Santa brought Khet for our 9 year old son, but his father and his best bud have been playing it ever since. It has been the hit of every place they take it too.
I describe it as Laser Chess. It is simply awesome.
My son’s girlfriend is crocheting a blanket for me. It’s not quite done and she was working on it for hours on my couch christmas day. I had the same reaction you did. I just love it (or I will, once it’s completed…next week).
I got a late night inspiration to get my husband an inversion table. I found a great one used on Craigslist that was in perfect condition and in my price range. I have been worried for weeks if he would like it. I also got him Spongebob sheets for his bed, 24 pairs of socks (XL) and a bound edition of the Dark Tower comic.
That man has spent the last two days flipping himself over, squishing about in new fluffy socks, reading his book and dreaming of sugarplums with Spongebob.
He went absolutely bonkers over the inversion table. It was huge. I was rather surprised at just how much he liked it. He is more the frivolous, expensive toy kind of guy who hates anything useful. Everything I got him was useful. And he loved it all.
Money is tight and my daughter is now 2. I was worried about what money we would have available for Christmas. Last month I found a pristine set of Little People, the zoo and the farm. Of all the stuff she got (and she got a TON of stuff) the zoo and the farm are her favorites. She even takes them to bed with her.
Isn’t it funny how the little ones like the simple things? I bought my daughter a bottle of Hello Kitty bubble bath, which I bought because it was so cute…the bottle is shaped like Hello Kitty, and it’s pretty big. She loves her kitchen, but when someone asked her what she got for Christmas, she said “a giant Hello Kitty!” I guess it really made an impresson on her. Proves you don’t have to spend a lot of money on a 3-year-old!
…or a 51-year-old! I got Hello Kitty mints and a Hello Kitty candy cane from my niece. They are sitting right by my slowly-growing shrine to Hello Kitty – the christmas tree ornament and a nifty little covered dish that I keep Kid Kalhoun’s baby teeth in. I once had the tiniest Hello Kitty safety pin that Kid Kalhoun and I traded back and forth for years until it mysteriously disappeared. If anyone has one, I’ll pay good money for it.
Got my SIL these massaging slippers which were a big hit - now the other female family members want them too.
Got my husband a sign similar to this but that is a little bigger, is yellow, and says Brett Favre Dr. - that he loved.
Son got a Wii - we’ve seen very, very little of him since he got his mitts on that…
Dang, that Hello Kitty stuff is addictive, isn’t it. I hate cutesy stuff normally, but I just love HK! I even am contemplating Hello Kitty sheets for my daughter’s bed, even though I SWORE there would be no licensed-character decorations in her room! Can’t help myself.
I got my 21 year old sister a giant stuffed lamb, which is very soft and squishy with a slight lavender scent (from Bath and Body Works). She didn’t let go of the thing for the entire day.
I know exactly what you mean. I don’t do cutesy. But I turn into a blithering idiot of that little kitty face. And she’s standing on a heart-shaped tin of mints (I think they’re mint…I can’t bear to break the seal).
Last Valentine’s Day, on a sleety, awful day, my mother went in for an MRI looking for crushed nerves in her spine. Six hours later the doctors told her that she would need surgery that week for a brain tumor the size of a baseball. She’s fine now, after months of recovery, and all through this year she’s been saying she wants to be far away from here on Valentine’s Day and doesn’t want to to talk to anyone. So I made my parents reservations for dinner at a lovely inn in New Hampshire. And during the day they are going to the Yankee Candle Factory in Deerfield, which my mother has wanted to go to for years. And lunch at their fancy resturant. She cried. My mother never cries.
My fiancee and I are getting married on January 5th. We aren’t going on a honeymoon as I’m working on PhD in organic chemistry and can’t take time off right now. So I got him a Southwest gift card, a stack of guide books and some other gift cards and promised him we’d take a week this summer and go wherever he wanted. He was so excited.
I got an iPod, so I’m pretty happy as well.
Hee hee hee… I bought one for myself this year, only mine was $40! 
In a back room with a secret door in the back wall of a stall on Canal St…
For a while now I’ve been planning to knit my 17 yo brother a “Jayne hat” (from the tv show Firefly). I’d hinted I might make him one eventually, but that I wasn’t sure when I’d get around to it since I’ve been really busy lately. I told him maybe I’d be able to make it by the end of the winter. 
I ordered a kit from this website and it arrived in the mail on Friday evening at about 8pm. Since I was going to my parents house on Saturday and staying there until Christmas, and I didn’t want to be knitting the hat in front of my brother, I stayed up Friday night until 2am to finish knitting it in one marathon session.
Pretty cunning, don’t ya think?
ETA: He was pretty thrilled and gave me a huge bearhug (which doesn’t happen so often anymore now that he’s a teenager).
My kids loved these:
joustingknights
And I do, too. They’re fun on hardwood floors.
I also got a DVD: The Best of Stephen Colbert, which looks to be very funny.
I want to learn how to knit and I want to learn how to quilt–I’d like to make handmade presents someday soon.
Back in February or so, MrWhatsit said, “Hey, next time you’re on BookMooch, add this book by Raymond Briggs…” It was an illustrated picture book satirizing the Falklands War. It’s been out of print forever. MrWhatsit said, “Of course it’ll never come up on BookMooch, but what the hell, why not give it a try?”
So I privately rolled my eyes but added it to my BookMooch wishlist and went about my business.
Sometime in May… it became available on BookMooch. I stifled my cry of glee so as not to alert MrWhatsit and promptly requested it.
The look on his face on Christmas morning when he saw this book was worth every penny I spent. Even if I’d spent any pennies. Which I did not.
This wasn’t really a present, but what elicited the best reaction this year was the personalised version of The Night Before Christmas I wrote for a friend, inspired by Mindfield’s work of genius. He didn’t see it coming at all.
::cries:: That’s the coolest gift evar!
My husband desperately wanted a Swedish axe for Xmas. I’m hoping his parents got the hint and got him one otherwise I’m going to do it for our anniversary. (I’m sure I could have fun with THAT gift-giving!)
My dad never wants anything ever so this year I got him a book, which always makes him happy, and a bat house! I perused a bunch of bat house sites and found one that sold Bat Conservation International - approved housing for our flying friends.
He was pretty thrilled and can’t wait to put it up. He gets a lot of bats on the property and enjoys watching them.
I had to follow this up to add to the “didn’t have to spend a lot to make someone happy” theme:
My nephew has gotten into the old Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi movies, and one he hasn’t been able to find locally to use his giftcards on is “Phantom of the Opera.” I got it on VHS years ago after I saw the musical, and since they still have their VCR, I offered him my copy. He was thrilled!
Gads. After reading all of these I feel like a slacker…
She mentioned a month or so ago her favorite candy that she hadn’t been able to find anywhere for years and I went online and bought her a box.
Next year I hope to know her well enough to get her something really special.
I’d never heard of this site, consider it my best present this year! Thank you!