These 30+ Holiday Fails Prove That the Best Ideas Often Go Awry

This poor Santa Claus doll has a relatively minor fault, but that fault is disturbing enough to get him on this list. You don’t have to look that closely to notice that his eyelashes are coming out of his pupils for some reason.

This error makes poor Santa look a little disconcerting, and we certainly wouldn’t want him hanging around our house in such a state. That said, we promise that there are worse holiday fails on this list.

Sometimes, a design oversight for the holidays is less about a mistake and more about not noticing how wrong something looks even after it’s over. We get what they were going for with this little toy lion, and we’re sure that no kid would notice anything amiss with such a holiday present.

But, if you’re an adult with some degree of knowledge about the types of things other adults get up to in their spare time, well… it’s not hard to see a bit of a troubling implication with this toy. Someone didn’t think this through.

Angels are a pretty popular theme during Christmas, and most of them are made to look quite cute and sweet. This angel, on the other hand, appears to be suffering some serious trauma — or perhaps she just isn’t quite happy with her job this year.

We’re not sure if this angel’s face was a one-time error during production or if all of the angels from this line of decorations look like this. One way or another, this is definitely a holiday fail, but it sure does make us laugh.

This is hardly as big of a mistake as some of the other things you will see on this holiday list, but it’s still a little amusing that someone got Santa’s catchphrase backward. Maybe something went wrong for him this year, prompting the “Oh, Oh, Oh” instead.

Did they accidentally flip the pattern? Or did someone just type it backwards without even noticing? One way or another, this is a silly mistake, but not one that would make people feel uncomfortable, as some of these other failures we’ll be mentioning.

Pajamas with an opening bottom already seem kind of dated to us, but if you’re going to get a pair for the holidays, we have to say, maybe there shouldn’t be any text on the flap — especially if it says something like “do not open until Christmas.”

We hope that whatever poor kid gets those pajamas didn’t open them on Christmas Eve; otherwise, they’ll have to hold them in until the next morning. Any connotation you can draw from this phrase in this particular spot is kind of awkward.

The little Christmas Tree candies that Reese’s make have been around for a long time. They always show up around the holidays but don’t always live up to expectations. Frequently, the piece of candy you get looks a lot like a blob.

We suppose this Christmas tree just has a lot of snow on it, so you can’t see the branches. We’ll cut them some slack because it seems like it would be hard to make a nicely defined tree shape out of chocolate and peanut butter.

Candles are a great option for holiday decorations, but how they are designed can have a big impact on how well they work since wax is going to melt when a candle is used. As you can see with this holiday candle, where the wax melts matters.

This decoration looks more like a murder scene than anything else, considering the huge splash of red at the bottom. Maybe this situation wouldn’t have been such an issue if the candle had been white.

Even though the holiday season is supposed to be a time of joy, there’s no denying that it doesn’t always go well for everyone. Sometimes, it feels like things may be in the toilet. If you feel that way, this decoration may be for you.

We suppose we can’t really call this plunger tree a “fail” since it was obviously designed this way on purpose. But it’s definitely one of the strangest holiday decorations we’ve seen, and it would definitely raise a few eyebrows.

We don’t have any issue with Santa’s sleigh being theoretically pulled by animals besides reindeer. But this packaging clearly tells us that the little chocolate animals here are reindeer, and they most certainly are not. They look a lot more like bunnies to us.

Maybe they figured their bunnies looked close enough to reindeer, and they could save a little money by just moving them over and changing a name. Oh well, we can’t be too mad — there’s probably more chocolate up for grabs in bunnies than in reindeer.

This is not the worst holiday fails, but it’s amusing simply because of how mundane and obvious of an error it is. Obviously, there’s a bit of a problem here with this package that claims to hold four ornaments. There are clearly only three.

We suppose the fourth ornament could be in the box itself, but that would still be a pretty poor design for the whole package. Either way, it’s quite funny to see such a blatant discrepancy between the package and its visible contents.

This is another decoration that’s not an unintentional fail, as Santaur here was obviously made with purpose. But we’ll label it as a fail anyway because it’s just such a bad idea. We’ve seen many variations of Santa, but this is one of the weirdest.

