Five Christmas presents you hated getting as a child but secretly like getting as an adult

I don’t know about you but when I was a kid I was incredibly ungrateful at Christmas. Thats not to say I was ungrateful for everything, but there were definitely certain gifts that I did not appreciate being given. However, now that I am a grown up I understand that I was lucky to get what I did, and I also find myself secretly looking forward to Christmas and hoping that I will yet again get the presents that I hated to receive at Christmas when I was a little boy. Socks & pants I absolutely hated getting socks and underwear for Christmas. What six year old is going to be happy with five pairs of black socks and 2 pairs of black pants? As a general rule of thumb, if the present was soft and didn’t feel like it was a toy or boxed I was instantly disappointed. Talk about spoilt. How times have changed though, because come December I’m down to four or five half-decent pairs of socks and the rest are in the bin filled with holes and I find myself hoping that I’ll get some socks on the big day. If it were acceptable for adults to write letters to Santa then socks would be at the top of my list every year. Toiletries My reaction to any form of toiletry pack was pretty much the same as my reaction to socks, why do I want this? I didn’t even know what a bath was when I was a child, so I was hardly going to run myself a nice hot bath and fill it with a nice eucalyptus bath soak was I? It’s a completely different story now though, as I’m quite happy to receive a year’s worth of shower gel, shampoo and toothpaste. It leaves me more of my hard-earned money to spend on important things, like Subway sandwiches and pointless apps for my smartphone that I’ll use once then delete six months later. A book As my six year old self would say ‘what’s a book?’ Unless it had lots of pictures I wasn’t interested. I didn’t want to read, I wanted to play Super Mario Brothers 2 on my Game Boy. That said I did get a complete walkthrough book for Super Mario Brothers 2 for my Birthday the following month, which I happily read cover to cover. If I get a nice new novel this Christmas I’ll be stoked, as I’ll be able to read it on the train to and from work, meaning that I can avoid awkward gazes with other commuters for at least a week or two. Sweets that I don’t like Large bars of Cadburys Bourneville dark chocolate to be more specific. When you’re young dark chocolate repulses you, sweets are supposed to be sweet and as a result I couldn’t really get on board with the dark chocolate bars. They would inevitably sit somewhere in the house for months until I rediscovered them or my parents ate them. Things haven’t changed for me in that respect, I still don’t like dark chocolate, and as much as it pains me to say it, I’m sorry Nan but every one of those Green & Blacks dark chocolate bars you’ve bought me over the past few years have sat in my cupboard until June when they get trashed. Again, I’m sorry. Nothing I used to love seeing members of family at Christmas, until they left and I realised that they hadn’t actually got me a present! “The cheek of it”, I would think “It’s Christmas and I am a child, isn’t there a law that states every member of your family has to buy you a present when you’re a child?” This was of course before I found out about things such as money, rent, mortgages and utility bills. I totally get it now though, and now I secretly hope for family members to not bother getting me anything as it is one less present for me to worry about buying. Anyway, I hope that you get what you want for Christmas, and as for me? I’m hoping for socks, pants, shower gel, deodorant, milk chocolate, the new Justin Cronin novel and if I’m lucky the extended family I haven’t bought anything for won’t have bothered with me either. Merry Christmas!