Today’s post comes from Crystalbay.
I always look for inexpensive gifts for all my grand kids, then buy 12 of them. Last year, I found little attachments for iPhones to enhance the quality of pix. Only $10 each. This year, I found something called, “Flashing Disco Ball”. This amazed me on video tape. It’s a golf ball sized ball with LED lights inside it and has two sets of helicopter-like rotor blades. It senses any object within six inches, so just putting your hand or your foot within this distance, the ball rises over and over and over.
I thought I’d try using it to make sure that it even worked as advertised, then turned it on. Boy, did it ever work. The damn thing flew all over the room every time my palm approached it!! YEAH!! A great gift!! Then, things turned ugly as I decided to bring it in for a landing. I moved all over the room trying to retrieve it but each effort just sent it off in a different direction. It’d gone up and wouldn’t come down. I tried sneaking up on it with the intention of grabbing it. I did this with reservations, thinking either I’d break the rotors, or the rotors would slice my fingers. Again, it darted away.
By this time, I was desperate to bring it home, so I grabbed a broom to just whack it. It sensed the broom and made a beeline to the other corner of the room. Eventually, it just disappeared on the floor. I’ve yet to find it. It later occurred to me that if I’d just refrained from trying to catch it and it had no more resistance to something 6″ away from it, it would’ve come down on its own!
Now then, I plan to charge up all 12 (minus the one I can’t find) so that all of them can fill Steve’s living room at one time. Just try to imagine that!
What are some of your more memorable holiday gifts?
Trail Baboon 
Just read this right after hearing “The Santaland Diaries”, so I’m good to go on the daily laugh.
Pretty sure my kitties would find that flying ball to be a personal challenge.
I often say I was born into strangers, and gifting is a prime illustration of this. My greatest giving success was a blue hydrangea to my mother. She has lived and faithfully tended two of them (had to get a second one for her when they moved), but those weren’t winter gifts.
We’ve mostly foregone gifts, and I am relieved.
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That is hilarious, CB! I may have to see if I can score one of those…
I remember getting ice skates, probably several times. I remember a Dale Evans watch when I was about 7, and a really cool cream colored sweater when I was in high school.
I thought I would remember more things that I gave to people, but except for some felt Care Bears that I made for Joel when he was 3, I’ve got nothing.
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Ah, nowI remember the first Christmas after college, out on my own in San Francisco. I was flying home and determined to bring cool gifts for my family (on a pauper’s salary in a parochial school). Found a cardigan sweater for my dad, a gorgeous wool skirt (half price) on Union Street for Mom, and a leather purse for Sis (at a shop in Ghiradelli Square, no less).
I do remember getting Judy Collins’ Wildflowers album one Christmas in college.
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A memorable gift from my best friend to Darling Daughter: a Groovy Girl doll (this one – they still make ‘em: https://www.manhattantoy.com/collections/groovy-girls/products/groovy-girls-princess-seraphina)
She was about 3 or 4 and ahe luuuurrrrrved that doll. Got a dress to match. And about 30 more Groovy Girls (some purchased, some passed down from friends’ kids). Also a horse, a doll house, furniture…yeah. That doll was a bullseye. Added bonus: Daughter was so besotted with Groovy Girls, she had no interest in Barbies.
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Of course, I immediately had to google “Flashing Disco Ball”.
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/disco-ball.html
It is so cheap, I never would have expected it to work as well as you describe, CB. It occurs to me, though, that the manufacturers missed a sure bet when they didn’t make the ball gold and market it to the Harry Potter crowd. I suppose you could buy one and spray paint it gold.
I don’t remember specifically any notable gifts we’ve given but I do have clear memories of driving around near midnight on Christmas Eve looking desparately for a store where I could buy batteries for a toy that would be a cold, dead thing on Christmas morning without them.
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Another good thing about this novelty gift is that it doesn’t need batteries – you just plug it into a computer port. The foot-long cable comes with!
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What would happen if you tried to spray paint it gold? Would you chase it around the room with the spray paint and end up decorating your walls and furniture?
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In the sit-com version of my life, yes.
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We opened gifts last night with the Yule Log burning in the background. I got from a set of DVDs – The Avengers with Emma Peel. I think it was Steve that I have to thank for realizing these were out there and affordable for my daughter to get me.
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I’m happy to take credit for that, vs. Maybe that balances out the book you hated after I recommended it? 🙂
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Well, since I don’t even remember what book you recommended that I didn’t like (I’m pretty sure I didn’t say “hate”), I guess we’re more than even now!
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Funny. When I read the question about “memorable holiday gifts” I thought of gifts I’d given, not those I got. In either case, I remember many both categories.
A funny one was the wood toilet seat I refinished for my erstwife. You might assume this was a gag gift. Actually, it was something she badly wanted. We discarded our old wood seat when it began flaking paint, making it unpleasant to use. I removed all the paint, sanded the seat, stained and sealed it.
