Best gifts when you EXPECTED CRAP...

In My Humble Opinion
1

The Worst Christmas gifts thread is tremendously depressing (though funny too), so as an antedote, tell me about a gift that was GREAT, or TOUCHING when you were expecting no better than pure shit.

From an office gift exchange… or from crazy great-aunt Delilah who usually sends used tea bags, but one year sent you something brilliant… or from a random act of holiday kindness.

One of the best presents I ever got was from an office gift exchange where the spending limit was a mere $10. I worked at a place that had an office in the front and a factory in the back. The anonymous gift exchange was always weird, since the different departments rarely got to mingle. Behind the factory was a junkyard. There was a feral cat that had been born there the summer before and this was her second winter in the junkyard. One of the factory workers and I would feed “Molly” everyday and make sure she wasn’t freezing. She was a sweet calico that eventually tamed, so when I quit that job I took her with me and became her “foster mom”. She was adopted by a woman who loves her very much. No cold winters for that cat anymore!

We drew names from a hat on Dec. 1 for the Secret Santa thing. The same day, my one co-worker brought in her camera so she could take photos of a product she had designed. There were a few shots left, so when I went out to feed Molly, she took a few pictures of the cat. Unfortunately, the negatives were ruined at the lab, none of the pictures of Molly had come out. :frowning:

The gift exchange was Dec 23. They always suck. People buying $10 gifts for virtual strangers. I usually get a calendar of kittens or something because everyone knows I’m a pet owner. I opened my $10 gift. I was a cheap, plaster, photo frame shaped like a computer with a cat on the top and mice playing with the keyboard.

BUT it had been very carefully painted by hand and in the frame was a picture of Molly.

I was delighted and touched! I was so expecting the usual crap and here was a well-thought out gift that really meant something to me. It was brilliant!

The picture of Molly of course gave away my co-worker who drew my name from the hat. She said, “Do you have any idea how hard it was to keep that a secret with you asking for the damn cat negatives every day?” (I’m a photographer and wanted to see the negatives to find out how the lab had ruined them.)

I still have Molly’s picture in the frame which is prominently displayed on my wine-rack. I haven’t seen Molly since she was adopted 8 years ago. I consider it one of the best Christmas presents I ever got.

2

It wasn’t spectacular or anything, but my much-loathed revolting half-brother and his family usually gets me awful sweaters or horribly shitty jewelry, and this time they gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card. It was a real shock, I was expecting the usual craptacular sweater. Unfortunately he has not yet today given me the gift of taking himself and his brats home. Oh yeah, and the kids brought their new *musical instruments to show us. :mad:

3

My former best friend used to give me gifts that had no thought behind them at all. Something generic like a lotion set from Bath and Body Works. And then one year she gave me a Dark Crystal lunchbox that she’d bought on ebay and put two bags of swedish fish inside and I was amazed! I was like holy crap, she put actual thought into a gift and added stuff I like!

4

Last year, just after moving back home, I bought my brother a pack of “fancy” cigarettes and a nice lighter. It clearly caught him off guard - but I wasn’t expecting a present from him.

It had been over 10 years before that since my brother and I had had any real meaningful contact - a few quick hellos over the phone when I called my mom, etc. So when he came home the next day and told me he had gotten me a present, I was fully expecting something really odd or cheesy (he was 23, I didn’t have high expectations).

He handed me a DVD of Pink Floyd’s The Wall - a DVD I’d been wanting for as long as it had existed, but had never been able to justify spending the money on. He said that he remembered that I used to really like Pink Floyd when I was a teenager, so he figured I might like it. I was so touched that he remembered that about me, and that he’d thought out my gift enough to get something I wanted.

To this day, it’s one of my all-time favorite gifts :slight_smile:

5

One of my brothers had, for several years, been giving me things he obviously recieved and didn’t like*, and, for a couple of years, gave me nothing whatsoever.

Last year, out of the blue, he gave me a “Get Fuzzy” comic strip collection. I love “Get Fuzzy” – and he had no way of knowing that. I never mentioned it to anyone in my family, mostly because it never came up. I guess someone gave it to him and he didn’t like it, but I certainly appreciated it.

*I don’t really object to this, since we do it from time to time. There’s nothing wrong with regifting as long as the item is unused and matches up with your interests.

6

Last year, me and my fiancee were jobless. Unemployment was barely paying the bills and getting food, so Christmas was looking really scarce. We’d agreed not to buy each other anything so we could get gifts for our daughter and other family members.

Then she bought me the truly massive Far Side collection. :smiley: This year we agreed not to buy each other anything again, and she has our daughter blindside me with the Simpsons Fifth season DVD. :smiley:

Course, I’m not in a position to pay her back as my paychecks are just barely getting things done, but her birthday comes right around the same time as tax return season. Oh Lordy is she gonna get it :wink:

7

At last years christmas party, i got a deck of cards. the spending limit was $12 and i got playing cards. oh yay. well this year, i was expecting another not-so good gift, but i ended up with not $12 but an even 20 dollars in movie passes at our local cinema. needless to say, i was shocked. SHOCKED! it was wonderful.

