Cheap gifts, family run-ins and practical jokes may not seem to be in the spirit of the holidays but to some this is common practice.

So, to make you feel a bit better about your own experiences and for a chuckle or two, check out the following holiday stories and take their advice — just grin and bear it.

• Roxanne Gray’s family has a tradition of playing the white elephant game. Each person spends $25 for a gift, wraps it up, places a number on the gift and the game starts. There are several chances to “steal” a gift from one of the participants but at the end you’re stuck with what you chose. Gray brought a nice afghan, holiday themed coffee mugs with packets of hot chocolate and cider and a Barnes & Noble gift card to the party.

She lost all holiday spirit of peace and love when she opened her gift, which was obviously a hand-me-down.

“It was supposed to be three glass votive candle holders but there were only two in the box, the box had been opened already and the holders were Plexiglas, not glass,” she said. “You’ve got to be kidding! Usually the Christmas demeanor — love and peace — would have taken over but it didn’t. I was p.o’d.”

• Years ago Ann Holland and her siblings gave their mother a Ronco Vegamatic. The mom used it once and placed it under her sink in the same box it came in. When the Holland kids grew up, Ann’s sister found it, rewrapped it and gave it to her mother for Christmas. Since then the Vegamatic has snuck its way under the Holland family Christmas trees again and again.

“Then one day my husband and I were shopping at an antique shop and found the exact model Vegamatic,” she said. “We wrapped it and gave it out for Christmas. That year we had two Vegamatics going around.”

• I have my own gift story that unfolds over three years time. I tend to get excited at Christmas. I dig under the tree, shake boxes and try to guess what the present is. When I was first married at the age of 18, my sister-in-law cautioned me not to shake the box, but I did. That year I got a pair of pink bunny slippers.

Fast forward a year to the following Christmas. My sister-in-law once again cautions me not to shake the gift but I did anyway. Christmas day comes and it’s a pair of blue elephant slippers.

Now, the fateful third Christmas. I’m on to her trick. I don’t care if she says not to shake the box or not because I’m going to shake the heck out of it, and I do. Then I hear a rattle of what sounds like broken glass.

Christmas day comes, I open the box and lo and behold I have a broken set of coffee mugs.

So whatever issues you may come across the holiday season, take my advice, just go with it.