We suppose it’s not altogether terrible, and there are probably some people out there who would enjoy a Santaur on their tree, but since most people probably wouldn’t, we’re going to include it here as a fail.

This mug appears to be of the holiday variety. Our main issue with it is how odd it is. Yeah, it’s red and white — two popular Christmas colors — but why does it look more like a crime scene? This weird splatter effect definitely gives the wrong impression.

We’re just not sure what they were going for here. Almost any other pattern would have given it more of a holiday feel. Adding a little bit of green probably would have also helped — unless they actually wanted us to believe something else.

Sometimes, an idea sounds great until it is actually executed. We understand the thought process regarding representing the many children who believe in Santa, but ultimately, having the faces of children in the big guy’s facial hair is… a little disconcerting.

We’re sure you can see what we mean. Some of those children’s faces aren’t even the happy, cheerful kind, which makes the whole thing even more questionable. We’re pretty sure we see some screaming kids, too, which gives the wrong impression overall.

If you’re making an animal decoration for the holiday season, and that animal happens to have a tail, it’s probably important to acknowledge that the tail doesn’t come out of the animal’s rear end. Otherwise, it looks very questionable.

Seriously, they had to place this tail a little higher, and everything would have looked fine. Instead, it comes across as a complete holiday fail.

Upon first glance, there doesn’t actually seem to be anything wrong with this sweater. Upon second glance, however, you can notice what it’s really depicting. Intentionally, obviously, but depicting nevertheless — Santa wishing you a happy holiday in a very personal way.

Can you call it a failure if they intended for it to be like this? Probably not, but we’re definitely still going to put it on this list because it is an amusing holiday item that would probably bring a smile to a few immature faces.

Believe it or not, what you are looking at down there’s actually a Christmas tree at a shopping mall. Why is it brown? Why is it swirly? Frankly, we have no earthly idea. Whoever was responsible for this decoration must not have liked Christmas very much.

After all, we can hardly believe this kind of thing was unintentional. Surely, no one could have missed the fact that this thing looks like a giant turd. Then again, there are some people…

Who doesn’t like pancakes with syrup? Everyone likes such a thing, right? Well, maybe not if your syrup comes from a source like this. We’re not sure how anyone overlooked how odd this situation looks, what with Santa dropping syrup all over our food.

Maybe they couldn’t find anywhere else appropriate to put him, but even that seems like a poor excuse for this bad design. Either way, it probably gave many people a good laugh this holiday season.

Sometimes, you get a product that looks nothing like it did on the internet. And sometimes, you get a product that looks just slightly too accurate to what was depicted. This is definitely one of the latter. It’s not hard to see why.

We’re going to assume that someone took things a little too literally and had no idea that they were supposed to handle this mug in a different light. Ultimately, even though it wasn’t what the customer paid for, we could see this as being pretty funny in years to come.

Admittedly, some things can go from innocent to really bad in the blink of an eye. All it takes is for something negative to be implied, even by accident. It’s usually a matter of carelessness, as one can see right here.

We’re sure whoever placed this Santa here was just trying to put it where a lot of people would see it, but they clearly didn’t realize the nasty implications that they accidentally created. Oops.

Big, cuddly holiday bears are often a favorite of everyone, but not when they have eyes that look like this. Seriously, what was the thought process behind how scary these bears are? Why do they look like they’ve seen horrible things?

We have to wonder if product designers actually look at what they’ve made before sending it to the world. After all, how else could something this scary make it onto the shelves as a holiday gift?

Sometimes, we get the feeling that people are actually intentionally making such horrific decorations. How else could something this bad ever see the light of day? There’s no way that nobody at the board meeting caught onto this travesty before it was made.

Whatever Santa is theoretically up to in this situation, we most certainly want him to stop. It definitely doesn’t sound good, and we can’t imagine too many people actually bought this thing because who could miss how messed up it sounds?

When selling an item to a customer, you have to describe it well so they can determine whether or not they really want to buy it. But there are some details you don’t really need to say — such as identifying these “bell-shaped bells.”

