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It's a good time to discuss this, just in case you haven't yet found something for that relative you hate but are obliged to give something because your other half demands it. It might even add to the excitement of Xmas day itself ...
One rule, everything listed must be genuine.
My family's half Norwegian, and every year I got a pair of woollen mittens, usually with reindeer knitted into the pattern. If it wasn't gloves, it was a woolly hat. I had to write thank-you letters, saying how much I enjoyed the mittens (my first venture into writing fiction), which merely encouraged distant relatives to send more mittens and hats the following year. One Norwegian aunt had a far better idea: every Christmas she sent me (and only me) a marzipan pig; I enjoyed eating it all myself and sharing precisely none of it with my siblings. Ah, memories...
When I was in New York, I went round looking for nice presents for my older sister's kids.
I got her daughter a remote controlled girl on a skateboard. And her son a model plane that flies.
In turn, she got my daughter a second hand, palm sized teddy bear from a charity shop which, I kid you not, had one arm missing.
My dad is useless at buying presents (a quality that, sadly, has passed genetically down to me) - he was always expecting subtle hints from my mum about what she wanted for Christmas.
So when he overheard her saying one early December morning "Oh, I could really do with a new dustpan and brush"...
Well, it was an INTERESTING christmas that year...
Back in the mid-7Os when I was about 12, I waded through various parcels under the Christmas tree and left the three biggest for last on the basis they must be best. They turned out to be a) a shirt, b) a jumper and c) a pair of trousers.
I was a FECKIN' BOY. FFS. It's GIRLS and gays (and I hadn't really heard of such things back in Teddington in those days) who give a monkey's toss about FECKIN' CLOTHES. NOT BOYS. If I'd ever EVER asked for a specific kind of clothes, that would have been one thing but I didn't. It was their legal responsibility to clothe me and they passed it off as a CHRISTMAS PRESENT. I was GUTTED.
Of course I'm over it now...
OUr Granny Kit always gave my sister a girly handbag, even when she was quite small and not at all smart. As a consolation, there was always a £10 note on the inside pocket, until...having reached 14, an age where she would know exactly how to spend it, and had been trained to expect it: no more handbags or £10 quid notes.
Subsequent Xmasses were spent furtively (forlornly) riffling discretely through the silk-paper stuffing and any pockets the object might conceal. She still does it, when gifted with a handbag. Since then the only cash she's discovered, impromptu, was £5 in the middle of the motorway in 2010.
Oxbridge, Did you know Two Ton Ted from Teddington?
I thought he was a fictional character, until I saw a blue plaque (is that the right spelling?) on the wall at Teddington Station.
Here, I found it on Flickr
Two gifts to add to the list of shame, both from my older cousins.
(Quick back story - two older male cousins, 4 and 5 yrs older, who are brothers. Me, only child, and girl. Ergo, cousins decided that it was their role in life to torture me in a brotherly fashion, just so I wouldn't miss out on that vital part of childhood)
One year, they gave me a Dundee United scarf, signed by the team. I support Dundee FC.
Next year, they give me Duran Duran's 'Rio' album. About 18 months after I'd moved on to
U2 and Simple Minds.
They have also given me a variety of cruelly humorous birthday gifts. But my Therapist says I should move on and try to avoid talking about it again.
Bro-in law last Xmas, knowing I'm a Wires fan and love my rugby bought me a book, by feckin lawrence dallaglio.
For the 5th yr on the bounce, I have discovered my dad has sent my present to a house I don't live in.
He's not even consistent with where he sends the stuff, it's always a different wrong house.
My parents are both gone. My Dad was consistently generous in the jewelry department with my Mom. She would always be so effusive and thankful when unwrapping his Christmas present. But, the bauble of the moment was inevitably sent back to the store. After 50 years, he could never quite get her taste right. She would trade it in for something bigger and more to her liking in the New Year. Everyone was happy.
I remember one Christamas when my Dad ventured into the minefield that is buying clothes for a woman. He bought my Mom a winter coat. She looked at it disgustedly for two seconds and said to him "What? Am I a dyke or something?" Mistake never repeated.
Someone once bought me different coloured laces over 25 years ago. There was blue, yellow and red in it. Unless you're Elvis or Dorothy then there's no use for them. I still have them unopened in the packet. There's some things that you just can't throw away. I have to get them out every so often and wonder why they hated me that much? Jealousy, I suspect.
My beloved grandmother retains the title as cackest present provider every year without fail. But she has never quite managed to surpass the year that my mother was gifted a large parcel that apparently contained a huge jigsaw within. Mum feigned the appropriate thanks, but my grandma insisted she opened the box. She duly obliged - and discovered a wig inside. My grandmother's charming explanation? "Well your hair is always such a mess..."
In the early nineties, my Daughter was a really obnoxious teenager. She had lost her school scarf & demanded (abusively) that I buy her a new one!.
I refused, out of principle, because of the torrent of verbal abuse, but rather than make her suffer the cold, I compromised.
I cut my scarf in half & gave half to her for Xmas.
We both laugh about it now. She still treasures her half scarf & I have mine.
In fact I am wearing it today. She will of course inherit my half eventually.
It's always the thought that counts!
Worst ever birthday present: a few days after I was 7, my father took me to my first football game, Chelsea v Tottenham. He asked me who I would support. Being contrary, as Chelsea were the West London glamour team of the day (Peter Osgood, blah blah blah, King's Road, fashion, blah blah) and all the boys supported them, I went the other way. Tottenham lost 1-0 but I've been stuck with them ever since. My father, weirder still, was an armchair Arsenal supporter. I've often wondered what he was thinking of. We were never close...
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