Esther McCarthy: How to play passive aggressive Christmas bingo — the Irish version

All you need is a piece of paper, a pen, a smidge of self-loathing and a wheelbarrow of gin, and soon you’ll be shouting “Bingo! In your FACE, aunty Noreen, you talc-buying monster”, before falling over the dog in a drunken stupor, while the children use your prone pudding-filled body to build a fort and hang candy canes from your toes.

Passive aggressive presents — giving

Christmas is a great time of year to get sneaky revenge on all those who have Done You Wrong in 2024. If you’re anything like me, you have kept a list of enemies since January 1. Dust that baby off, and start your fiendishly clever plan disguised as generosity. Nothing is off the table. Here are some ideas to get you started.

You know that cool cousin your children adore, who has tortured you for years by giving your kids what they actually want, regardless of the amount of plastic, unsuitable sizing and pricing, and making your presents look crap by comparison? The same one who introduced The Elf on the Shelf to your kids. The one who made sure they included multiple bags of Squashies in the Paw Patrol HQ, knowing you’d be the one to stress eat the lot? Well, now she has made the fatal error of procreating and coming home from Australia with her kids for a happy family Christmas and it’s payback time, bitch. 

Think slime-making kits with extra glitter; any musical instrument (if you really hate their guts, like maybe she got back her figure really quickly after giving birth, I have one word and eight holes for you — recorder); a toy pretending to be educational but has only a loud audio setting with Peppa Pig throwing out truth bombs ad nauseum. Extra points if it eats batteries.

Splash out on a Grindr subscription for your homophobic single granduncle.

Gift your devout neighbour (the one who wouldn’t allow you sneak your recycling into their bin, even though it’s half empty every time) a bible with all the love thy neighbour bits circled.

Give Uncle Johnny who suffers fierce from the auld IBS a voucher for the spiciest restaurant in town. Not that he made the list — he’s a dote. But his skinny wife gave you a gorgeous pyjamas set last year, from a brand you told her you really love, but it was deliberately three sizes too small, with no gift receipt so now she will rue the day. Her beloved cat died this year too, so throw in a tin of Whiskas for the laugh.

Passive aggressive presents — receiving

For every one of these you get from a family or ‘friend’ give yourself a point.

Any beauty gift that points out one of your physical imperfections. For example, a tooth
whitening kit from the same cousin that force fed you the jellies leaving you a pre diabetic with a mouth full of fillings.

A nose/hair/ladybits trimmer — not cool, grandad, not cool.

A self-help book with certain paragraphs about worrying vengeful tendencies underlined and highlighted.

A cook book for slimmers.

A tacky accessory, like a Live Laugh Love sign, with the Dealz sticker still on it, and a tag that says, I saw this and knew it would go perfect with your interiors aesthetic!

Alcohol free gin/beer/whiskey wrapped in an Alcoholic Anonymous leaflet

A gift card that says €50 on it, but when you go to try to buy something in the sales with it, the customer service desk tells you it has a balance of €3.35 on it.

A Plenty of Fish subscription…for your husband…from your mother. The turncoat.

Menopausal moments

Your lazy sister-in-law uses the menopause as an excuse not to host Christmas Eve supper this year. She says she can’t be in the kitchen for fear of the hot flushes or be around sharp knives for fear of murdering her family. Damn her! That was going to be YOUR excuse. Remember to add her to the 2025 list.