The Humor Department’s Favorite Holiday Gifts

“My straight boyfriend got me a book titled A Short History of Queer Women. Then he ‘accidentally’ recorded himself crying over the existence of period cramps.” —Gabriella Hoefner, senior

“I got my mom a pet rock for Christmas. I’m not joking—I really did. I paid $16 for a green marble cube with hot-glued eyes. Her only reaction was to ask me why I didn’t just pick up a rock off the ground. I didn’t respond and handed her her next present, hoping we could just move past my poor financial choices.” —Madelyn Li Nunez, junior 

“Let me tell you, this was the best gift I have ever received: 15 hours of uninterrupted sleep! Yeah, you read that right. I never thought my parents would let me sleep past 5:30 a.m.! Though I think I slept in a weird position, because my neck still hurts.” —Diya Mallu, sophomore

“My wish during my visit to Russia was to get a good optometrist, and one appeared out of thin air on December 9, 2024. He may have a strong Syrian accent and keep looking at the news angrily, but he’s helped me out with my eye issues!” —Jai Shah, senior

“After my sister begged my parents to get us some colorful fish, they finally caved and got us three fish as a Christmas gift one year. Unfortunately, that was when we realized just how irresponsible we were, and all three fish died in less than a week.” —Adeline Liao, sophomore

“I told my older brother I wanted a PS5 to end the year, and he said he would think about it. I woke up the next day to a big wrapped box. I viciously ripped open the wrapping paper to find an official PS5 box, and I began shedding tears. However, after opening it I was met with nothing but a fat brick with a small note attached to it. It read ‘Did you really think I was getting you a PS5? Get a 105 on your next Pre-calc test and I might consider it, [EXPLETIVE].’ His taunting note will haunt me forever.” —Syed Ali, junior

“A Nintendo Switch saved my life. After getting a concussion the day after I received it, I barely remembered who I was. The one thing I could recall was getting the Switch for Christmas, and that brought back all of my memories. Wait, when did I get a concussion?” —Gary Huang, senior

“My uncle got me this 1200-piece mechanical engineering mantis building set thingy. Before you start thinking it sounds easy to build, IT WAS NOT. I spent THREE DAYS crashing out to build it. Never doing that again. But hey, at least it looks pretty rad.” —Sara Bhuiyan, freshman

“After coming home from South Africa, I felt so insecure about the tiny souvenir I got for my sister. Luckily, she really seemed to enjoy it. As she gave me a deep, passionate stare, she told me that I was her present this year. Isn’t that adorable? I love her just about as much as I love Folgers Coffee, if not more.” —Matthew Chen, sophomore

“I gifted my friend a whole box of air molecules. He said, ‘I’m dying from all these stupid gifts,’ and I responded, ‘Well, at least mine will keep you alive.’” —John Zeng, freshman

“This Christmas, my friend gifted me a miniature lime green trash can. She told me it reminded her of me, but to be honest, I couldn’t hear what she said, and I did my little wince and laugh instead, so that was the end of that conversation. But yeah, I guess I am pretty brat trash can.” —Fiona Chen, senior 

“One of my friends gifted me this off-brand Lego piano set. It came in a small cuboid box, and it said it had 437 pieces, so I thought it couldn’t be too bad. I was wrong. The pieces were so microscopic that half the challenge was keeping them on the desk and not accidentally disarranging them and throwing a tantrum. I only managed to do (half of) part one (of seventeen) in two hours. After I opened that box, Christmas break did not feel like Christmas or a break.” —Faiza Rumman, sophomore

“I got a 1000-piece puzzle of a world map this Christmas and painstakingly spent about two hours working on it. I was about a quarter way finished, until my three-year-old brother and our six-year-old cousin swept it all off the table into the box and proudly declared that they were ‘cleaning up.’” —Jake Chan, sophomore

“I usually don’t give gifts to my classmates, but this year I gave the guy next to me in Calc a bottle of deodorant.” —Tamiyyah Shafiq, senior

“For Christmas, all I wanted was to be left alone. However, I could not defend myself from all of my relatives calling me from the other side of the world.” —Deon Woon, sophomore 

“My brother got me a Techy Bear. That’s right. Not a Teddy Bear, but an official Brooklyn Technical High School branded Techy Bear. He has a shirt on. That’s the only difference between a Teddy Bear and a Techy Bear.” —Selina Lin, junior

“My sister decided to give me the amazing gift of waking me up for school every morning. The only issue is she wakes me up an hour before I need to get up and doesn’t know the difference between a school day and the weekend. At least she doesn’t have a snooze button like my alarm, or else I’d still be sleeping through 2025!” —Eva Kastoun, sophomore

“So a year ago, my friends pitched in money behind my back to buy me Sea Monkeys. I thought it was good fun when they told me, but imagine my surprise when fourteen actual baboons, painted blue and covered in seaweed, showed up on my doorstep. I was stumped for a while on what to do, but I managed to convince some rich dude that they were an endangered species and pocketed a few hundred thousand dollars, so who’s laughing now? Now, just between you and I, dear reader, could you not tell PETA and the IRS about this?” —Lukas Yao, freshman

“Money is literally one of the best things I’ve received. You just can’t go wrong with some cold hard cash. Rather than getting me something I might not like, just hand over the bucks instead! You know what they say: money makes the world go round. Some people say money can’t buy happiness, but for me, it can.” —Lina Zheng, junior

“My friend Luigi gifted me socks on December 4, 2024 from four to six p.m.! This was at my house in Queens, an hour away from Midtown, with multiple witnesses.” —Jubaida Shahriar, senior