What did you GIVE for Christmas?

[carsonshepherd]

Yeah, there's always a thread about GETTING gifts - best gift, worst gift - but what did you GIVE this year that made someone really happy?

I gave my boyfriend a new soft top for his Jeep Wrangler. The old one had no back window anymore, and now he can drive to work and not be cold, and not get wet when it's raining. Merry Christmas to him.

 

[cloudy]

My favorite gift that I gave this year were some handmade ornaments I sent to someone who had lost hers in a move.

 

[carsonshepherd]

We don't buy gifts for family members. It ends up costing too much and becoming a headache, trying to pick out something a person might not like in the end. So every year we buy toys for the Salvation Army toy drive instead, and that is actually fun - I love toys and I love imagining the faces of the little kids who open them. Also, we make a cash donation to the Humane Society or a group who uses the money to buy toys and blankets for the pets of the eldery Meals on WHeels recipients.

Due to furnace and car repairs we didn't get to do either one this year. I feel pretty crappy about it - far worse than not getting any gifts myself.

 

[sophia jane]

My favorite gifts that I gave this year:

I got my oldest a few things that he really, really wanted and seeing how excited he was made my day. They weren't expensive gifts, just somewhat hard to find, but the effort absolutely paid off.
The other gift that I'm really happy about was something else that wasn't expensive but somewhat hard to find- some Dalmatian collectibles for my parents. They add to their collection every year, and evidently didn't get any this year. They were so happy with the two I bought that I ordered the other three last night to complete the set.

 

[Liar]

I gave my sister and her boyfriend a plug-in radiator for their sub-standard insulated attic apartment so they won't have to freeze their asses off this winter.

Other than that, we kept the whole shopping frenzy pretty low-key. They were the only ones who really needed something. There is no generation of kids in the crowd yet, so no massive toystore raids were under the tree either. So gifts were of the novelty kind. Spending a good Eve and Day together was what we all appriciated most anyway.

Gonna get my lady something. But she's down south with her family, so that's for New Year's.

 

[logophile]

I think I already mentioned this somewhere here, but I'll do it again because it was wonderful.

I live in Milwaukee now, been here for 5 1/2 years, but I grew up in Des Moines, IA. In Des Moines, there is the best dairy anywhere in the country. It's a small (still) family owned operation called Anderson Erickson (AE) and I grew up eating and drinking almost AE products almost exclusively. They are still rBGH free (for those of us who care about that) and have been rated highly for their humane treatment of their cows. Anyway - I digress. Again.

Some of the products that AE makes are so much better than what we can get here that our family just stopped eating them when we moved because it was such a disappointment. We gave up party dip (for veggies and chips), cottage cheese, and worst of all - Egg Nog. Oh my, the AE egg nog was so so so good. And every kind of egg nog that I tried after moving tasted like barely artificially flavored skim milk.

Usually we have our family bring up boatloads of egg nog when they visit, either at Thanksgiving or Christmas but no one was able to travel this year, so we were nog-less.

Until...
I got in a car with a friend and drove to Dubuque, IA (about 2 1/2 hours each way) to hit the local HyVee (Iowa-based grocery chain) and purchased 11 quarts of Egg Nog! Also, some party dip and a little cottage cheese for my ex. The looks on my sister's faces when I gifted them with egg nog was priceless. There was cheering, jumping up and down, hugging and proclamations of undying love.

Yeah, the nog really is THAT good. Ask anyone.

 

[velvetpie]

I gave my hubby a Gibson 1960 Les Paul Classic and a guitar stand. He was totally blown away! Made me smile the entire day!

 

[hugo_sam]

I gave my hubby a Gibson 1960 Les Paul Classic and a guitar stand. He was totally blown away! Made me smile the entire day!

The ENTIRE day??????
How about the Entire Decade!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[English Lady]

We gave my Nanna a china mug with a little dressed up Goose on it. She adored it! I love watching folks open gifts -it's the most exciting bit of Christmas Oooh the Father in law was made up with his cricket themed jigsaw too.

And it's kinda soppy *grins* but I framed a picture of my husband and I that we had done for our engagement (we've been married 5 years now) and he ahhhed and smiled so wide that I felt hugged before his arms even touched me

 

[~photoguy~]

this year I gave the younger son a guitar amplifier

(ya, ya .. all the parents are reading this and saying.. "are you fukking insane?")

he had an ear-to-ear smile all day long .. and the sounds coming from the speaker were awe-some ... a talent that skipped a generation or two apparently

also gave my mom a multi-photo frame .. with recent family pics .. she LUVVed it

 

[simply_cyn]

My favorite gifts are usually the ones I hand-make: some years it's cross-stitch, some years it's scrapbooks with pages already done and a pen where the recepient can fill in the words, some years it's hand-baken goods. This year I made blankets for all my nieces and nephews (with the help of my 9 year old). Just seeing their faces to see their favorite characters/colors on the softest, biggest blanket (double-fleece thick) they've ever had just made my day.

I gave my dad something he could actually USE this year instead of the usual shirt/golf balls that everyone tends to get him. Of course, I went overboard with my daughter's Christmas but that's what mom's do, I suppose. The iPod both made me smile when she opened it and made me sick (when I paid for it!).

