My dad always likes to tell us about the Christmas when my uncle bought my aunt a tin opener (a good one!) for Christmas, she was apparently rather unimpressed but the story has given years worth of good laughs.
I also remember when my dad bought a holiday in New York for my mum and himself for Christmas, but the tickets were in a small envelope right at the bottom of a HUGE box filled with packing peanuts.
What terrible/joke presents can you think of that would be a good laugh on Christmas day?
One of those pillows that looks like an inflating phone battery.
Better idea: 3"*4" Magnetic viewing film, stored in a thoughtfuk card, which is wrapped in a box with 6"*6" thermochromatic film, which is itself is wrapped in a box with a roll of glow in the dark tape, and then given to them with another thoughtful card that holds a gift card to somewhere you think they would like. Basically a nesting set of tiny cool things that all cost about as much as the wrapping paper they are in.