My husband learned to prepare sushi the summer before we married, and after we wed he often invited friends over to enjoy the fruits of his labor. So for our first Christmas I got him a cool set of sushi dishes and chopsticks (along with some other stuff). We still eat sushi off those dishes.
The greatest gift I’ve ever given was a large antique mantle clock I bought at work. It was a heavy bastige, metal, brass, beautifully ornate, with a new clock face. I gave it to my mom and fiancee (now her husband/my stepfather) and they loved it. It’s proudly displayed in the living room.
The greatest gifts I’ve ever seen given were a dishwasher (which my mom always wanted but could never afford) from my grandma, a $1000 gift certificate to a ritzy furniture store for my grandparents (from everyone–we pooled our money; I was about 12 at the time so my share was $30), and a Talon 9mm for my aunt from my uncle, which she loved immensely. Apparently this year she’s planning on getting him a Desert Eagle, which he’s craved for years, those wacky relatives.
The greatest gift I ever received was from my brother, who had started working (he was 17 at the time) only that year and had saved and saved for xmas and college and he bought me two boxes of magic the gathering cards (which is about $150 worth of cards). I got misty eyed and hugged him and gave him a kiss on the cheek (which he shied away from).
God I love Christmas.
Christmas, 1981. I’m in the Navy, my younger brother is in the Army. Neither one of us has pressing financial obligations, and we’re in a position to make some generous expenditures. Mom mentions in passing that the oldest of our sisters, then in college, is going through a rough patch, financially speaking, and could use a few bucks.
Each of us took a C-note to the bank and exchanged it for a hundred ones. We then balled them up one by one, and crammed them into a Quaker Oats box (it took a lot of tape to keep the lid on, as I recall), then wrapped the box in gaily-colored paper, dropped a bow on the end, and set it under the tree.
I had to report to Idaho Falls on the 20th of December, so I asked him to get a snapshot of the expression on her face when she opened the box. It came out pretty good. . .
Best:
My father graduated from Harvard, then Harvard business school. He never displayed his diplomas anywhere, as he felt it would be kind of snobby. A few years back, after he had semi-retired / consulted from home, I was over at the house and noticed a box of his old stuff from the attic. Both diplomas were water damaged and ratty from being in $2 frames. I asked my mom WTF?! and she explained the snobby thing.
So I took them to a nice frame shop in town, along with his Harvard ashtray, and told the guy I wanted nice frames, and to incorporate the maroon color from the ashtray in some way. We picked out a good color wood for the frame, and used a nice gray border with a thin strip of the maroon. They looked phenomenal. 175 bucks later, I had one of my proudest moments as a gift giver. He still has them hanging in his home office.
Second Best:
Not Christmas, but I bought both my parents a weekend at Mohonk House in New Paaltz, NY. Cost about a grand. They got to brag about their son all weekend. How cool is that? (I think it was Mother’s Day, or Mom’s birthday.) If you’re well off, live in Northeastern US, and want to rock somebody’s world, bring them/send them to Mohonk House.
Good Idea:
Here’s a good gift tip for any dog owner in the suburbs. At brookstore or sharper image or wherever, they have those retractable dog leashes with a built-in flashlight. It is unbelievably useful, and costs like 20 bucks.
I bought my brother tickets to his favorite band one year. I didn’t realize that they had sold out in a matter of days, and I was worried he would also buy tickets, so I told all of his friends what I had gotten him, so they could make sure he wouldn’t buy them himself.
This resulted in all of his friends telling him I was the coolest sibling ever, and to “think of them” on christmas morning. This went on for a month. When he opened them on christmas morning, he was so excited he was shaking. It was great.
My parents had been planning for years to hike the Adirondack Trail once they retired, and they read everything they could find on it. There was one 2-vol set of books on the Trail that was referenced in everything, considered the definitive work on the subject, but long out of print. Since I always have trouble finding something nice for Mom and Dad, I phoned a book broker when I heard about this; after a couple of months, the broker managed to turn up a set of the books in good condition. Just in time for Christmas!
Watching Daddy’s eyes mist up when he opened the first volume was a simply wonderful moment.
A couple of years ago, I got my grandmother’s entire collection of old photos (80 years worth) and transferred them into a really nice, acid-free photo album. I labeled as many as I could (underneath the photos) using the info she’d written on the back of them and divided them up into sections/years of her life.
I’d used my sister as my accomplice to get the photos from her–my sister pretended to be doing a college project on our family history and had to “borrow” the photos.
