We funeral directors are sensitive people what a very particular set of likes and dislikes.  This peculiarity makes it quite difficult to buy us gifts. You could end up buying us something for Christmas that either offends us or simply disgusts us … so here are 5 suggestions of what NOT to buy us.

1.  Black top hats.  Yes, you may have seen us portrayed in movies with a solemn face and a black top hat, but after years of hard work we’ve broken that stereotypical mold.  We now don much less solemn apparel … I even venture out in a grey suit and sometimes I occasionally smile.  For the purpose of personalization and at the request of the family of the deceased, some of us will even wear t-shirts and shorts to funerals.  And the last thing we’d want from you is to put us right back in that box by gifting us with something that reminds us of our dark history.

2.  It’s a hard balance to strike.  On the one hand, you don’t want to give us something that’s all dark and solemn, and on the other hand, you don’t want to poke fun at our profession like this particular shirt:

I get it.  It’s kinda funny.  But, come on, don’t make light of what we do.  And anyways, most of us don’t wear t-shirts.  We’re all too good for t-shirts.

3.  Flowers.  We see enough of em.  They have come to disgust most us.

4.  A meat basket.  This makes a great gift for just about everybody and anybody except vegetarians and funeral directors.

If I have to explain why a meat basket like this might disgust us than it’s safe to assume you just don’t know what we do.  Cheese baskets, fruit basket, even vegetable baskets are great substitute gifts for the meat basket.

5.  A dinner reservation in this building:

The picture is The Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica III, a vertical cemetery in Santos, Brazil. It also holds the record as the world’s tallest cemetery, with burial plots/niches on all 32 floors. There’s also a chapel, lagoon and peacock garden … and a restaurant.

Actually, on second thought, if you’d buy me the tickets to Brazil, I probably wouldn’t be too offended.

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Can you think of any other gift items that just shouldn’t be given to a funeral director?

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