Soooo... what'd ya get?

[MelBay]

What was YOUR favorite/best gift this year?

I have a couple categories:

1. DH got me a Kindle. Didn't know I wanted one, but I like the little sucker!
2. We gave DS#1 the $$$ to fly home from Maine, so that was his gift, but it was more a gift to us. I needed to have him here.
3. DS#1 graduated from college in May and has a good job. I was almost overcome with emotion watching everyone open their gifts from him. They were thoughtful and perfectly selected for each person. Nothing extravagant - just very appropriate. Didn't know he had it in him - I was so proud & impressed.
4. DH was undergoing chemo at this time last year and he's still here with me this year, so that's my best gift. :whoopie:

 

[Rose Pink]

I had all my children and my granddaughter together at Thanksgiving so that was my Christmas. With them scattered in different states it is difficult to get everyone together in one place at the same time. We told the kids that paying for them to get together was their Christmas present and they all agreed.

We had a quiet day with only one present to unwrap. DD had given us some chocolates.

I did put a note in DH's stocking informing him that the mortgage was paid. I paid it off before Thanksgiving but didn't tell him until today. Tuggers knew before he did!

This afternoon we went to my brother's home for dinner. He has several grown children and even more grandchildren. It was lovely chaos. I got to meet my newest grand niece. She is only 6 months old.

 

[AwayWeGo]

Oval Office Memento.

I got an outstanding presidential sculpture.

-- hotlinked --​

Just what I've always wanted.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[Passepartout]

We had a quiet Christmas at home- just the two of us. The PBS station played seasonal music without interruption all day. After opening our gifts to each other, we cooked. DW baked and decorated for Sunday's open house. #1 DS gave me a digital oven thermometer. I put it to good use on a smoked turkey breast for our holiday dinner. It was easily the best one I've smoked.

Warm wishes that all your holidays were as peaceful and fulfilling as ours.

Jim Ricks

 

[dixie]

Merry Christmas everyone! Well, this was our year for Thanksgiving day, so our crew comes tomorrow. Our gift to each other is our newly remodeled kitchen! Awesome!

We bought a new Wii game Super Mario Brothers and have played it a lot today! it is hard and I have laughed and screamed. I am hoarse and have sore Wii thumbs! Our Grandson will bring 2 more controls tomorrow so we can play a 4 some.
Food is cooked and presents are ready. Can't wait for everyone to get here!!!

 

[Egret1986]

Being released from the hospital on Christmas Eve to be home with my family.

An 8-day hospital stay and two unexpected surgeries this week. But I'm on the mend and was home with my two boys and husband (celebrating our 27th anniversary on Christmas Eve). My Mom, who has many health issues, was able to come to our home today for a small Christmas dinner.

I think most will agree that the best things in life are being with those we love and who love us.

My heart goes out to those who can't be with their loved ones.

Merry Christmas!

 

[RDB]

Egret, God bless you.

Caroll got me a 23" Acer monitor. (Hey, I can SEE what I'm reading now)!

Also the ET1831-03 emachine with 4GB memory and 750GB hard drive. So now I'll load up all the stuff I've kept on floppy disc and transfer all to the new pc.

 

[DaveNV]

I got us a 4-drive Network Attached Storage (NAS) file server and four 1 terabyte drives for our home network. After configuring it to RAID 5, we netted a whopping 2.68 terabytes of striped data storage. Spouse is a super-prolific amazing photographer, and we needed an easy-access location to get to things. As I type this, there are some 16,000 multi-megabyte images being transferred from just one external hard drive. There are several others yet to be copied. Can't wait to see this baby in action when everything is loaded up. (Yes, I'm a major gearhead geek at heart. )

Best gift I received was spending Christmas Eve with my only daughter, her husband, and their 21-month old daughter. She was a total delight to watch, as she discovered and laughed and talked her head off. I can still hear that infectious giggle and picture the wonderous expression when she watched herself on home videos we took, and I can see her intense concentration as she kept pointing her Tinkerbell magic wand at the TV set, thinking it was a remote control. But hands-down, the highlight was holding her in my lap as she called me "Bam-pah." Priceless.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Dave

 

[Glynda]

Christmas

Daughter, SIL and granddaughter agreed to have Christmas Eve dinner AND Christmas brunch with us after having previously said that they would only see us on Christmas day at SIL's parents' home for dinner. With no argument and no fuss, they cheerfully agreed to both invitations. And we did go to SIL's parents house for dinner.

I asked for, and received, a red Le Creuset 7 1/2 quart round dutch oven from hubby. I had three of my stepfather's old handpainted fishing lures custom framed in a shadow box for him.

 

[dioxide45]

We got plenty of restaurant gift cards for use on our next vacation

 

[suesam]

My teenage boys were delightful for an entire day!! I have high hopes for today as well but they are still in bed so it is hard to tell.
One son gave me a Mediterranean cook book and the other gave me a heart monitor for exercise. I was pleased they were both so thoughtful.
My dh and I give eachother vacations and just returned from London so we are still glowing from that.

It was a really great Christmas. I watched 3 movies from my couch. I NEVER do that. Today it is snowing pretty hard so it looks like we might be home watching movies for another day. That would be perfect.

Sue

 

[pittle]

Southwest Airlines Made Our Christmas Special

Like Rose Pink, we did Thanksgiving with our grown kids for Christmas. We have done that for 11 years now and we use our timeshares to provide a nice place for them to stay in some really great locations. Then Christmas is quiet at our house - just the 2 of us. We did go to our new neighbor’s home for dinner. That was such fun as they have 4 children under 5 years old who were so excited to show us their gifts.

