My dad's birthday is next week, and he'll be 61 years old. Not a terribly monumental birthday, but I'm at a loss for what to get him. Someone at work suggested a great idea: an apple tree. My father currently lives on close to an acre in a small, pokey little town. The house was bought by my grandfather and totally gutted and re-built by me. In other words, the property has a great deal of sentimental value, so I like the idea of adding something to it that makes it even more special. Plus, who doesn't like trees? Focus: What unusual gift have you ever given that you are particularly proud of? My 'hit it out of the park' moment came five years ago, also with my dad. Over the years he'd mentioned the first book he ever read as a child once or twice, whenever the discussion turned to literacy, and how vividly he remembered the book. I started hunting around with rare book sellers online and eventually found a mint copy of the book he'd talked about. His reaction to that gift was unlike any I've ever seen before or since; he's not prone to big displays of emotion, but you could tell this one really got to him. Score one for Dcc. Alt: Focus: Do you have a go-to present that you like to give? Donation to a charity or the same present that gets passed back and forth every year?
I'm pretty sure I've posted this before on here, but PersonalWine.com is awesome. Just pick a wine (or several) and design a custom label. Great for birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, I-just-fucked-a-pornstar-named-Bombshell please-take-me-back, anything. Also, AmazingClubs.com is another go-to. I hate shopping, and doing it online is always a lot more efficient. For our wedding I'm going to get all the groomsmen flasks engraved with their initials. Another easy go-to you wouldn't think of buying for yourself.
I gave my brother a walker for his 40th birthday. He opened it up at his birthday party in front of all his friends and since it was a collapsible model he didn't know what it was. Luckily there were plenty of people there to point out to him that it was a walker.
My family isn't too big on celebrating holidays, so birthdays and Christmas usually come down to money and "Hey this is what I want." Because of this, the gift I'm most proud of isn't really the gift itself, but the way it was packaged. When my sister and I were in pre-school, we had a day where we made penguins out of construction paper that said "I love you Mom/Dad" on their bellies. My penguin turned out pretty normal, but my sister, being a year younger, made a penguin that Picasso would have been proud of. The eyes were crooked, the nose was out of place, just a general mess. My dad put them both in his office and they were somewhat of a running joke in my family for a few years. So this past Christmas rolls around, I have gift cards for my dad to his favorite restaurant and book store and I don't know how I want to wrap them. I don't know what it was, but something reminded me of the penguins, so I got some construction paper and recreated them to the best of my ability. Took me all of fifteen minutes and it turned out to be the highlight of our Christmas.
I've always had a close relationship with my grandparents and growing up they were a strong influence in my life. They raised my brother and I in the church (though since I'm a bit older now, I have different opinions on that) and we would attend almost every Sunday and of course on Christmas and Easter. That all stopped once we moved away, but I still go with them when I can because it makes them happy. Cue 2008, at this point I was stationed in Japan and hadn't seen my grandparents in about two years. Without telling any of my family, I took leave and flew back home. Easter Sunday rolls around and my grandparents are of course at church and doing the normal chit chat with everyone before the service begins. I walked in wearing my dress uniform and the look on their faces was worth it. I've never seen my grandfather cry, but I think he was damn close. Alt. focus For Christmas every year someone gets "the picture". My great grandmother had a chihuahua named Princess that apparently was the most evil and hateful dog to ever walk the earth. My grandmother, mother, and aunt all hated this thing. My great grandmother had a small painting done of Princess, so now as a gag gift every year it passes from one family member to the next. It's always disguised, so you can't tell what it is just by the wrapping paper.
I'm still trying to find a present that will 1-up my brothers barbecue smoker he bought for my parents a few years ago. I swear its impossible to top that gift. Not the actual one, but this is what they look like in case you don't know:
I got a geiger counter for my birthday last year. I carry it with me everywhere, because you never know when you will find something radioactive, you know.