She was absolutely delighted and completely surprised.
Shhhhh, it’s a secret.
(giving Mr. Beckwall some DiSaronno and signing it Love always, Kyan ).
Last year I gave my sister a t-shirt quilt made with all the t-shirts my mom had saved from her childhood. It was my first quilting attempt, and it turned out ok, despite some sewing flaws. My SO took an extra T-shirt which had a picture of our first dog, as a puppy, on it, and made a pillowcase for a couch pillow to go in her room. That dog meant the world to my sister, and while she was already crying when she saw the quilt, the pillow REALLY got to her!
My sister and I don’t really get along very well, but I still care about her and I know that quilt made her so happy!
My dad was decorated for valor during the Korean War - bronze star, etc. But he was young (19 years old) and stupid and threw away all his ribbons - and he always mentioned how he wished he’d never done that. The only thing he kept was his 1st Cavalry insignia patch.
So a few years ago, Hubby researched Dad’s records and bought each medal and ribbon. We had them mounted in a shadow box around the insignia patch, and gave it to Dad for Christmas from his kids. (All the kids chipped in - it was quite expensive.) I’d never seen him get misty over a present before. 
That is very, very cool.
My boyfriend is a huge Patriots fan and being from Texas, he had never gone to a game. So, when they tore down Foxboro Stadium and built Gillette Stadium, they started selling off pieces of stadium memorabilia. I bought him a bleacher seat. It came complete with old gum amd everything. He thought it was the coolest thing ever.
That year was also when the Pats won the Superbowl so he didn’t get the seat until March because they were still using the seats around Christmas!
A long time ago, my whole perspective on Christmas gift-giving changed. I realized that the gift isn’t nearly as important as the experience of receiving it; that an indelible memory of getting something delightful on Christmas is worth much more than anything you might be able to give.
I found this out because of a gift I gave my sister. It was the late eighties, and my sister was pseudo-punk: spiked hair, spiked bracelets, bandanas everywhere. So I spent a couple of months before Christmas buying all the bandanas I could find, of every different pattern and color they made them in. By Christmas I had dozens.
Which left me wondering how I’d wrap them. I spent an evening tying all the corners together so that the bandanas were in a chain, and then stuffed them all into a coffee can. It took a lot of stuffing, and then it took duct tape to keep the lid on. I left a tiny corner of the last bandana hanging out. Then I wrapped the whole thing nicely, and attatched a bow to the tiny bandana corner.
When my sister went to unwrap it, I told her not to. “You have to pull on the bow.”
She looked at me dubiously. “It’s gonna blow up.”
I reassured her that it was not, in fact, explosive, and she pulled. The first bandana came out, and she started giggling. By the time she had yards and yards of bandanas in a pile on the floor, she was laughing and crying at the same time.
The only time I’ve ever topped this was last Christmas.
My mother has been using a saying since forever: “Sally goes shopping alone.” She says it whenever she has to do anything she’s afraid to do, as a sort of courage mantra. I found out that it came from a children’s book from her childhood.
She’d been talking for a long time about getting a concealed weapons permit, as well; she loves to go shooting.
So, I found a copy of the book at a rare book dealer’s online. Turns out it was from 1935, but I was able to get a nice copy. And I picked up a gift certificate from a gun range for the full concealed carry course.
Put the certificate inside the book, wrapped it up, and that Christmas, my Mom cried happily.
This Christmas… this one should be fun. I just finished wrapping this one gift. Took about three hours.
I’ve been wanting to steal my dad’s super 8 movies and get them put on DVDs. I just have to get the money first, but that should be soon. Maybe he’ll get a January or February surprise.
A close friend of mine is a HUGE fan of Kruder & Dorfmeister (got me hooked), and she’s also really into anything unusual or retro. So I tracked down a copy of the 12" vinyl release of Kruder & Dorfmeister’s K&D Sessions for her last year.
Ummmmmmm shouldn’t this go in IMHO???
Yeah, it should. Please read forum descriptions, folks.
A few Christmases ago, I got my dad something quite special. I searched around to find out what I could about his father, who came over from Czechoslovakia in the early 1920s. I found a copy of the ship’s passenger manifest, with his name and the address he was going to when he got to America, and a picture and information about the ship he came over on in 1921. I printed them out large-format and gave them to him (couldn’t afford to have them framed myself, I was a starving student at the time). They’re prominently displayed in his bedroom as we speak.
It was a off-handed sort of present to my husband, but wound up being an enduring present to myself:
I quit smoking in 1974.