The best thing that happened to us for Christmas this year was Southwest Airlines. Our grandson had flown from Kansas City to Phoenix on December 18th to spend the week before Christmas with us. He was to fly home on Christmas Eve. We got to the airport at 7 AM to check him in for his flight. The gal at the ticket counter was having such a time getting his boarding pass to print. Well, it turned out that since there was a Weather Advisory in Kansas City, unaccompanied minors could not fly there. (If the flight had to be diverted to another airport, there would be no one to take care of a 10 year old boy.) I asked if I could fly to KC and back to Phoenix that day – they checked and had 3 seats available. The supervisor was standing nearby and said that it sure would be expensive, but he would see what he could do. I called my son to let him know what was going on and in the meantime the supervisor gave the ticket agent authorization to sell us a ticket at the price it would have been a month ago. When I mentioned that my son flies SWA all the time and has Rapid Reward tickets that we would have asked to use had it not been Christmas Eve and a black-out date, they said that if he would give them his number, they would let me fly RT between Phoenix and Kansas City on Christmas Eve using a reward ticket! So, I flew to Kansas City, my son and daughter-in-law took us to lunch and then I flew back to Phoenix on the last flight out of KC before they closed the airport for the inclement weather! I was back in Phoenix at 7 PM. Needless to say, I was very impressed with SWA. They went out of their way to help a little boy get home for Christmas – they could have charged us $1000 for me to fly RT on Christmas Eve at the last minute. As my son says – Southwest Rocks!

 

[Icc5]

Our Christmas

Happy Holidays to everyone. We started our Christmas season a week ahead of time by closing on the house we had for sale for the past 9 months.
We had family over and my grandaughter (2 yrs old) got to enjoy opening the gifts. The gifts didn't matter to her the opening was what it was all about.
My own personal best gift was a Cuisant coffee maker from the kids. Now I can drink a strong brew of coffee at home.
Besides ours family get together here on Christmas Eve we then went to my brother's for Christmas Day. He had about 25 people there and everyone got along great. Great food, great people, Family, what more could I ask for?
Merry Christmas and Happy New Years,
Bart

 

[sun&fun]

Great food, great people, Family, what more could I ask for?

Bart said it all. Sounds like TuGgers know how to count blessings. Wishing all a peaceful and joyous New Year.

 

[happybaby]

Our dd's gave us a singing Christmas Card from the whole Kitten Kaboodle and it meows "we wish you a Merry Christmas" signed by all including the cats and dogs names.
I kept looking at that card and thinking as I was opening the next envelope which was a gift card "lettuce entertain you"! As I was opening it I screamed "We are going to Vegas"!!! There were 4 Vegas restaurants highlighted.

The meow made me think because we played Miss Kitty slot machine in Atlantic City and our local casino.

We also received a Visa gift card with our picture on it and a caption "off to see the wizard". We play Wiz of Oz machine also!

Couldnt figure out why dd needed a picture of us, not even prepared for picture takings. It's not a bad pic tho.

And some cash to spend when we get there.

All I have to do is figure out when to go , where to stay , etc , so I will be asking questions later

 

[DebBrown]

I had all my children and granddaughter with me and it was wonderful. My mother passed away 12/15 so it was our first Christmas without her. It was a bit different but everyone was glad to be together. We played games all day and really enjoyed each other. I feel very blessed.

Deb

 

[Patri]

My presents were thoughtful things to use or wear everyday, but the best gift was everyone home at once. One son on leave from Air Force, another had the 24th off from his job (but worked Christmas Day). Two in-laws fit us into their schedule from their own families. So all 10 of us were able to spend several hours eating and opening presents and totally enjoying each other's company. It was great.

 

[Carol C]

My husband got me a Christmas card!!! :whoopie:

 

[DeniseM]

All I have to do is figure out when to go , where to stay , etc , so I will be asking questions later

If you have anything to exchange in II, there are a TON of deposits available for the brand new Planet Hollywood Resort - looks fabulous! There are also a few Get-aways, and I bet there will be more as time goes by.

 

[DeniseM]

I got myself a Nook (from DH ) - Barnes and Nobles new ebook reader, but unfortunately it's backordered until Jan. 4th.

DH got me some cozy jeans, sweaters, boots, jammies, and slippers for our 5 day trip to Tahoe next week.

And the Grinch brought me the Flu! Today is day 6! :annoyed:

I didn't even get my baking done - Gingerbread cookies and Cobbler, that's it, and we had take n bake pizza for Christmas! Bummer!

But I am DETERMINED to be well enough to go to Tahoe on Tuesday!!!!!

 

[happybaby]

We belong to RCI and I have a week that will expire the end of Feb. I can get Summer Bay and Wyndham for the week in Feb that we are planning on going. Not sure if I want that. It's nice to stay in a casino and I'm not familiar with the Vegas area as far as walking late at night.

DD may go for a few days so maybe she can use it?? I have 5 free nights at Bally's. I may just book 2 extra nights there. Have to see what works best for us as far as pkg deals, air only, condo or comps.

Will post on other forum later as far as shows, trips, eats, etc

If you have anything to exchange in II, there are a TON of deposits available for the brand new Planet Hollywood Resort - looks fabulous! There are also a few Get-aways, and I bet there will be more as time goes by.

 

[easyrider]

HANGOVER !!!

 

[GadgetRick]

Got a new flash (Nikon SB-600) I have been wanting. Loving it.

 

[Janette]

I got a wii but we aren't home so it isn't hooked up yet. Our most appropriate gift was a sign for DH from DD "What happens in my garage stays in my garage." Hubby is sure that every thing he possesses can be used in the future, thus our garage is not the neatest place in the world(we can get the car in).

 

[Aussiedog]

Eric Clapton Tickets!!

Row 7 center section - DH rocks!!!

Ann