Gawker is in a "Bah, humbug" mood

Not content with gifts for people you hate and the five stupidest kinds of Christmas gifts, which I linked to here, Gawker has continued its gift guide of booby-trapped and stupid gifts with Horrible Christmas Gifts for the Children of People You Hate and Top Five Gifts Under Five Cents. Both of them are fiendishly creative. As for why anyone would give gifts from these two gift guides, I'll let John Cook and Adrien Chen explain. First, John.

There is no better way to ruin someone's holiday than to arm their children with the tools to endlessly annoy them. Here are some suggestions.

After you have children, you quickly learn to fear birthdays and holidays. More dreadful than even the sugar psychoses and attention tantrums is the destabilizing influence of gifts: Into your carefully calibrated world of punishment and reward are thrust these wrapped mysteries from clueless relatives and negligent friends. If you're not careful—if you don't establish and enforce rigid operational security to prevent your children from becoming aware of the existence of a boxed present from Uncle Ed in the closet—you can find yourself thrown into a nightmare of someone else's making.

Here are some good ways to use your friends' children as proxies in a war of annoyance.

Among John's suggestions are chemistry sets (as a scientist, I'd suggest binoculars or a telescope instead), ice cream makers, Veggie Tale videos, and Daddles. That last one is perfect for kids of men with bad backs.

Now Adrien.

The economy is crappier than a Porta-Potty at an outdoor electronic dance music festival. We've all got to pinch pennies, and the holidays are no exception. So, we present our top five gifts under five cents.

Most "cheap" gift guides stop at $25—even $100. But if you're going to be cheap, be cheap. Now, you might be saying: "Pshaw. What could I possibly buy for nickel? I'm going to go take out a fourth mortgage on my home to buy my kids those Justin Bieber Xbox-enabled jet skis." That's the kind of attitude that got us in this mess in the first place, buddy! With these gifts, you can fulfill all your holiday gift-giving obligations for less than a Kit-Kat bar.

Among Adrien's suggestions are a single piece of anise candy (imagine hard candy with the taste of licorice), wooden plugs, a tiny piece of amber, and a pre-decimalization UK coin. The first and last might actually be interesting to the right people.

By the way, the idea to post these links is a gift in its own way. Gawker is sending them to my email inbox. Nothing better than a gift-wrapped blog entry idea delivered directly to me every day!