I hate buying them but I love receiving them, weird right? Best one I ever got was a sweet pair of skis a few years ago. Worst one I ever got was a sweatshirt for Limited Too, which is for girls, when I was 12 years old. Focus: Best Christmas present you've ever received. Worst one you've ever received. Alt Focus: What are some nifty gifts you are buying friends and family this year?
Picked up a bunch of the Kindle Fire tablets when they were on sale for the dirty santa party, the wife did all our shopping online and everything is wrapped and ready to go. I got her a DSLR Nikon for the big gift, I gifted myself a new mower, wanted a Festool Domino but that'll have to wait until next year. Worst gift I ever got was a empty box from my Grandmother, she didn't get me anything, wrapped up an empty box and that was that. I'm just ready for the inevitable in law drama, always entertaining
Wait. Was she being old and forgot? Or was that your grandma's way of saying go fuck yourself? Because if it's the latter I love your grandma.
The best Christmas gift I received as a child was tinkertoys. You could make whatever you wanted to play with out of them. As a young adult, being gifted a couple of tickets to the 1978 Rose Bowl. I took my father on a one day 600 mile round trip on New Years eve and it was simply the best day ever. In my later life, I would say the $10,000 dollar check I got from the parents when the twins were 13 was the best ever. It paid for their braces and I was losing sleep on how to pay for them. No crappy gifts, unless you count clothes received for Christmas. That is never what kid wanted to open.
I was an only child with nice parents. I had the G.I Joe base, I had Omega Supreme (the largest Transformer) but the game Fireball Island was the cat's ass. I never owned Crossbows & Catapults, another awesome 80's game. HOWEVER in an era of Nintendo and Sega they buy me the Atari XE: barely above the 2600 with shitty joystick games. My dad thought it was cool because he was taking IT in school and it had a keyboard. It sucked. Nintendo came late.
Focus: The best present ever was when I received all 5 individual Voltron Lions that you could then combine into a giant Voltron robot. That reminds me, that I need to check in my parent's basement the next time I'm home, as they're quite the hoarders and I might still be able to find it. Alt-Focus: For the past few years, I've started making it a tradition to give everyone in my family some of my homemade bacon every year. Other than that, the rest of them are getting giftcards because nobody in my family can decide what the fuck it is they want.
Focus: N64 when I was 9. Coolest fucking thing ever. We had a shit trash computer that barely ran internet, but my brother and I were obsessed with the floppy disc games. We upgraded all the way to N64 when it came out and it was such a boost in quality/fascination for me at that age I can still recall the silly plots of almost every game we bought. Of course, I also played through some of them half a dozen times. Close second was finding out my family was getting a dog when I was 5. As an adult, I enjoy a good gift, but it doesn't compare to a child's obsessive speculation and my parents' ability to constantly trick me into expecting I was going to get something way shittier than what I got. Worst: A book on astrology from my sister. She is extremely self centered and bitched about every idea I threw out as 'too expensive'. Finally, I just said get me a book on astronomy. You can get that for $10 or less. She still fucked it up. Worst gift from an SO was cologne. I don't give a shit, you know I don't give a shit, so don't buy that suggestive metrosexual crap. Most ridiculous was when a friend and I bought the exact same zippo for each other.
The weirdest gift I ever received was from my Great Aunt Sue. She's about 90 years old with a wig collection. She usually gives us preserves or some nice fruit. But one year she decided to give everyone a hand-painted stone. Each person had a different bird. I proudly have my stone displayed because it's awesome! Like, why wouldn't I want a rock with a duck on it hand-painted by a senile old lady with shaky hands?
Focus: The semi-carved gunstock I got from my parents 11 years ago, it started me on the work I do in my spare time now and what may be a future full time career. Second best gifts have been various tools, since I can think of who gave them to me whenever I use them. Alt-focus: Getting ms. katokoch her first legit winter boots, she has really wanted a pair and I'm pretty confident she'll love what I picked. Think I'll fire up my bandsaw and cut stuff up out of pretty scrap wood for family and friends too, basic but fun stuff like ornaments and little trinkets.