8

My youngest brother is 27 and the only one of my sibs who is single and without kids. We get along terrifically, but rarely interact with one another - he has his life, I have mine, you know how it goes. Each year we do a family grab bag and we pull names, and this year he got me. He’s a pretty generous guy in general, and is known in the family for giving out $50 gift cards to his nieces and nephews (which makes him a very popular uncle), but is NOT known for putting loads of thought into his gifts. I knew he had my name, and was expecting a gift card or something equally nice but impersonal.

Imagine my surprise when I opened a large heavy box last night and found an extraordinary mouthblown, cased-glass vase that is EXACTLY to my taste and matches my living room decor so well that it looks as though it was designed for that room and no other. I am still a little stunned - it is just beautiful!

9

I work in a small department, and we generally buy each other something small at Christmas. When we were exchanging stuff last week, I came back from lunch one day and as I walked by my one co-worker, N’s, cube, I saw this gift basket sitting there…it was really nice, a big basket with a high handle and pinecone trim. I said “Wow, what an awesome basket, who gave you that?”

N. turned to me and said “Oh, actually, that’s for you!” Hee!!

In addition to the nice basket (which I would have been thrilled with in and of itself), she gave me a pound of Kahlua & Cream coffee, a really nice painted mug and a hand-rolled cinnamon candle.

In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t walk by and say something like “Hey, where’d you get the cheesy gift??” :smiley:

10

I received a beautiful silk scarf from one of our freelancers this year. I was really surprised because the only interaction I’ve had with this couple is through email and phone dealings. It was not only an obviously expensive gift, but one that fit my tastes perfectly. I absolutely love it, and it really touched me that total strangers would send me such a thing. Turns out, they do this every year and send nice presents to the peons (me and the other assistants). It’s nice to be appreciated, especially considering that my boss’s idea of nice gifts for all of us was a bag of popcorn. haha. Not that I’m keeping count or anything. :smiley:

11

I’m a single adult (with a job) so Christmas isn’t an event I can appreciate from the recieving side of things. If I really want something I pretty much just go out and buy it. The fun of Christmas for me is trying to buy for other people.

Darn’d if my sister and brother inlaw didn’t find stuff that I really wanted but just never got around to buying. Got a pressure washer, a B&D drill that has a detachable chuck with a screw bit behind it, and a clock radio with 2 alarm settings that get louder as time passes (I’ve been having problems getting up in the morning). I never asked for these or talked about them so the suprise was all the greater. I actually felt like a kid at Christmas. To top it all off my laptop died (I bought the extended waranty) so I’m getting a better laptop in a week as a free replacement.

The company I work for (which has been losing money for years) was just bought out by another company so my job appears to be more stable now. The bonus to all of this is I’ll have more money for charity this year.

12

My older brother is mentally retarded and usually gifts from him are bought by my mother who has frighteningly bad taste and easy access to the church thrift store. One year, out of the blue, he bought me with his own money a set of carving knife, fork, and sharpening steel - all with bone handles. I was really touched and surprised and when I thanked him he said: “every year when you carve the turkey you complain about mum’s dull knives, so I got you a sharp one”.

13

Wow. My sister’s severely mentally retarded and that post gave me chills, Dan. That is incredibly cool.

14

My grandfather (mom’s dad) died unexpectedlyin 1988 on December 19. That Christmas was so incredibly rough for everyone. I wasn’t anticipating anything, really, in the way of gifts; my parents were so tied up in a distant city planning my grandfather’s funeral, and my grandmother was distracted with grief.

I knew I wouldn’t have much of a Christmas, which was okay, especially considering the circumstances. Imagine my surprise when my parents gave me a beautiful bookshelves that Dad had made by hand, and I also received the (ridiculously expensive and therefore silly) comforter I was longing to put on my bed at college.

I was so touched that, in the midst of such a devastating event, my father went on and finished the bookshelves for me. And Mom got the comforter, even though she had far greater things to occupy her. I was so touched that they worked so hard to make things as nice as possible for me in such a dark time. Truly selfless and sweet of them – I’ll always remember it and hope I can deserve it.

15

Not that I expected crap, really, so much as I didn’t expect anything at all.

My neice is three years old, and this year at her day care they had a secret Santa thingy going on. My sister sent her to school with some cash and a list of who she might pick gifts for. The teachers helped the kids wrap and label their gifts, but the kids picked them out all by themselves. I believe they were told something like “Now what do you think Aunt Deva might like?”

Haille picked out a musical figurine of an angel with a harp and a flying cherub that plays Amazing Grace for me. Now, what’s uncanny is that I collect faerie and angel figurines, and Amazing Grace is my favorite hymn.

I love it, in all its cheap gaudy goodness. It really touched my heart to receive my first hand picked gift from my first neice.

16

My sister is a regifter extraordinaire. She usually sends me stuff she doesn’t want, and since she is cheapness reincarnate, what she doesn’t want nobody wants.

One year she sent me a wooly warm dark green sweater. I was totally amazed, as she is always telling me “you shouldn’t wear dark colors.” I can only guess that she got two of them as gifts.

It’s beautiful, warm, and I wear it a lot.