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Your passive-aggressive gift guide

Emily Writes

Emily Writes

— 6 min read
Your passive-aggressive gift guide

What to get your mean aunt and creepy uncle

Every year, I try to do a passive-aggressive gift guide. Welcome to the 2025 guide! Christmas shopping for people you love is fun. But obligatory Christmas shopping for awful people? Not fun at all. But you can at least make it satisfying by giving gifts that support great people or help out a worthy cause.

Do you resent having to spend money on people you don’t like? Have you been giving the same candle back and forth to your sister-in-law for six years? Want to spice things up this year? This is the guide for you!

(Relax, please. I don't actually think you should buy gifts for people you don't like. This is just a lighthearted way of showing you some cool local businesses, artists and causes!)

For your Act Party member uncle who thinks David Seymour can do no wrong.

Get them an official Toitū Te Tiriti Tee, designed by artist Hori. It's hand screen printed by the team at Toitū Te Tiriti in Ōtaki. Or a Kill the Bill or Die Cook tee from Bloody Samoan.

Buy them a copy of The Savage Coloniser Book and Big Fat Brown Bitch by Tusiata Avia. Two incredible collections that have been criticised by David Seymour and Act because not a single person in that party knows how to read a poem.

For maximum chaos, give them a gift subscription to my newsletter - this will not work if they have a humiliation kink FYI - but, hopefully, that’s not something you know about your uncle.

Other ideas:

For your stepfather who only cares about womens’ sport when it gives him an opportunity to be a transphobe

He’s a misogynist so he’s found a perfect home with the TERFS. You’ve got a few options here. Why not buy him some cute merch from Gender Minorities Aotearoa - they do incredible mahi. Or just donate to them in his honour.

Or - why not give him a gift subscription to Alice Soper's great newsletter Alice's Soapbox so he can actually read about, and champion, womens' sport.

Other ideas:

For your pregnant sister who is saying her child will only have heuristic wooden toys and you know it’s only a matter of time before her house is full of plastic shit but you can’t tell her that because she’ll bite your head off

Why not buy a toy library membership? This is a genuinely great gift for kids, it supports your local community while also not adding more toys to the world that are destined for landfill.

A whistle of any kind is always a good idea for children. This cute Bird Whistle, lovingly made here in Aotearoa by ceramicist Brett Thompson is adorable.

What about knitted New Zealand biccies? The gingernut is too cute. Or how about a sign language puzzle? Or these cute dolls?

Other ideas

Leave a koha!

Your anti-vax cousin who is the most gullible person on the planet

Donate to The Conversation - it’s a unique collaboration between academics and journalists that is the world’s leading publisher of research-based news and analysis.

Their professional editors turn academic knowledge and insights into easy-to-read articles and make them accessible to readers. All of their writing is free to read and free to republish under Creative Commons. They are a not-for-profit company guided by a clear purpose: to provide access to quality explanatory journalism essential for a healthy democracy.

You can also donate in their honour to the Unicef Children's Immunisation Appeal.

And nothing will annoy them more than a subscription to this pro-vaxx newsletter!

Your brother-in-law who keeps complaining that as a straight white rich man he is a MINORITY who is ALWAYS WRONG because everyone is TOO WOKE

Sign him up to sponsor a child through Variety New Zealand.  Another great charity is Pillars – they support children who have parents in prison. JustSpeak is a youth-powered movement for transformational change of criminal justice towards a fair, just and flourishing Aotearoa. Even better, get him some PAPA merch!

Or buy the 6th edition of the Moana Fresh art calendar, featuring 13 incredible Māori and Pasifika artists.

Other ideas:

Leave a koha!
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In all seriousness, there are a lot of great gifts out there for people who don’t need more stuff to be sent to landfill.

Giving a donation or supporting a small business is a much better idea than buying the same cheap bath soaps that will never be used, then will be thrown out.

Families in Gaza need our help right now. If you can donate to the Aotearoa Mutual Aid fund, you can use this downloadable gift card to let the person you’re gifting know that you’ve done so. The fund is: Prosean Pictures 06-0574-0906928-00.

According to UN officials, Sudan is in “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history." If you can, donate to Empowering Resilience: Micro Grants and Social Enterprise for Displaced Women, Darfur Women Action Group or Support Sudanese People Living with Diabetes.

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Thank you.

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