History Main / GiftOfTheMagiPlot

A SubTrope of WholePlotReference.

* ''LittleHouseOnThePrairie'' had a Christmas episode where Charles bought Laura a saddle for her horse and worked refurbishing a set of wagon wheels to buy Caroline a stove. Before he could pick up the stove, Laura sold her horse to pay for it. Laura does get the horse back, a year or two later.

* Brilliantly inverted in Philip K. Dick's "Oh to Be a Blobel!"

* Parodied in Episode 7 of ''Blamimations'', where Scott's air conditioner dies during a heatwave. At the end we see that Scott has sold the air conditioner to buy a snowcone for Kris, and that Kris has bought refrigerant for the air conditioner... and sold his head, leaving him unable to enjoy the snowcone.

* In episode 4 of ''FrankenFran'', a high school couple unknowingly swap genitals. The girl [[RapeAsBackstory was raped as a child]] and has an irrational reaction to being touched by a man, and the boy swaps genders for her sake. So does she, and [[BlackComedy it's all treated as a joke at the end.]] [[spoiler: Namely, the girl catches on that intention, and so Fran gives them each other's organs.]]

* Played with in the ''PhineasAndFerb'' ChristmasSpecial. Jeremy gives Candace a pair of earrings that she wanted (and was going to have her good necklace made into a pair like them), but he sold his guitar (which he was going to trade in for a silver one) to pay for them. Candace, meanwhile, buys the silver guitar by selling her good necklace, so both of them manage to come out ahead in the end.

* In ''SluggyFreelance'' Torg and Riff buy each other a plaid shirt and a new overcoat... but both sold their shoulders to medical science to pay for the others gift.

A plot reproducing ''GiftOfTheMagi'', where two people buy gifts for each other, but the gifts each complement something another person has... and they each had to sell their respective complements to pay for their gifts.

* Subverted and lampshaded in a ''Lupin The Third'' episode, "Is this like the Gift of Magi? Because I hate that story."

* In the first ''{{Rugrats}}'' Christmas special, "The Santa Experience", Angelica puts Phil and Lil in a GiftOfTheMagi situation as part of a prank, but struggles to fix things when she learns bad kids don't get presents from Santa.

* The kids of ''{{Glee}}'' attempt a literal version of this in "A Very Glee Christmas" to replace the gifts stolen by Sue that were intended for homeless children, with the girls donating their hair and the boys selling their watches, before Mr. Schu intervenes.

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* In ''YuYuHakusho'', this is part of Hiei's backstory. One of the conditions the demon surgeon made Hiei agree to before implanting Hiei's EvilEye was that Hiei could never reveal his true identity to his SeparatedAtBirth sister. The same sister that Hiei wanted to find using the EvilEye. When Hiei meets the surgeon again and has to duel him, the surgeon agrees to rescind the condition if Hiei wins. While Hiei claims that he had intention of ever revealing himself to his sister, the surgeon believes that actually meeting her might have changed Hiei's mind.

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* An episode of ''TheSingleGuy'' has the single guy and one of the female characters encountering this situation, the exact gifts being a Russian Doll and a comic book. At the end, the single guy makes a quip that someone should write a book about this. LampshadeHanging, anyone?

* On the original run of SaturdayNightLive, JohnBelushi is the husband, and Laraine Newman the wife. As per the story, he sells his watch, and she sells--the brush she used to brush her long hair, for a much cheaper gift than he got her. Breaking into a standard Belushi rage, he begins to strangle her.

* BarneyAndFriends used this plot in a Season 11 ChristmasEpisode. After Barney and his friends decide to do a "Secret Santa" thing, B.J. gets drumsticks for Riff by trading his baseball. Riff, on the other hand, gets B.J. a baseball glove by trading his drum. In the end, Barney (dressed like Santa) returns the items back to the two dinos. To make the reference even more obvious, the episode is titled "[[GiftOfTheMagiPlot Gift of the Dinos]]."
* The kids of {{Glee}} attempt a literal version of this in "A Very Glee Christmas" to replace the gifts stolen by Sue that were intended for homeless children, with the girls donating their hair and the boys selling their watches, before Mr. Schu intervenes

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* {{xkcd}} turns it inside-out [[http://xkcd.com/506/ here]].

