Clothes for Christmas Cringe

You'd think the mood would be cheerier with all those smiley faces on the ornaments.

"Dear Santa, Last year I asked for a long-range thermonuclear "smart" missile and a launcher. Instead, I got socks and a shirt. Obviously, you mixed up my order with someone else's. Let's get with the program, huh?"

— Calvin writing a letter to Santa, Calvin and Hobbes

A character receives clothes as a gift for Christmas (or any other gift-giving holiday) and hates them.

This trope may be exaggerated if the gift is low quality, such as clothing not even being the right size, and/or it's something that the character is uninterested in wearing (e.g. a tomboy receiving a dress).

The bad gift is usually clothes, as they are much more boring than whatever the recipient expected, and not really that fun. Sure, they may be cool, but not something you'd enjoy. It may also be clothes most of the time due to how many people have experience getting clothes for Christmas and not liking them.

Sub-Trope of My New Gift Is Lame, and may lead to an Unwanted Gift Plot. Compare Convenience Store Gift Shopping, Crappy Homemade Gift, and Homemade Sweater from Hell. The recipient of horrible clothes is almost Always Male (or tomboyish), due to the stereotype that women enjoy getting clothes as a gift. The kid might have to write The Dreaded "Thank You" Letter. If the clothes would be more suited for someone younger than the recipient, see Gift for an Outgrown Interest.

This could possibly be subverted by the clothes being high quality, such as designer clothes for those in the upper crust who care about fashion, or "cool" clothes such as a shirt with high-quality art of a popular franchise on it. It depends if the recipient likes it, though.

Truth in Television for many children in particular, who would often rather receive toys or other fun items as gifts. Many adults and teens tend to like (or at least be okay with) getting clothes for Christmas as they grow up, though, as this often spares them having to buy clothing themselves. But this is usually averted by the bad gift not being clothes. See also: And Your Reward Is Clothes, specifically only for clothes as a gift.

My New Gift Is Lame is about characters getting a seemingly worse gift than the others, and hating it for that reason. This is the character simply not liking their gift because they are clothes. Do not confuse the two.

---

Examples

Advertisements

• Nintendo 64: In a commercial where four teenage boys complained about what they got for Christmas instead of a Nintendo 64 console. One of the gifts in particular are boxes full of clothes. They sang about their complaints in a tune of "Jingle Bells".
• In one ad for Samsung (an IT brand), a man shakes a Christmas present and says, "This is absolutely....", only to adopt a blank expression and finish the sentence with, "...average" upon finding out the present is socks. The narration then says, "Don't give him a sock face; give him a Samsung face!".
• A circa 1980 radio commercial for Bell Telephone suggested giving stylized phones as holiday gifts. One sound byte from a younger teen boy:
  Wow, a Mickey Mouse phone! And I thought I was gonna get another bathrobe.

Comic Books

• In Father Christmas, Santa Claus himself gets presents from his aunt and cousin, consisting of a tie and socks respectively. He hates both of them, and the only present he likes is some booze from his uncle.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes: One strip features Calvin writing a letter to Santa, expressing disappointment that he received clothes instead of the grenade launcher and other weapons he asked for. He claims that Santa must've mixed up his request with someone else's.
• Peanuts: One Christmas strip from the '70s had Snoopy getting a ridiculous-looking hat from Woodstock, and Snoopy deciding that he had to wear it at least once in order to avoid disappointing his friend.

Fanfiction

• In the Ghostbusters (1984) fanfic Under the Weather, this is discussed when Janine sees a pair of socks with pineapples on them in Egon's sock drawer. Seeing as they're closer to Venkman's aesthetic than Egon's, she surmises that Venkman gave Egon the socks for Christmas, but that Egon hid them.

Films — Animation

• The Polar Express: Lenny, the know-it-all kid, laments that all he finds for himself in Santa's sack is "a bunch of stupid underwear."

Films — Live-Action

• A Christmas Story
  • Played for Laughs at one point. Adult Ralphie narrates, "Aunt Clara had for years labored under the delusion that I was not only perpetually 4 years old, but also a girl" as his mother makes him model the pink bunny footie pajamas his aunt had sent him for Christmas in the year the film is set.
  • While opening their presents from Santa, both Ralphie and Randy open up gifts which turn out to be new socks. They just look at each other, toss the socks over their shoulders behind them, and resume opening presents.
• Home Alone: During his conversation with Old Man Marley at church, Marley reveals that he's estranged from his family and that the only contact he has with his granddaughter at Christmas is sending her a check as a gift. Kevin admits he wishes his grandparents did that and that they usually give him clothes, with his gift the previous year being a sweater with a bird design.