But overall it was a great Christmas and I feel really good about it.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The best presents I gave this year- were to Jett and Sophia. My songot a snap-brim hat, my dughter got a vintage fringed suede jacket that looks like it's made for her. But they were along for the shopping, so it wasn't a big surprise to them.
We tend to live phat when we have it, and buckle down when we don't and right now, this season- we don't.

 

[BlackSnake]

For the girls I got diamond braclets (and their guys fossil watches, one Nike watch for the one guy I think will marry one of the ladies)
The wife past, present, and future diamond neckless.

That was it. No fuss. Done in an hour.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I gave my sister a vibrator.

 

[sophia jane]

The best presents I gave this year- were to Jett and Sophia.

Well, I can certainly say you did good by me.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Well, I can certainly say you did good by me.

Some people are easy

 

[Guest]

Got this for a friends wife:

http://warcrafty.com/spiff/photoshop4women.jpg​

 

[sophia jane]

Some people are easy

I'd get offended if it weren't the truth.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I'd get offended if it weren't the truth.

What's amazing to me- is how many people I know that don't want one!

Tell me- is that not perfectly crafted? Beautiful, a work of fucking art, for gawdsakes?
It's just not the kind of thing you can give to family members...
I told my sister that for christmas i wanted her to just sit down and read- "passing the torch" It's pretty softcore. As far as I know she hasn't.
She has no idea how well I write, because of what I write, and it's not that she doesn't read erotica- she won't read mine, makes her too uncomfortable.

 

[carsonshepherd]

What IS it???

 

[Munachi]

The in my opinion best present I gave was a 40 or 50 cm tall toy alpaca (made with lots of real alpaca fur) i had brought from peru to give to my baby brother for christmas. Of course my brother is a bit too young to appreciate it, but his parents quite liked it... And my apartment now looks almost a bit empty without it...

 

[Just-Legal]

My favourite gift I gave this year made my mother cry.

I got her the fluffy bunny slippers she'd been demanding all year, and something else. She adores Narnia books (apparently the Christan ethos missed her, she's Wiccan), her first copies she bought when she was eight and never replaced. Her copy of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is falling apart. I saw a hardback set of the whole collection for a reasonable price that was moderately illustrated, and bought it.

She unwrapped it, flicked through "The Magician's Nephew" and burst into tears. Happy tears. I didn't know, but her (now deceased) mother saved and saved to buy her the Narnia collection when she was little, and she was dying to read them again, but daren't because they're so worn. The copies I got her are hardwearing, AND they have the illustrations. She was hoping to get money from someone so she could hunt a set like this down.

I made her cry. I felt awful, until I saw the amazingly happy look on her face.

I love my mum.

 

[Stella_Omega]

What IS it???

Jett posted pics of hers; https://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=15497635&postcount=378

Sophia's is a little different- hers is birch wood (Birch is the mother-protector, baby's cradles were made of birch in the old days) in the natural wood, with deep pruple accents, and a turned handle instead of the lion's head in the base...

 

[carsonshepherd]

Jett posted pics of hers; https://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=15497635&postcount=378

Sophia's is a little different- hers is birch wood (Birch is the mother-protector, baby's cradles were made of birch in the old days) in the natural wood, with deep pruple accents, and a turned handle instead of the lion's head in the base...

I don't know what to say.

I got her the fluffy bunny slippers she'd been demanding all year, and something else. She adores Narnia books (apparently the Christan ethos missed her, she's Wiccan), her first copies she bought when she was eight and never replaced. Her copy of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is falling apart. I saw a hardback set of the whole collection for a reasonable price that was moderately illustrated, and bought it.

the christian thing eluded me too, I was raised atheist, I didn't even realize it was a christianity metaphor until someone explained it to me in my 20's. Great gift

 

[SeaCat]

Ummmmm, where to start?
For my folks, several hundred dollars worth of Gift cards to Home Depot. (They just bought a Mobile Home and are fixing it up.)

For my wife, some jewelry. Two pieces of which were hand made and had to be special ordered. (They came in at the nick of time too.)

The best one though? Through my father I got an engine block of the same kind as the engine in my wifes best friends car. (She of the missing roof and other hurricane damage.) Over the past month I built an engine on this block. Several days before Christmas I contrived through her brother to borrow/steal her car for the day. (She was with my wife.) Two of her brothers and myself spent the day pulling the old engine from her car and replacing it with the new one. We also redid the exhaust and replaced the transmission. Needless to say she was speechless. (Under the tree for her kids were more than a couple of gifts which mysteriously appeared on Christmas Eve, all from her. Go figure.) {We saw her in Wal-Mart tonight, for the first time since before she had the car returned. She cried on my shoulder in the middle of the store. I have never in my life wanted to hold and protect someone as I did today when she did that. She hada been facing a very lean Christmas, one or two gifts for her kids and nothing for her and suddenly she had plenty. It makes me want to hurt someone to see a lovely person like her have to struggle just to have a little extra for her kids.)

Cat