Many silly things are happening during the holiday season, but this is one of the more amusing ones. Then again, we suppose you could have bells that aren’t shaped like your typical bells, so maybe this isn’t as silly as it sounds.

There are many ways to hang lights, but some are more compelling. We get the feeling that whoever set up these lights had innocence and joy in mind, but now that they’re up, things haven’t turned out as planned. Oops.

We’re sure we don’t need to tell you what appears to be wrong here. These lights clearly evoke some imagery of… not exactly holiday-themed things. Though we suppose there are plenty of holiday-themed undergarments out there.

Not all holiday hiccups are decorations. Sometimes, it’s just a bit of misplaced text, as you can see here. Well, all the text is where it’s supposed to be, but it has conveniently lined up with that cross, hasn’t it?

We don’t support treason, but we are curious what the “treason for the season” would be — betraying Santa? The spirit of Christmas? Becoming the Grinch? Who knows?

These poor reindeer don’t need any eyes, and for some reason, their antlers are where their eyes should be. Unfortunately, it kind of makes it look like they’ve been, er, harmed. Maybe someone wanted to cook some reindeer.

No matter how you look, someone dropped the ball with these holiday decorations. Who thought it was acceptable for them to lack eyes, never mind in such a conspicuous manner?

Everyone often beloves holiday shirts, but if you aren’t careful with what they say, you may end up in a situation like this one. Seriously, we can’t really forgive whoever made this ridiculous oversight. Surely they read the text out loud when they were planning it?

Apparently, they completely missed how or why this might sound bad to anyone reading it. Oh well, it probably made a bunch of adults laugh, and it likely went over the kids’ heads.

By now, we’ve concluded that the holiday spirit can cloud one’s judgment. If it were any other time of year, someone probably would have noticed a problem with this kind of decoration before it went up, don’t you think?

This tree was apparently taken down not long after it went up, probably because many parents had to answer uncomfortable questions from their children. Seems reasonable to us.

Whatever your stance on Frozen, most people can agree that Olaf is cute, at the very least. But that means we could all also agree that this holiday product butchered his appearance horrifically. Seriously, what are we looking at here?

Olaf has definitely seen some traumatizing things since we last saw him. We’re not sure what it was, and we’re pretty sure we don’t want to know. It probably had something to do with that reindeer.

Whether or not you are religious, most people know that Baby Jesus is a common holiday decoration of choice. That said, you would think people would be able to get it right since it’s been going on for years.

This could very well be one of the ugliest decorations on this list. We’re not sure how it ended up like this, but we are at least fairly positive that it was an outlier, as opposed to all of these products looking like this.

When it comes to offering up a surprise for the holiday season, what you don’t want to do is ruin that surprise. Making your package transparent does exactly that. We’re not particularly sure how this little design flaw was missed.

Well, at least you can know whether or not you got the plush you really wanted before ever buying the thing. Maybe surprises are overrated? Sometimes, it’s nice to know what you’re getting.

We’ll admit, we can see that these faces are supposed to look like singing reindeer. But, at the same time, we can tell that they also look like something far less desirable. We’re sure you catch our drift.

Sure — you have to possess a fairly dirty mind to make the connection, but most adults actually do. They just manage to hide that reality. The kids probably won’t think twice about it, and such decorations are usually for them.

This decoration isn’t so bad, but we can definitely say that it could have used a bit of workshopping as far as the text placement is concerned. What exactly do you see when you first read this sentence? Maybe you got “you had me at ho ho.”

But we can see many people getting “you had meat ho ho,” — which is honestly a lot more amusing anyway. It even makes some weird sort of sense. Santa is always watching, so he knows when you have meat, right?

We’ve all seen books where you have to spot a Waldo-type character on a convoluted, cluttered page. It’s a nice challenge for those who enjoy that thing, but this holiday book couldn’t even do that right.

Once again, we’re curious how this oversight could have happened, seeing how obvious it is in this picture. Maybe this guy is good at hiding, but we don’t think he could have escaped notice in such a situation.

