Worst gift ever: From my Aunt (there was a family feud at the time), I was 15 and she got me black pencils with colored erasers and my full name on them. I think she was trying to piss my Mom off. Mission Accomplished. Best gift ever: I gave myself this year. I have been drooling over buying a GMC Sierra All-Terrain for 2-3 years. I found one that I could steal from dealership, and now it's parked in front of the house and I am looking for any excuse to drive it. I will pat myself on the back and say that I gave the gift of a lifetime to my Mom a couple years ago. She is really sentimental and overly attached to me, so when I gave her the quilt that I received when I was wounded there was crying and joy. It's on her wall now with the rest of the shrine to me. I know it is a gift that she will treasure for the rest of her life.
Oh, I still have the trunk and all it's contents (except the Ferbie, which I taught to say curse words and than completely forgot about.) I had the stuff appraised, and I could put a down payment on a house with the money I would make selling half of it. And I would too, but I'm way too sentimental about my childhood toys.
Alt. Focus: I can't really say which gift I liked better, so I'll have to mention both of the best gifts ever. When I was 8, I was really hardcore into freestyle biking. My parents spent an ungodly amount of money and got me a brand new Haro FSX Freestyler. Christmas 1987 was one of the only Christmases I've ever seen that it actually snowed here (Georgia). I rode that damn bike in the snow on Christmas Day, and when I finished, I brought it back in the house. I also kept the bike in my bedroom while it was the norm for everyone else to store their bikes outside. When I was 12, my parents got me a 1984 Honda XR 80. Mom was vehemently opposed to a motorcycle, but dad found a deal on a used bike that he couldn't pass up. He stepped in and bought it. At the time, I had miles of dirt roads and trails through my family's property. I probably put 100,000 miles on that little bike in the span of about 4 years. My nephew still rides it to this day.
My dad's side of the family, as I mentioned in the gift thread, is pretty big. He has 6 brothers and sisters and thus there are 15-16 cousins. So we do a Secret Santa gift exchange for the cousins. Normally, people are pretty good about asking for ideas and coming through with quality gifts. However, there are "the Boston cousins". My dad's oldest brother moved to the East Coast shortly after graduating law school. While my dad's family, especially my grandpa, is very politically conservative and religious, my uncle Ken is wildly liberal and a United Unitarian Universalist who takes every opportunity he can to bash the Catholic Church which is so important to my grandfather. So needless to say, they are outliers and don't often visit, but they participate in the gift exchange. They also, predictably, usually ignored gift ideas and did their own thing. So if your name was drawn by one of their 3 kids (or my aunt or uncle for the adult exchange), there was a good chance you would get some bullshit gift. I was probably 11-12, and the exchange is going on, and it begins to dawn on me, with the people left, a Boston cousin has me. So it comes to me, indeed I was correct, and I get a small box. In it was a wind up train and 4-5 puzzle-like track pieces. Luckily since the cousins never came for Christmas anyways, I didn't have to pretend to be excited. Especially when I saw the box said ages 5-7. I'm sure they let my cousin, who was around that age at the time, pick out the gift, but fucking give me a break. Thats cute and all but have some common sense. Not to mention the budget is $25-30. This piece of trash cost no more than $10. I was sour. My mom also fell victim to the Boston trap. One year she got a tortilla press with a ethnic cookbook...in which all the recipes were in the native language of the dish, none of which were English. 2 years later, a large portion of her gift was bath weeds/herbs including oregano and others. Even my grandparents has WTF?! looks on their faces. ALT FOCUS: I still remember being 4-5 and getting Nintendo. I can even remember the sound and smell of the styrofoam as we pulled it out of the box and being unconsciously excited. I played that thing so much over the next decade. Other kids got Super Nintendo, Sega, etc... and until I got to HS, I didn't give a shit cause I loved my NES so much. I am honestly getting a bit bummed out thinking about it cause that was such a simpler time. Nothing but pure unexpected joy and playing video games with my Dad. The next year I got a mini 3 gallon fishtank. It started basically an obsession with fish and aquariums that is still alive and strong today. That thing is still in a closet in my room at my parent's house and once I get an office at work, I fully intend to bring that bitch in there.
I tell my mom to stop buying shirts and other clothing for me for christmas as she always gets me the most embarrassing clothes, but every single holiday - she gets me yet another ugly shirt. She'll never learn.