Creative Christmas Gifts for College Students
Parents think college students should be spending their time experimenting with different careers and planning their future lives. College students, however, prefer to spend their time experimenting in other ways. Parents want to remind students that they have family responsibilities and that real life won’t wait for them. Meanwhile, students are doing their best to establish their own identities and forestall real life. Great gift ideas for college students must take these two conflicting life philosophies into consideration (I know this because I studied philosophy in college, which was the biggest mistake of my life).
Christmas gifts to let them bask in their laziness
Gift Certificates for Sandwiches. Sandwiches are to college students what acorns are to squirrels, what cheese is to French people, what Marmite is to people with bad taste. Typical college freshmen get sick of the cafeteria after 3 months in college and start lusting after expensive sandwiches and buffalo wings somewhere in the townie town. Many would rather grow emaciated and ramble on about how they never appreciated how good Thanksgiving dinner was instead of eating that purple beef stroganoff or gooey Macaroni they serve down at the cafeteria. Give them this great gift and they will be eternally grateful. Blenders – Oh man I wish I had had one of these back in college! I would have been wasting away in Margaritaville instead of wasting away in the frozen hinterland of North America. This is possibly the best Christmas gift a 21-year-old could receive. CAUTION: There will be arguments when someone insists on making unusual protein shakes in the thing every day and never cleaning it. However, such arguments will inevitably be resolved over Margaritas. 
Pint glasses. Pint glasses are in historically high demand on college campuses these days, narrowly outpacing pencils and notebooks in most markets. Get them a few pint glasses and they will probably get quite a bit more use than any other glass, cup, or book in the house. Note: Due to their youth and their (ahem) consumption habits, college students are simultaneously the most coordinated and the clumsiest people on the planet. Unfortunately, while this means they won’t break their bones very easily, it does mean that the pint glasses have only a 58% chance of making it through the semester intact. Posters. College students can never get enough posters. From the crass (John Belushi slugging that bottle) to the hackneyed (If you see Monet’s Lilies 10,000 times, the college should award you with a minor in art history), you’ll find a wide variety of them to choose from online. As cheesy as you may find them, they are symbols of unique personality for college students attempting to assert their own individuality.
Christmas gift ideas to nudge them towards real life
Ties. Ties are notoriously awful gifts for men, unless you give them to male college students. He’ll probably only wear it twice, in which time it will acquire a stain from some fraternity floor. However, at least it sends the message of “YOU NEED TO GET A REAL JOB SOON” loud and clear. Framed Photographs of Family. Most college students are so caught up in themselves that they have little time to consider the fact that they have still a family. Anything that reminds a college student that their family still exists is a great gift idea. Plus, you can find easily some unique frames quite cheaply online or at a big box store. Bathroom Mats – For older students who move off campus and live in a 3 bedroom house with 5 other roommates, the bathroom is inevitably a toxic waste dump. 
Despite the one drill sergeant roommate who creates a dreaded “chore schedule” and berates Snuffleupcus and Big Bird for never doing their share, the bathroom is always the first place to fall into utter grossness. However, there’s usually one bathroom in the house that gets spared by mud-clad party-goers (Am I the only one who went to mud state u?). This is the one worth salvaging. To start, give the kid 2 new bathroom mats and tell him or her to replace the thing halfway through the semester. It will greatly improve the quality of life for everyone who lives there. New Towels – In the same vein, most students rarely wash towels, replace stinky towels, or even bother to hang towels up. Instead, they throw wet towels on their beds or their floors and then complain when they get moldy. Because it will take an average college student 3 and a half years to figure out how to hang up and wash a towel properly, giving them a towel is a great gift idea.