“When I was in middle school, I had this frog and toad obsession. I had no idea why. So I had all these frog planters and frog socks and I got frog t-shirts. The next Christmas, I had to tell everybody, ‘I’m over frogs.’ But my whole room was full of frogs. It was so weird. Who’s into frogs?” said model Ashley Graham.
“We do a white elephant gift exchange with my family every year and it’s always something bizarre. Like Spencer’s gifts, like, ‘Who can find the most offensive thing?’ My brother, either last year or the year before, had gone to a thrift shop and found the most terrifying clown figurine. And nobody wanted it. They wanted it out of the house immediately. But we do the gift exchange where you can steal it twice and it’s yours. I didn’t up with that one. Thank God. Someone usually gets lazy and just puts booze in and that’s usually what I go for,” said former reality star, Lauren Conrad.
“It’s really funny because it ended up being a really useful holiday present. But when I first opened up, my brother got me a wash cloth, and I was like, ‘What? A wash cloth?’ Literally something that you wash your car with. But it’s one of those cloths that last forever and it dries instantaneously. It was one of those things that in the moment, I was probably not as excited to get a wash cloth. But it turned out to be quite useful in the end,” said actress Malin Akerman.
“My mom got me a tire gauge. She’s a queen of these gifts—she got me a blonde hair extensions the other day. Just one. And I don’t have blonde hair anymore, so I was like, ‘Mom, this doesn’t make any sense,” and she was like ‘I know, but it was on sale.’
She always goes in these big bins and they’re like 50 cents or whatever and she gets it all and she thinks, ‘Maybe I’ll use this one day.’ Thats how she got the tire gauge, I’m sure. Although I get her logic, I also… it’s beyond me,” said actress Brittany Snow.
“I think it’s always funny that people hate getting socks, but I actually love getting socks for Christmas because I could always use a new pair of socks. And I told my family this year, ‘All I want for Christmas this year is a nice pair of slippers.’ Like some good slippers. That’s it. I don’t want jewelry or anything. Nothing expensive. Just some slippers,” said actress Chloë Grace Moretz.
“I have no idea where to begin. I’ve been given a lot of coffee mugs, a lot of swimming towels, nothing really stands out as bizarre. To this day I’m one of the worst people to shop for, because if I want something, I go and buy it. If I want a game or if I want a book, I’ll go out and buy it. That’s always challenging to my parents. My mom always tries to get little small memories of every major city we’ve been to, whether for a swim meet or a special time in my life. Once I had a meet in Rome, so she got me a huge statue of the Roman Collosseum. Which is awesome, but I have a hard time finding space in my house for all of them,” said Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps.
“Nothing has been worst. It’s been something that haven’t had much use for, but nothing has been worst and it’s always been repurposed,” said actress Freida Pinto.
“We’re Muslim. We do Eid. So they give us money. No gifts. The best would probably be. There’s too many. The worst is my brother’s gift that he got me when I turned 14 and that was just towels. And I’m pretty sure they were on clearance. They weren’t even the nice towels,” said model Halima Aden.
“My friend gave me a pole dancing class with them, so at least it was a girls’ trip. It was a workout class and they were like, ‘Yeah, we have a present for you. We’re going to take you out. Put your workout gear on.’ And I was like, ‘What.’ I was surprised at how intense and how heavy it is. But I actually liked it. It was good. I couldn’t walk for two days, but it was good,” said Victoria’s Secret model Sanne Vloet.
“The worst gift that I got was clearly something that was regifted to me, that was something that had nothing to do with my life or anything. A plate with a bowl attached. It was old-looking, like somebody’s grandmother’s. And I know I have gray hair, but really, not yet,” said chef Carla Hall.
“I didn’t get it, thank God, but at a family white elephant, one of my aunts brought a vibrator, thinking it was just a ‘personal massage device.’ I watched in horror as people passed it around, praying I wouldn’t have to hold it and make eye contact with anyone in my family,” said comedian Iliza Shlesinger.
“A Green Day CD as a joke. I hate Green Day, no offense,” said TNT’s “Major Crimes” star Jessica Meraz.
“Unless it’s something that I’m really passionate about, like going to a TV or movie set, I can sometimes be about 10 minutes (fashionably) late everywhere I go. My mind just gets caught in the clouds. So, my mom is always buying me watches for my birthday to subtly hint at my need to work on my time-management issues. It’s funny because it’s sort of passive aggressive but still sweet,” said Amazon’s “Ladies of the Lake” star Jessica Morris.
“A set of encyclopedias when I was a kid,” said actor Joey Lawrence, who recently released his holiday single, “Christmas Time.”
“Fruit cake. I just don’t understand it,” said star and executive producer of Hallmark Channel’s “Christmas at Holly Lodge,” Allison Sweeney.
“I did a white elephant a few years ago, and someone brought a music CD of some unknown origin and unknown artist they found on the ground in a park. So, basically, they brought garbage. Of course, I ended up with it. I did try to listen to it in case it was some secret gem—it wasn’t,” said “Thank You For Your Service” star, Allison King.