The best-received gift I've ever given was a complete joke. It was Mother's Day a few years ago and my brother and I realized we had yet to get our mom a present. We dashed off to the Dollar Store and found a really tacky "World's Greatest Mom" mug. Upon giving her the mug, she started crying tears of joy and said something along the lines of "This is the greatest gift ever! How did you know I always wanted a ceramic mug?"
It was hard to top Mr. Pink's 27th birthday gift (his last bachelor birthday before we married): two tickets to Messier Night at the Garden. His reaction alone was worth the exorbitant cost. The first Christmas we were married, I bought him a framed autographed picture of Messier holding the Cup. Another nice reaction. Our first anniversary I got the DVD set of the 1994 Rangers playoff series from the Islanders to the Canucks. He liked that as well. Yeah, anything Messier or Rangers related goes over well.
My dad and my aunt have passed the same card to each other for their birthdays back and forth since 1983. It's even in the original envelope. The card reads something like, "We have the perfect relationship. What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine!" Also, it's fairly common for members of the family to buy my oldest sister a big bottle of Bailey's for a holiday gift, since it's a well known fact that she loves her Irish cream. Her in-laws are teetotalers. A couple of years ago, she received three bottles from various siblings and my parents. I'm pretty sure her in-laws think she's an alcoholic.
I'm easy as fuck to shop for. I like cigars, sports tickets, booze, and beer. All easy to find, all available at multiple price points. My parents are great gift givers. They got me a Kindle this year which I'm using the fuck-all out of. Prior to this was a membership to a mail order cigar club. The only problem with the club was that the prices for each monthly shipment weren't set in stone. My first selection of 10 cost my father $70. The next 10 were about the same. However when June rolled around I received 8 select reserve Opus X cigars which cost around $250... at least I was a good son and shared with him. The most excited I've ever seen a recipient of a gift was my father when I bought him a 3 hour trip in an old open cockpit bi-plane. I was there when he took off, enjoyed a few beers as they shot up the Connecticut River valley (during foliage season so it was beautiful) and came out to the runway when they landed. My father was grinning ear to ear and he sounded like a little kid as he recounted the experience... "... and then we did a barrel roll, and then we dropped low along the river, and then..., and then... and then."
The past few years my family has gotten away from giving gifts. We all hate shopping, don't know what to get for each other, and if we need something will just go out and buy it. It's actually worked out pretty well even though the old man finds a need to still cut me a check. He will learn one day though. The best reaction I've ever seen from a gift was my mom’s last Christmas. My brother gave her a wooden calendar that you would move the dates around for each month. It was all hand done and had holidays painted on the backs on the correct dates. There was even a tile for my parents anniversary. I don't know how long she cried over that but it's the strongest Christmas image I have.
My father is shithouse at gift giving. Now that my mother has passed away, I eagerly await the first family birthday to see what happens. I think he may just not bother. Although, he bumped the trend for my birthday last year and bought me an antique Swedish Mauser 6.5 x 55 rifle. Never fired. My mother bought me a donut maker. Awesome, but not nearly as awesome. Almost makes up for the bike they got me for my 13th birthday that he sold and kept the money from.
One of these guys, a "Soldier Bear". Some info: <a class="postlink" href="http://militarymomathome.blogspot.com/2007/11/soldier-bear.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://militarymomathome.blogspot.com/2 ... -bear.html</a>
The best gift I've ever received was a chance to fly a four person plane for my 8th grade graduation. At the time I really wanted to be a pilot and my godmother's husband was a part owner in the plane. I got to steer it from the local airport to my house and back, with my mom and dad in tow. I managed to make my mom puke during the process which made it that much cooler to an 8th grade abneretta. Focus: One of the best simple gifts that I've given was to one of my best high school friends for her birthday a few years ago. There's a Mexican food place about 30 minutes from here that has the best salsa I've ever had. Since she lives almost two hours away (we live in the sticks and measure distance by minutes, deal with it) I brought her some of their salsa as part of her gift, along with some perfume that I used and she liked. It was thoughtful in more than one way, and I was pretty proud of that gift, even though another friend tagged her name onto it. Alt-Focus: When someone has a baby I always buy them a Bass Pro onesie, even though I haven't worked there for years. When I started using this as a go-to, however, I was working there.