* {{Wonderella}} gives us [[http://nonadventures.com/2009/12/19/where-the-toys-are/ half a gift.]] The other half involves toy hamsters.

* In ''TroperWorks/StubbleTrouble'' Liasonya the foxtaur sells her RapunzelHair to buy a gift for her boyfriend. [[http://www.drunkduck.com/Stubble_Trouble/index.php?p=648215 It doesn't turn out so well...]]

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* Happened in ''CatDog'' during "Brothers Day".
** Then subverted when Dog sold Cats Gift after buying it to buy something for himself.
*** Specifically, Dog gave up his pool of mud that he and Cat wrestled in to buy Cat a loufa case. Cat sold his loufa to get Dog a mud wrestling costume. Dog reveals that he sold the loufa case and got Cat a mud wrestling outfit as well, because "I looked up the recipe for mud, and it's really easy to make!"

* ''RobotChicken'' had a great parody of this story- the wife naturally sells her hair to buy a chain for her husband's pocket watch. When we see the husband trying to buy his wife some combs, the shopkeeper suggests he sell his watch to afford them.... Only for the husband to point out that his watch is an antique in perfect working condition, and is worth way, way more then a pair of combs, no matter how fancy. "What are they solid gold?"

[[AC: Real Life]]
* In one of his volumes of kidspeak, Rabbi Chaim Potak shares a letter from a young boy who sold his fancy and expensive calculator to buy ink for his father's beloved fountain pen. His reasoning is that his father's birthday is coming up and that his calculator's battery, which is a rare and hard to obtain type, has run out. When his father's birthday comes, he presents his father with his gift, only for the father to reveal [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming that he has sold his pen to buy batteries for the calculator.]]

* ''RobotChicken'' had a great parody of this story- the wife naturally sells her hair to buy a case for her husband's pocket watch. When we see the husband trying to buy his wife some combs, the shopkeeper suggests he sell his watch to afford them.... Only for the husband to point out that his watch is an antique in perfect working condition, and is worth way, way more then a pair of combs, no matter how fancy. "Are they carved out of gold or something?"

* In episode 4 of ''FrankenFran'', a high school couple unknowingly swap genitals. The girl [[RapeAsBackstory was raped as a child]] and has an irrational reaction to being touched by a man, and the boy swaps genders for her sake. So does she, and [[BlackComedy it's all treated as a joke at the end.]]

* On the original run of SaturdayNightLive, JohnBelushi is the husband, and Laraine Newman the wife. As per the story, he sells his watch, and she sells---the brush she used to brush her long hair, for a much cheaper gift than he got her. Breaking into a standard Belushi rage, he begins to strangle her.

* [[GeniusDitz Miyako]] of ''HidamariSketch'' invoked this as [[RomanticTwoGirlFriendship Hiro and Sae]] exchanged gifts... [[CulturalCrossReference Of course nobody understood what she said.]]

* ''[[{{Ptitle7onizjoj}} Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas]]'': Emmet has to put a hole in his mother's washtub, and she has to sell his tools, for both of them to enter a singing contest to win money to buy gifts for each other.

* ''Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas''

* In one of his volumes of kidspeak, Rabbi Chaim Potak shares a letter from a young boy who sold his fancy and expensive calculator to buy ink for his father's beloved fountain pen. His reasoning is that his father's birthday is coming up and that his calculator's battery, which is a rare and hard to obtain type, has run out. When his father's birthday comes, he presents his father with his gift, only for the father to reveal [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming that he has sold his pen to buy]] [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready batteries for the calculator.]]