On of my best Christmas gifts: El husband came home early when we were dating. He was supposed to fly in right before Christmas, but he came in a few days early for my birthday on the 22nd. Too bad my well intentioned but idiotic best friend tipped me off with, "You might want to start cleaning sooner rather than later." I actually would rather have been surprised with a dirty house. Worst Christmas: There was one year, I think I must have been 14 or 15, that both myself and my brother were gifted a zune mp3 player with the big screen to watch videos, plus miscellaneous small gifts/stocking stuffers. I loved that damned thing and took amazing care of it. I actually still have it and use it on runs sometimes for nostalgia. On the other hand, my brother beat his to hell and broke it either the same year or the next. Cue the next Christmas, where he gets a brand new ipod mp3/video player, and I didn't get any gifts that year other than a couple stocking stuffers and a sweater. My mom looked like she felt bad. I think she legitimately just forgot that year. But it's a sucky feeling when the rest of the year you feel the favoritism of a sibling and then it is so strongly reinforced on a holiday that is, in big part, about gift giving. It took a couple really shitty birthdays and Christmas's to make me truly focus on the other aspects that are nice: Food, friends, and family. So, blessing in disguise, I suppose.
The gift I ever got was a 22 rifle from my parents when I was 10 years old, I carried that gun with me for 33 years and last Christmas I gave it to my 10 year old nephew, his mom was not amused.
Very nice! I LOVE fly fishing, and use almost exclusively Orvis gear. I get a lot of flack over the price, but the quality and the warranty is worth every penny. One year fishing with the boys, we may have had a few drinks, and we put some gear in the back of the pickup, then closed the tailgate... the tailgate snapped the last 8 inches off of 2 rods. FUCK. Called up Orvis (from the lake), sent them a pic of the rods, they had me on file and had already shipped replacement rods to my house before my trip was done. Sometimes they want a piece back or something, but in this case they just saw the pic, laughed, and sent the replacements. One rod was old enough so that they didn't have a direct replacement, so gave me an option of 4 of the next higher quality rod. I cannot speak highly enough about Orvis. They have earned my loyalty for life. They also have a couple of good podcasts on fishing and hunting that are worth listening to.
Orvis is phenomenal. And they're beginner friendly too. Despite being an elite manufacturer I've never felt overwhelmed by their culture. And of course their equipment is awesome. Even when I was at their stores last winter and didn't even know what a nymph was all their associates were really welcoming and enthusiastic about fishing. What I like most about that gift is I really like fly fishing. That and hockey are the two things I can do by myself that i really enjoy. Their website is great to. Tons of great videos about basic knots. I actually learned how to use the orvis knot because of their videos and its my go to now. There's something about fly fishing that allows me to key out all the other bullshit. I like how its hard to master, I like how it requires precision with the different knots and tying on new baits. Its hard to worry about inane human bullshit when I'm trying to thread the tippet through a nymph.
FOCUS: Best gifts: - My dad got the family the Vic 20 when it came out - I was 5. I learned to program "I Love Ricky Schroeder" on continuous scroll, which felt like a pretty big deal at the time. - Skis when I was 16. Purple K2's - the only pair I've ever owned. (I always owned my own boots, but rented skis and boards before and after.) - I was in rehab at Christmas (several years ago), and the only thing that made it through screening was a giant bag of Swedish Fish. Not gonna lie, at the time, it was the best. gift. ever. Sugar right out of detox? Yes, please. ALT FOCUS: I got Mini-Me two STEM toys that both involve "coding"; I put 5 years into Barbie dolls and coloring books, so I steered her toward toys I might actually want to play with her. I'm pretty sure I used to give pretty cool gifts in the past - back when I slept in past 6am and gave a shit...
Alt Focus: Obviously, I'll get this for my mom, but I'm not sure about grandma. Where does one wear a reindeer boob sweater? Spoiler: Rude Off? The sweater version is classy. The one-sided dresses are pretty lazy.