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Caryn
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Look at the table at the end of an office gift exchange. Whatever is still sitting there at 4:30, abandoned next to the empty cookie tray, was a gag gift that only had one move.
Caryn has packed a lot of December orders at the kitchen table since we started printing pots in a Pennsylvania garage in 2018, and the gag-gift ones are the most fun to read. People write notes on them. They tell us who it is for and what that person did to deserve it. Those notes are basically free market research, and they say the same thing every year: the funny gift that gets kept is the one that also does a job.
That is the entire filter. Everything below passes it.
A gag gift survives January if it clears four things.
Our middle finger trellis is $6 and about a foot tall from base to tip, and it is the most gag-gift-shaped thing we make that is also, genuinely, a trellis. You stick it in the pot. A pothos or a small climbing plant grows up it. Six months later the joke is half-buried in foliage and it has quietly become a piece of plant equipment that makes guests do a double take.
That slow reveal is why it works better than a shock gift. It is the only gift on this list where the punchline improves with watering.
Best given to: the coworker with a plant on their desk and a low opinion of the parking situation.
It is $12, roughly 5 by 3 by 4 inches, and it fits a small to medium plant with a drainage hole in the bottom like every other pot we print. It is also the product our own families had the most opinions about, and our first version of the design had a structural flaw we are not going to describe in a post about Christmas gifts.
Here is the honest guidance. It is a great gift for a close friend, or for a group chat with a name you would not say out loud at work. It is a bad gift for a Secret Santa where you drew a name from a hat and have never spoken to the person. The joke is warm when there is a relationship under it and awkward when there is not, and no amount of wrapping paper fixes that.
Best given to: the friend who already sends you the worst memes and would absolutely put it on the kitchen windowsill.
Sometimes you need funny without needing nerve. An animal planter with an unreasonable expression does most of the work, costs about the same, and has a far wider landing zone. Nobody has ever been offended by an owl.
We sorted through the whole category in funny plant pots, including which ones read as funny across a room versus which ones only work up close. If the recipient is more “nice gift” than “gag gift,” the under-$20 picks in gifts for plant lovers cover that end without anybody having to explain themselves at the office party.
Prank kits with consumable parts. Anything printed with a meme that will be eleven months stale by the time it is opened. Novelty socks, which are not a gag gift, they are a way of avoiding choosing a gift. The inflatable thing. You know the inflatable thing.
Also, and we say this as two nurses: skip the gag gifts about somebody’s body or their drinking. They land differently than people think they will, and you will not find out until later.
Most people are not buying one. They are buying for a gift exchange and for whoever is hosting.
Our Shelf Squad price is any three planters for $33, and it applies itself in the cart with no code to remember, which is how we would build a gag-gift stack: one trellis, one planter with a face, one that is only funny to one specific person. Shipping is free over $35 and $4.95 otherwise, everything is printed after you order it, and orders go out in two business days.
One scheduling note, because we get the email every year around December 18. We print to order. That is why nothing sits in a warehouse and also why “I’ll do it next week” is a plan with a deadline. If the gift exchange is mid-December, order in November and let it sit in your closet like a person with their life together. Everything is in the shop.
<p>The post Gag Gifts for Christmas That People Actually Keep first appeared on Wild Buds 3D Printed Planters.</p>
Caryn has packed a lot of December orders at the kitchen table since we started printing pots in a Pennsylvania garage in 2018, and the gag-gift ones are the most fun to read. People write notes on them. They tell us who it is for and what that person did to deserve it. Those notes are basically free market research, and they say the same thing every year: the funny gift that gets kept is the one that also does a job.
That is the entire filter. Everything below passes it.
The test: is it still on a shelf in February?
A gag gift survives January if it clears four things.
- It has a function. A joke mug is a mug. A joke certificate is trash with a border on it. Objects that hold something, support something, or go somewhere on a desk have a reason to stay.
- The joke lands in under two seconds. If the recipient has to read a paragraph on the box, the room has already moved on.
- No batteries and no sound. Anything that makes a noise is funny twice and then lives in a drawer with the dead AAs.
- It survives being seen by their mother. This is where most gag gifts fail, and it is worth thinking about for ten seconds before you click buy.
The trellis that says what everyone at the potluck is thinking
Our middle finger trellis is $6 and about a foot tall from base to tip, and it is the most gag-gift-shaped thing we make that is also, genuinely, a trellis. You stick it in the pot. A pothos or a small climbing plant grows up it. Six months later the joke is half-buried in foliage and it has quietly become a piece of plant equipment that makes guests do a double take.
That slow reveal is why it works better than a shock gift. It is the only gift on this list where the punchline improves with watering.
Best given to: the coworker with a plant on their desk and a low opinion of the parking situation.
Yes, the booby planter, and here is the case for it
It is $12, roughly 5 by 3 by 4 inches, and it fits a small to medium plant with a drainage hole in the bottom like every other pot we print. It is also the product our own families had the most opinions about, and our first version of the design had a structural flaw we are not going to describe in a post about Christmas gifts.
Here is the honest guidance. It is a great gift for a close friend, or for a group chat with a name you would not say out loud at work. It is a bad gift for a Secret Santa where you drew a name from a hat and have never spoken to the person. The joke is warm when there is a relationship under it and awkward when there is not, and no amount of wrapping paper fixes that.
Best given to: the friend who already sends you the worst memes and would absolutely put it on the kitchen windowsill.
The safe swap when you drew a stranger
Sometimes you need funny without needing nerve. An animal planter with an unreasonable expression does most of the work, costs about the same, and has a far wider landing zone. Nobody has ever been offended by an owl.
We sorted through the whole category in funny plant pots, including which ones read as funny across a room versus which ones only work up close. If the recipient is more “nice gift” than “gag gift,” the under-$20 picks in gifts for plant lovers cover that end without anybody having to explain themselves at the office party.
What we would not buy again
Prank kits with consumable parts. Anything printed with a meme that will be eleven months stale by the time it is opened. Novelty socks, which are not a gag gift, they are a way of avoiding choosing a gift. The inflatable thing. You know the inflatable thing.
Also, and we say this as two nurses: skip the gag gifts about somebody’s body or their drinking. They land differently than people think they will, and you will not find out until later.
The math on doing three of these at once
Most people are not buying one. They are buying for a gift exchange and for whoever is hosting.
Our Shelf Squad price is any three planters for $33, and it applies itself in the cart with no code to remember, which is how we would build a gag-gift stack: one trellis, one planter with a face, one that is only funny to one specific person. Shipping is free over $35 and $4.95 otherwise, everything is printed after you order it, and orders go out in two business days.
One scheduling note, because we get the email every year around December 18. We print to order. That is why nothing sits in a warehouse and also why “I’ll do it next week” is a plan with a deadline. If the gift exchange is mid-December, order in November and let it sit in your closet like a person with their life together. Everything is in the shop.
<p>The post Gag Gifts for Christmas That People Actually Keep first appeared on Wild Buds 3D Printed Planters.</p>