I gave my son, who is planning on going into engineering, his grandfather’s Carnegie Steel Corporation Pocket Companion, a pocket reference widely used by engineering students in the 40s. It has only sentimental value today, as all the math tables are superseded by the lowest-end scientific calculator, but it has his grandfather’s name written on the flyleaf (he also has his grandfather’s slide rule, and can do basic computations on it).
His grandfather has Alzheimers’ and is not too with it anymore, but when I told him about his grandson going into the same field he did, he seemed to appreciate it.
I gave my husband a Toshiba laptop that I’m starting to think he loves more than me. We aren’t high tech people, (we still don’t have an HDTV), and don’t usually buy new things until the old ones die. When we were setting it up, it was like “Ma & Pa Kettle Get a New Laptop.”
I’m a Chem E, not a Mech or Civil or Architect, but historical engineering stuff is awesome. It’s so neat to see what guided engineers back in the day.
…and I’ve found that old engineering texts hold up better than old science texts. After all, the practical guides tend not become obsolete nearly as fast as science does.
I got Mr. Horseshoe a new CD player to replace the one he’s had for 6 or 7 years and is starting to completely crap out. He’s been getting really frustrated when he tried to use the old one, so my gift to him was basically a little touch of mental health.
It’s not a present in the sense of “something you buy/make for someone else”, but Littlebro recently mentioned that he couldn’t find the copies of the pictures we took in NYC when he and Mom came to visit.
I found mine and he answered my SMS of “found NY” with “:):):)” Since one of the things he’s asked for is an external HDD to store pictures and movies in and I’m the person in charge of buying it (we give the gifts on January 6th), he’ll get it pre-loaded with my copies of every trip we’ve both been in.
I gave a new computer system to Mom, including a wireless hub and a Roku. She is always complaining there is nothing on TV, so now she can stream old TV shows and movies to her TV. I also gave her a netflix subscription.
After hearing my boyfriend complain a couple months ago about how he wishes we could have steak dinners at home instead of going out, I bought him a grill! We live in an apartment, so it had to be one of those small round ones, but he went nuts for it! He kept switching back and forth in saying “Awwwesome!!!” and “You’re the best!!” and read every detail in the booklet about how to assemble it, clean it, and the recipes it came with. Totally worth it
The kids have gotten several items of winter clothes in the last few weeks because we’re going to take them skiing in a couple of weeks. I guess it’s all part of Christmas…
The girl also got contact lenses, boots, and some memory for her laptop.
The boy got a skateboard rail, skate shoes, skate shorts…that’s all he wants!
We gave Grandma some romance novels, and my mom got an audio book and a certificate for a massage.
My brother got a jacket and some cash, and all my husband’s kids got cash. The one that lives with us got socks and undies too.
I gave my husband a cashmere sweater, plus several others that were on sale, and we shopped together for a knife and ski goggles.
I pulled my gf’s dad in our family gift drawing. He wanted to be able to play his iPod in his car, but hadn’t been able to figure out how. His car is fairly new, and I figured he just needed a cable to plug into the “auxiliary in” hole. No such luck, his car radio/cd player had no such input.
So…I snuck his car radio out and replaced it with a model that had an aux in (with my gf’s mom’s help). Then on xmas I gave him a cable, wrapped up. His face kind of fell, since he knew this wouldn’t work, but he grinned and thanked me.
Then I took him out to his garage and showed him where to plug it in. It took him a while to realize I had swapped out radios.
I gave my niece a nintendo DS, a Dora the explorer game(that asks her to talk into the microphone), and Super Mario Kart. My brother is less than pleased with the Dora game
Best gift I gave… Well, it was the day after. I went into town for some tobacco and to pick up a new idler pulley for my brothers truck, and a dude was there at the gas station, and asked if I was heading towards some town. He had missed his bus, and ofc these small iowa towns have irregular bus service at best, and he’s supposed to go there to pick up a crane to transport it elsewhere. Its a cold, windy iowa day, its the day after christmas, so I said sure, hop in, and drove him 40 minutes to the factory. He was a hell of a nice guy, and a former pilot, so we talked airplanes all the way down. He tried to give me money, and I tried telling him it wasn’t necessary, so we compromised on a tenspot for the gas.
I guess I can’t really call it a gift… I would have done it regardless of the time of year, as payback for the times I’ve been stuck and others have helped me out.
We spent a weekend in September with my sister, Lisa, and her family in their new vacation home. Their beloved 13-year-old black lab came along as well.
I do some photography, so I spent some time photographing Buster out near the woods. One photo in particular came out very nice - he was standing tall, posing, in the sunlight with the trees in the background. The light from the sun was beautiful in the way it struck his black coat. I had never shown any of these photos to my sister.
Buster died in November. I gave Lisa a framed enlargement of that print.
So many awesome (expensive, sentimental, thoughtful, and just plain neat) gifts have been mentioned so far!
I did incredibly well this year. I’m not sure I can pick the best.
I think the best received joke gift was the 2-wheeled pizza slicer we gave my boyfriend’s mom. I expected her to appreciate it but not as much as she did.
My boyfriend was very happy with his gifts. He goes to bed before me and the sheets are so cold you can practically make ice on them. I got a heated mattress pad. I had to give it to him early because he was suffering (I didn’t suffer as much because he’d warm them up before I got there). He has been very happy with the warm sheets. I also got him a Logitech Harmony One universal remote. He calls it the Cadillac of remotes (Caddy for short).
My best present? I’m still working on it, believe it or not. But it’s not my fault! I promised a friend that I would make a photo book of her artwork, from pictures that she’s taken over the years. I’m still waiting for her to send me the images. Oh well.