My family doesn't really do gifts anymore, and I rarely do gifts with friends or anything, but I did have one gift giving that went well. Several years ago though I was looking for a gift for a special lady in my life, and couldn't find a thing. We were at one of those weird points where you have to get the other person something, but can't get them something that really cost any amount of money without seeming over the top, so I decided to try and make her something. I'm not handy in any way shape or form, and I'm the last guy you would expect to be the crafty type. But since she was the type of girl to have 35 pillows in her bed I got a goofy idea in my head to make a pillow. So I went to a fabric store and picked up what I needed and called my most homemaker cousin and asked for some help. Five minutes of work, and $8 in parts and I had a special little Christmas pillow that not only brought a tear to her eye, but got me compliments from all of her friends for months. Unfortunately I was 19 at the time so I immediately followed it up with dozens of selfish actions that quickly squashed any hope that had of going anywhere.
Focus: When one of my best buddies got married back in 2007 I gave him a piece of the Atlantic Wall. He's been a big WW2 buff since I lent him a copy of Albert Speer's memoires right after high school, so I grabbed a piece of one of the casemates at Merville Battery in Normandy. The one I got was from a battery that caught a naval shell in its magazine on D-Day (you can only take stuff from French battlefields if it's laying loose on the ground)*. Looking back, I should have gotten him a succubus survival kit instead, since the whole thing didn't last three years, when she got pregnant and left with the kid. *Not the same battery, but close enough.
Sometimes I really mail it in, but occasionally I'll go out of my way to get somewhat unique or special gifts for people. For example, once for Christmas I rendered an entire group of friends as South Park characters in a "group picture" and then got that printed up on T-shirts. That goes over pretty well usually. But I am no match for my goddamn girlfriend. She does her gift shopping at Needful Things. It doesn't matter how much thought you put into what you get her, because she will get you something infinitely better. It's annoying as fuck. The pinnacle of annoyance was as follows: when we started going out, we were nonchalantly talking about what inspired us to go into our respective professions. For her, it was a particular object she found when she was very young and kept, and she showed it to me. For me, it was a particular magazine article I had read in kindergarten (no kidding). I couldn't remember the details, but that was the first moment I knew what I wanted to do. Well, on the next gift-exchange holiday she says "oh I have something for you" and what is it? IT'S A COPY OF THE GODDAMN MAGAZINE. FROM 1982. I had described this article in the vaguest possible terms and she goes out and finds it. I haven't seen this in literally 25 years. How in the bloody fuck do you top that? How do you even compete on the same plane as that? I mean, this is like being Phil Mickelson out there at the beginning of his career thinking "you know what, at this rate I may be the #1 guy in golf at some point in the future" and then OH SHIT TIGER WOODS. You cannot compete with Tiger. You will always be #2 to Tiger. It's humbling. It's frustrating. It's my life. Ah, well.
Two Christmases ago my family decided not to buy gifts for each other, but make them. It ended up being awesome. I (not being crafty) wrote a family cook book. Everyone had their own chapter and it included stuff they actually can make and terrible, failed food experiments (ex. my sister's fried canned tuna experiment). It went over very well, partly due to the pictures (all family pictures that were food related) and partly because I made (or tried to make) funny comments throughout, including in recipes. I even did a baby food chapter that my (then) 11 month old son "wrote." On the front cover I put Norman Rockwell's "Freedom From Want" picture with my family's faces over the ones in the picture. Otherwise, I love to order things from here - I've given the Tuscan olive tree and the wine grape bonsai. They've both gone over well. I am waiting for an event to give the mini pear tree next.
I like the idea of planting a tree as a gift. So much so, that I have one planted each year in Israel in my German father-in-law's name for his birthday.