Literature

• American Girls Collection: In Molly's Surprise, when the McIntire children are talking about Christmas presents, Jill comments that they're probably going to get boring presents like socks and handkerchiefs because, during wartime, nobody has money to spare for fun presents.
• Emily's Runaway Imagination: During the arc about the town suffering from "hard times", Emily's parents can't afford much in terms of Christmas presents. As a result, they give her Wellington boots, which disappoint her, since she dislikes "practical" Christmas presents.
• In the kids' book Felix and the Worrier, one worry Felix has about his birthday is that he'll get ill-fitting clothes as presents.
• In Grailblazers, it's revealed that Santa was the fourth Magi, and while the others gave gold, frankincense, and myrrh, all he could do was hand over a pair of socks and say "He'll grow into them." He is therefore cursed to spend every Christmas giving bad gifts.
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone:
  • Molly knits sweaters for her children every year for Christmas. Ron complains that his is always maroon, and he hates that colour.
  • Inverted by Professor Dumbledore who tells Harry that he wants socks for Christmas, but never gets any. "People will insist on giving me books." Also averted by Harry, who enjoys getting sweaters from Mrs. Weasley as presents because he appreciates being considered part of the family (and didn't expect to even get any presents at all the first time he got one from her).
• In Hogfather, Death, Subbing for Santa, asks Albert what he's supposed to give kids if they're on the naughty list, and is told socks or a woolly vest. He thinks it serves them right.
• In a Wibbly Pig, Wibbly doesn't want his aunt to knit him a hat for Christmas, because the previous knitted garments she gave him for Christmas all tickled.

Live-Action TV

• In the original Amazing Stories episode of Family Dog, the middle segment is a home movie set at Christmas. Dad Skip opens his first present, and it's a necktie. He opens his second present... another tie. And then another and then another, and Skip is looking more displeased with each one. As for Bev, the mother, she is mortified to get a racy apron with handprints on the chest area.
• Big Time Rush: In "Big Time Christmas", the boys get Gustavo a gift of custom pajamas so they can take part in their "PJs all day long" holiday tradition. Gustavo finds the pajamas (and, by extension, the tradition) stupid and initially rejects the gift. However, at the end of the episode, he comes around and wears the pajamas when he joins the others for Christmas at the Palm Woods.
• Home Improvement: In one Christmas Episode, the Taylor boys decide to try to figure out what gifts Jill's parents got them and begin shaking the packages under the tree:
  Mark: Hear anything good?
  Brad: No, I don't hear anything.
  All: (Beat) Clothes. (drop the presents in disgust)
• In the Murder, She Wrote episode "A Christmas Secret" Doc Hazlitt explains that the reason he's The Grinch is because of a childhood Christmas when he was sure he was getting a train set, and unwrapped the presents to find socks and underwear.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000:
  • In "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians", the Mads' invention for the week is the Wish Squisher, a nefarious machine that takes cool toys that kids actually want to receive for Christmas, and transforms them into boring, practical gifts. They demonstrate the Wish Squisher's power by transforming a slot car racetrack into a pair of socks, and a box of video game cartridges into "underoos that won't fit for two years".
  • "Santa Claus" features a bizarre gift exchange on the Satellite of Love, where everyone receives something genuinely lame, but they all get weirdly excited for them anyway. Mike receives a Homemade Sweater from Hell with "JOIKE"^note Gypsy started knitting it for the show's previous host Joel and had to repurpose it after Joel's abrupt departure on the front, and Gypsy receives a novelty plastic candy cane filled with underwear.^note most of which Gypsy can't even wear, due to her snake-like body
  • "The Christmas That Almost Wasn't" had Gypsy give Jonah and the Bots sweaters. Everyone seems delighted by them, despite the fact that judging by the initials knitted on them, everyone was accidentally given one meant for someone else.
• Roseanne: subverted in "No Place Like Home For The Holidays," when DJ tries opening one of his Christmas presents early and is disappointed to find they're all clothes. When Nancy asks Dan where he hid the real presents, he giggles and says, "That's them. They're wrapped in clothes."
• Saturday Night Live:
  • One sketch features a family on Christmas morning and the father, son, and daughter excitedly showing off all their new, expensive gifts. Meanwhile, the mother (host Kristen Wiig), who obviously bought all of those gifts herself, miserably reveals she received a bathrobe and nothing else, not even any stocking stuffers.
  • Another sketch centers around a fictional Christmas Awards show where the winner for the "Most Disappointing Gift Given to a 10 Year-Old Boy" award is a grandmother who gave her grandson clothes.
    GamGam: My grandson told me he wanted a Nintendo Switch, so I knew I had to go out and buy him Dockers pleated khakis with a sewn-in belt. Grandmother just knows.
• The Sopranos: Near the end of "To Save Us All From Satan's Power", the Sopranos are opening presents on Christmas morning. AJ is annoyed when he opens one from Nana and finds it's another sweater.
• Worzel Gummidge: In "Muvver's Day", Sarah Pigswill (a walking scarecrow) gives an old boot to her "son" Worzel as a gift to celebrate their reunion. He doesn't like the gift (although that's somewhat justified since even though he doesn't mind wearing worn clothing, a single boot isn't much use) but pretends to be excited to be polite.