People make mistakes sometimes — that’s just how it is. But some mistakes seem so silly that you have to wonder how they were made. With this holiday stocking, the designer literally only had one job, and that was to put a dog face on it.

Somehow, they ended up putting a cat face on it instead, and there’s no way to confuse them. It’s quite obviously a cat depicted here. This is far from the worst slipup we’ve ever seen, but it’s still a slipup.

If you’re going to have someone write out the lyrics for a song, it would probably be a good idea to make sure that that person knows how to spell. Noel and Nowell sound the same, but we’re sure many people were shaking their heads in this congregation.

Gotta say, though, it’s not an altogether bad name. Someone could be named Nowell, but we wouldn’t exactly frown on it. Even so, this holiday hiccup makes us smile, so here it is on this list.

In today’s day and age, shopping for the holidays is often done online, so we can see how writing letters to Santa could also become an online affair. But not this kid. This kid shops online, but they make requests via letter.

Needless to say, the idea of writing down an entire URL like that seems like a huge hassle. On one hand, we actually have to applaud the kid for doing that. The parents probably thought it was hilarious.

We get that a lot of people want to decorate their homes near the holidays, but it seems a little silly to go this far. You certainly shouldn’t cover up a security camera just to be a little festive. Someone didn’t think this through.

Any criminals paying close attention here would see an opportunity, though we suppose it depends on how many security cameras suffered the same fate as this one. Either way, it’s definitely not a particularly good idea.

Santa is supposed to know many things, but that doesn’t mean he never needs a little help with directions. Putting up a sign may help him, but not if that sign is as confusing as this one.

Is he supposed to go left? Right? The directions seem to indicate both, and we imagine that would give Santa a hard time. It’s not the worst of the bad holiday decorations, but it still makes us shake our heads.

Holiday cards can say all sorts of things, but the message that is received is usually dependent on the phrasing and where exactly the words are placed. Otherwise, you get something like this, which sounds like “from your son, Dad.”

Admittedly, that sounds like a dad joke in and of itself, but maybe the card writer should have saved the “Dad” for the inside of the card, just to avoid needless confusion.

Some people may feel that your traditional holiday decorations just aren’t clever enough, so they want to try something new. That’s all good, but don’t let the desire to be unique lead to something that’s ultimately silly.

People who speak English don’t read from bottom to top. Almost no one will look at this assortment of letters and immediately make sense of it. It would have been better to find another way to handle this.

Honestly, this kind of thing happens with so many structures like this. Anytime a character is used for a slide or a bouncy house, someone always puts the entrance or exit in a very suggestive place. Seriously, just put it off to the side.

Otherwise, you end up with weird situations like these, in which Santa looks like he hasn’t been to the bathroom all day. It’s not exactly what many kids would want to be associated with.

So, maybe it’s our fault for having less-than-pure minds, but it really seems like this selling slogan is asking us to do something criminal. It’s just a very odd choice of words to accompany all of that gasoline.

But hey, they were probably talking about something else entirely, right? Maybe a nice backyard campfire or something. Even so, this could have been worded and situated much better.

Do you ever watch one of those holiday baking shows? They always make excellent baked goods seem a lot easier than they really are, don’t they? Unfortunately, they inspire a lot of amateurs to try their hand at the craft, and it often ends up like this.

Frankly, we see a monkey of sorts on the left more than we do Santa, but that probably has something to do with the eyes. We hope no children had to be traumatized by this weird monkey Santa cupcake abomination.

As you get older, you start getting fewer holiday gifts and more money. But hey, that’s not all bad because you can use the money to buy what you want outright. Unfortunately, if you’re the type of person to tear cards in stupid ways, this could be you.

Always open your gifts very carefully, everyone! You never know what might be inside of them and just how sturdy they are. Don’t ruin your holiday by causing a problem like this.

It’s worth noting that the McCafe mittens don’t actually have these weird little hands on them to make them look so wrong. Obviously, someone drew that onto the mittens to make this highly questionable effect.

That said, we suppose this whole thing could have been avoided if they had just done a slightly better job of depicting those mittens as, you know, mittens. The shape is the only thing you have to go by.