What present comes in last place? Gift cards.

Who needs money when I can have a card valued at a certain amount at a particular store! Gift cards are not only impersonal, but also appear to not always be worth what is printed on them.

Long ago, maintenance fees -- those clauses concealed in small print that slowly ate up your $25 to Shoe Carnival without your knowledge -- were done away with. But, what can one do when the store to which one has a gift card is no longer there to honor it? Answer: whine, then nothing. I heard this story on NPR this morning while getting dressed:

Gift Card Warning: Check Retailer's Health

Two-thirds of shoppers plan to give gift cards this holiday season, making those little plastic cards the second most popular gift after clothes, according to a national survey by Consumer Reports.

But some experts warn that these gifts could be worthless if the current trend of retail bankruptcies continues.

Circuit City, which filed for bankruptcy protection last week, is still honoring its gift cards, as is Linens 'n Things. But other bankrupt companies, such as The Sharper Image, simply have stopped accepting the cards.

A fool's tale from this article:

A couple of years ago, the cable company where Kim Handloff works was offering bonuses in the form of gift cards. She had been planning to buy her boyfriend an expensive telescope, so she took her $1,500 bonus in gift cards from The Sharper Image. But she held on to them. In February, The Sharper Image filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and eventually stopped accepting gift cards.

"I basically have about $1,500 worth of pieces of plastic that are going to get me absolutely nothing," says Handloff.

In your wallet right now, how many gift cards are there? (4 . ~10 until 4 months ago). How long has the oldest one been there? (5 years?). The point being that gift cards aren't as great of an idea as one might think.

A quarter of gift card recipients still haven't spent gift cards a year after receiving them, according to a Consumer Reports survey. And a majority of people say they end up spending more than the value of the card once they get to the store.

Who would have thought that The Onion would be so prophetic?