Magazines

• MAD Magazine:
  • They had an article called "the Timeline of Disillusionment", which included "Age 6: Getting clothes for Christmas."
  • In a Dave Berg "Lighter Side", a little boy is bummed that all he got for Xmas was a dart gun, plus lots of outfits. His mom is perfectly happy with clothes as gifts and tells him to make the best of them. The final panel has the kid doing just that: using the hanged-up articles of clothing for dart-gun target practice.
  • In a piece about family photos, we're shown a typical photo of 3 elated kids on Xmas holding large presents in front of the tree. Then we're shown a second picture left out of the album — the same kids angry and in tears after they've opened said gifts and found nothing but clothes inside.
  • Handwritten letters to Santa Claus after Xmas, e.g., asking why the toys he saw advertised on TV don't work as well as in the commercial. One kid details how he took pains to be a good boy all year, but all he received on Christmas morning was "pajamas, underwere, and a swedder (sic)". He tells Santa that, thanks to those "presents", he's gonna be a bad dude the following year.

Music

• Many of the lame Christmas presents in the joke song "Didn't I Get This Last Year?" by Bob Rivers are clothing.
  A tie, a tie,
  Wider than a mile,
  With a pattern way out of style,
  With a pattern way out of style.

Poems

• The poem "Christmas Thank Yous" by Mike Gowar, in addition to a Home Made Sweater From Hell, also has the following:
  Dear Cousin
  What socks!
  and the same sort you wear
  so you must be
  the last word in style
  and I'm certain you're right that the
  luminous green
  will make me stand out a mile

Video Games

• In Splatoon 2, the Sweater vs. Socks Splatfest had players duke it out over which article of clothing they'd be least upset with getting as a Squidmas/Octivus gift. The icons for the event represented each side with an Inkling scowling in disappointment while wearing their team's chosen clothes.

Web Animation

• Played with in the Homestar Runner episode "Decemberween Short Shorts". The first short of the episode has Strong Bad writing a letter to "tube socks". He claims the socks will hear some hurtful things from him, cutting to a montage of his disappointment in getting them as gifts. He states that the socks shouldn't believe a word of it; he loves the socks but he has an image to keep up. A later short in the episode has Strong Sad starting to write a letter to "argyle socks".

Web Comics

• Averted in Kevin & Kell: Coney apparently doesn't mind getting new clothes for Christmas, she just wonders why they were put in a metal box. Apparently last year she accidentally shredded them while shredding the wrapping paper.

Western Animation

• Arthur: In "The Long, Dull Winter", Buster says that he saw a Christmas special called The Kid Who Got Clothes for Christmas, which was great because it was one of the saddest movies he's ever seen.
• DuckTales (2017): In "How Santa Stole Christmas!", Scrooge is disdainful of people giving Christmas gifts that aren't practical, so he gives the nephews and Webby wool hats to keep them warm in the winter. While Webby appreciates it, the nephews complain about how itchy the hats are.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: In "Ed, Edd N Eddy's Jingle Jingle Jangle", Eddy peeks at his Christmas presents, and all of them are clothes (one of which was even baby clothes), which sets the rest of the plot in motion. This is mentioned in an earlier episode, "Fa-La-La-La-Ed", to which Ed guesses Eddy only gets clothes because Santa knows he's naughty.
  "A dickey?! They still make these?!"
• The Fairly OddParents!: In "Merry Wishmas", when the kids are complaining about getting gifts that were "not on the list", one boy complains that all he got was brand new underwear.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Exploited in "A Lost Claus", when Mac asks Santa for something very unconventional to give him a sign of whether he's real or not: underwear. His idea behind this is he knows people buying gifts for him would pick out ones he'd like. Therefore, if he only gets fun presents instead of something as undesirable as clothes, that means Santa isn't real. At home, he indeed only gets fun gifts, disheartening him. But then he goes to Foster's and Madame Foster notes that the stocking she made for him is just full of underwear.
• Peppa Pig: In "Christmas at the Hospital", socks are seen as an unfavourable gift, with Mummy Pig clearly not pleased with her gift of socks. Meanwhile, Peppa taunts George on the possibility that he has only gotten socks (luckily, it's a toy for him) and hopes that Pedro Pony hasn't got socks from Santa as well.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): Near the end of the Christmas Episode "'Twas the Fight Before Christmas", while the girls were Subbing for Santa, the narrator listed off some of the gifts they were delivering. While his narration was joyous when talking about "Dollies and race cars, horseys, choo-choos, and blocks! Teddy bears! Puppy dogs!", his narration lost a noticeable amount of enthusiasm as he mentioned "Underwear and socks."
• South Park: "Merry Christmas, Charlie Mansion!" has the boys accompany Cartman as he visits his family in Nebraska for Christmas. Cartman is excited to get his present from his grandma until he opens it and it turns out to be a new shirt.
  Cartman: Mom, Grandma's gone senile! It's time to stick her in a home!
• Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: In the episode "Great and Grumpy Holiday," Old Man Grumpus' Freudian Excuse for being grumpy all the time is that he always got long-john underwear for Christmas instead of the choo-choo train he always wanted.

---