If you receive a present from one of the girls in your life this Christmas, and it looks mysteriously familiar, it may well be because it is.
That’s the somewhat disturbing finding contained in a new survey ahead of the final Christmas shopping rush, which revealed that more than half of Irish women would throw a bit of fresh wrapping paper on a gift they didn’t like … and then inflict it on someone else.
The habit of recycling has clearly taken root in Irish girls, with 52% of them admitting that they would engage in a spot of virtual musical chairs with a present they didn’t like.
In the survey, which was commissioned by Meteor and conducted by Empathy Research, Irish men were shown to be much more compassionate souls than the ladyfolk.
Just 36% admit that we would parcel up the tartan scarf and fingerless gloves sent by Aunty Mary on our mother’s side in Leitrim and send them off to Great-Uncle Jack in Wexford. If the girls had their way, they’d probably re-parcel the gloves and scarf in two separate presents and kill two birds with one particularly insensitive stone.
But we’d never think of that.
Other findings in the survey include the strange one that two in five of us would like to receive a call from a family member living abroad. We’re not sure if this means that three in five don’t want to hear from a family member living abroad, or that three in five probably don’t have a family member living abroad in the first place. Possibly the latter.
Mobile phones remain top of the Christmas gift lists with one in five Irish people hoping to find a new iPhone or other handset under the tree on Christmas morning.
Socks, dodgy jumpers and book tokens are the worst presents we could possibly receive, apparently. The socks and jumpers we can understand, but a book voucher always comes in handy in our house.
However, given that Irish people have voted Ross O’Carroll-Kelly’s Oh My God Delusion as their favourite book of the last 125 years, maybe it would be a good idea to avoid book tokens at all costs.
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