Women warn ‘Santa’ off novelty Christmas gifts

It’s official. Women certainly don’t want novelty gifts for Christmas this year and men definitely don’t want to open socks and handkerchiefs, according to a survey of 1,200 shoppers conducted by DVLA Personalised Registrations.

In answer to the question, “what is the worst gift you have ever received?”, 27% of women pointed to ‘novelty gifts’ while another 14% admitted to smiling through gritted teeth when receiving ‘things for the kitchen’ and a further 10% have quietly slipped that special item of ‘clothing’ to the bottom of the drawer.

For men the picture is simple with almost half claiming their worst ever Christmas gift was ‘socks or handkerchiefs’ and 10% also citing clothing other than socks.

When asked about the DVLA’s own product, personalised registrations, 27% of women and 23% of men say they will consider buying someone they know a personal plate for Christmas and 60% say they would be happy receiving one in their stocking.

Louise Pierpoint, publicity manager for DVLA Personalised Registrations, said: “Christmas shopping can prove incredibly frustrating for even the most creative of thinkers. Just coming up with ideas can be challenging.

“Our research shows that one in five of our customers now buy personalised registrations as gifts - they are highly personal and I think this helps make them popular this time of year.”

Not everyone shopping this Christmas will be doing so in the shops. Twenty eight per cent of those polled claim they will do most of their gift shopping on the internet and another 23% say they will do some online. Less than one per cent will use traditional telephone mail order to get most of their presents while 48% still prefer to browse their high streets and shopping centres.

When it comes to the experience of shopping for Christmas, only 57% of women say they enjoy it and 3 out of 4 men claim to dislike it.

“There’s a lot of pressure at Christmas and I’m sure this takes the shine off the experience for many people. That may well be contributing to the rise in the use of the web where choosing gifts can be so simple,” commented Louise Pierpoint.

Anyone interested in a personalised registration can choose from over 24 million potential plates by logging on to the DVLA’s official website dvlaregistrations.co.uk.