the best toy selection now that Toys AR Us screwed the pooch.” – huxrules
The softest blankets around.
“Those soft-ass blankets you find in any store around Christmas time. And then I buy one more for me. Every goddamn year.” – guardrevenant
“I’m going to be real with you. I bought myself one of those last year. Then my mom and dad commented about how soft they were. Great, I’ll buy them each one too. But then our new kitten at the time wouldn’t stop stealing my blanket to suckle and knead on because I guess he liked how it felt, well alright I’ll buy one for the little dude. Open up the site to find out there’s only 5 blanket patterns, 3 of which I already have now between me and my parents. Alright, well, if I get the cat one that’s 4/5 patterns. The last pattern is cheaper anyway…”
“And that’s how I spent $150 on 5 blankets last Christmas.” – IUsedAFarcaster
“About 4 years ago, my wife ordered something from Nordstrom, and somehow they accidentally delivered an entire box of these super soft throw blankets to us, there was about 40 of them in there, not cheap either, they had a retail price of 60 bucks each.”
“We called them, and they could not find any record of them sending these to us, there was no record of these blankets in their system, so they told us to keep them since they could not process a return. We tried to explain that we never ordered them, they just came to our address. Basically, since it wasn’t in their system that they ever shipped them to us, they wanted nothing to do with them.”
“So now we had a box of 40 of these sweet blankets. We kept about 5 of them for around our house, and now they’ve become the default ‘I don’t know what to get this person’ gift. Everyone we’ve given them to has literally loved them. I think we are now down to about 10 left.” – Redditor
Liquor and Legos.
“Liquor for the grownups, Legos for the kids, Duplos for the little kids.” – jimmyjohnjohnjohn
“Legos for the grownups.” – sonicbillymays
“Or for my family, legos for everyone. Seriously, I’ve bought legos for almost everyone this year.” – icepyrox
Alcohol and poetry.
“Cash, candy, and/or alcohol.”
“I wanted to write everyone at work a personalized haiku, I think I’m going to give them mini-alcohol bottles instead.” – 099uyx
“Haikus are cheaper/ You know all you have to do/ Is write three small lines.” – foxfay
“Would write a haiku/ Oh well, I dont know how to/ Have some alcohol.” – KeepCalmJeepOn
Or really just alcohol.
“I’ve done this. Wrapped an unopened bottle from the bar, stuffed it under the tree.” – sobriety_kinda_sucks
“Wine, liquor, or beer?” – elee0228
“Whatever they prefer. Like my mom would get pink moscato, my dad would get crown xo, and my brother likes to try craft beers from local breweries. That probably makes me sound pretentious, but they are so particular about their alcohol and if I bought them anything else I know it would be regifted or not even used.” – magmurray
Gift cards.
“Here is what I do every year.”
“I go buy gift certificates for my favorite restaurants, and gift cards from Best Buy. I then put them in Christmas cards with no name on them.”
“I keep some in the house and some in my car.”
“If someone gives me a gift, I say “Wait a minute, I have something for you too” and go get the card. I quickly write their name on it and hand it to them.”
“Its worked out perfectly for me for years. I give everyone that gives me something, and if I end up with extra gift certificates or gift cards, I just use them on myself.” – joecooool418
“A stack of Starbucks cards works well also.” – ac7ss
“Amazon, Target and Chick fil A are my stash.” – happygamerwife
“I do this with Lush or Sephora gift sets, because it’s always women who ‘get you a little something’ so I stash one or two I know I’ll like in my closet and then if I don’t give them away I either use them on myself or save them for birthdays.” – jacquelynjoy
Just lie.
“My last minute gift is saying I ordered something online but the shipping was late.” – Someone_browsing_tru
“My ex GF did this, but then she sent me a shipping update and it had the date and time of order on it. Christmas eve, about an hour before I arrived. In her defense, it was a bad-a** gift!” – johnn11238
“Better than when my mom grabs gifts so early in the year she then loses them. ‘I have your gift, its somewhere in the house, but I can’t find it. It’ll turn up eventually.’”
“I found Oblivion Shivering Isles in a closet 3 months after Christmas… Good job mom.” – Rayne37
Plus, you can always blame shipping delays on COVID these days.
What’s in the house?
“Check the regifting shelf in the linen closet and see if something can be disposed off. Else cash in an envelope.” – Fickle_Holiday
“If you give the world’s most uninteresting gift to someone in an extended family of regifters, could the gift go generations without ever being opened beyond tearing the wrapping paper? The last person in the chain would circle it around the Goodwill drain as a donation 10 years later, still unopened.” – Redditor
“My mom had an experience like this, it went on for about 11 years! Someone at the office bought this “super cute” door Santa, like you would hang on the front door during Christmas time? Ya it was anything but cute… had a body of pine cones and the creepiest Santa head I’ve ever had the displeasure of witnessing. It was dubbed ‘Creepy Santa.’”
“The gifter left the company shortly after, and sure enough he made an appearance the next holiday gift exchange and for every year for the next decade! He made his way back to my house a couple times, and was used as a threat when we misbehaved… ‘Don’t make he hang Creepy Santa on the tree!!’ It was surprisingly effective.”
“It eventually found a forever home in the hands of a new hire who wasn’t around to get the joke, but she loved it so props to her.” – Shiftyy
An experience.
“Buy tickets online for a upcoming play, dinner & show, concert, game, etc. Print out page of ticket confirmation and put it in a nice Christmas card envelope. It’s an awesome gift because people tend to love it more than clothing or other junk you usually give. And if your parents are like mine, they barely take the initiative to go to these type of events themselves or don’t even know about them. Experience>material goods.” – Yoinkie2013
“Risky unless you know what peoples schedules are.” – Ferahgost
“I do it for my parents every year because they are impossible to shop for and never book these things for themselves. Book it 2 months out on a weekend with refund, date change or cancellation guarantees.” – Yoinkie2013
Hopefully, this gave some of you a spark of inspiration in your time of desperation.
There’s still enough time to get those last minute gifts!
But maybe the best gift of all is the time spent together? I guess we’ll just have to find out.