Coincidentally, just before Christmas my erstwife mentioned how she would like this done. I said I could get to the task after the holidays. She replied that we could get a professional to do it. I said again I could do something like that. Showing no faith in my skills with wood, she repeated that we could get the job done professionally.
I struggled to keep from laughing. The job she project she clearly thought was beyond my skill set was in the basement, wrapped with a bow on it!
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What a cool idea for a gift CB! If our family Christmas wasn’t tomorrow I’d order a dozen of them.
As it is, they’re all getting flashlights from me.
One year I gave crayons and coloring books based on an idea from tim.
We don’t do gifts for everyone as there’s just too many nieces and nephews and spouses and kids these days.
This is the event where I hide candy in everyones pockets. But the event tomorrow is at place where it’s just one big room and getting into the coats slung over chairs will be a challenge. We’ll see.
Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, gifts.
Sometimes my siblings make stuff that’s really just hokey. “It’s the thought that counts”, yes, Thank you, and right into the trash. I’ve gotten broken things and we don’t even comment because it’s nothing we’re saving. And that sounds really harsh and I don’t mean it to sound quite that bad… it probably is, but I don’t mean it that way.
Sometimes it’s a cute crafty thing that’s actually useful. Sometimes.
And I’m including myself in this. I’m not crafty. One year I gave everyone ‘Lemon Zesters’ from IKEA. And I don’t care if they saved it or not, I thought it was kinda funny.
Last year I went through the show and just found bits of junk. Labeled it “Vintage” and gave them. one sister got Vintage Piston rings! One got Vintage doorknobs. And see, that sister actually makes really neat crafty things.
So this year they get flashlights. From Fleet Farm. Because that’s where I was.
Memorable? eh. not so much.
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typo. Went through the “shop” and found bits of junk…
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I don’t know how old your grand kids are, but if they’re over 10 most already have a cell phone. Those $10 cell picture enhancers were a hit – and I guess they work. Amazon, of course!
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Do any of you remember those grade school ventures into ceramics where we all made ashtrays for our dads? Also, I remember as a youngster with little cash buying my mother a giant bottle of bubble bath or bath salts for Christmas.
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I have an urgent request from any/all of you. Every Xmas, my daughter orchestrates this game where we each buy one gift under $40 for another adult. It has to be androgynes because we draw numbers, then horse trade with each other to grab the gift we most want. This stretches my imagination about as far as it can go.
This year, she’s decided to impose a theme on our little game: both the gift and something to cook for dinner must be from an island. Any island. She tells me this three days before Xmas. I can’t even think of an island other than Hawaii, much less an androgynes gift and a food dish relating to it. Some people are creative and possess great imaginations. Some people are decent cooks. Some people love geography. Some people have traveled to islands. I miss on all four counts.
We did the same game last year, only we had to choose a country. I, lacking any imagination, chose China because everything is Made in China. Easy peasy.
What should be looking forward to this holiday suddenly becomes a dreaded burden with the theme she picked! One year, she chose “polka dots”. That’s before she thought it’d be a great idea to coordinate a related food dish.
I’m begging for anyone to supply me with ideas. My Xmas depends on it!!!
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I need clarification on this. Are you also supposed to cook the dish you name, or is it sufficient to simply name it?
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Since my son built a dream home with a 20′ long cook island, the whole family prepares meals together after we get there. It’s supposed to be homemade
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So you could have just gone with Cooking Island. Anything,you prepared would be from there.
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That’s easy! Christmas Island. I’d say your choices are wide open.
If, since Christmas Island is a real place and if there are sticklers in your crowd, go for Fantasy Island.
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There’s also this:
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There’s also Gilligan’s Island…
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Well, what about Coney Island? You could give a package of kosher hot dogs!
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I would look at a liquor store for a bottle of rum made in Puerto Rico. I have a recipe for rum balls similar to this one:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/17238/cocoa-rum-balls/
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I like that!
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Or Jamaica, should the Lusrto Rican rum be in short supply this year.
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Ach Puerto Rican.
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…or a $40 gift card to Nicollet Island Inn. The dish you make could be almost anything.
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… take any favorite dish and add pineapple.
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Several sizable islands produce things. Examples include Cuba, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Ireland and England. A Cuban cigar would be easy to wrap, but not perhaps to everyone’s taste. In better taste, consider an Irish St. Bridget’s cross. But be careful. When a friend gave one to my erstwife, she got pregnant. It’s a long story.
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Just a test of my new tablet.
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Thank you all for your great (and amusing) suggestions! While eagerly awaiting your ideas, I went ahead and googled islands, then island recipes, then island gift ideas for, of all places (because it had the easiest recipes), Sicily, Italy. I came up with a relatively easy dish: Italian Fresh Tuna Meatballs. I then called the local liquor store and was told that they have Italian liquors for about $30. The final touch is what looks like an Italian island jigsaw puzzle that was in a bag of small Xmas gifts from the Meal on Wheels deliverer two days ago (I get two a week and get 4 meals out of them so I can stop my weight loss).
Christmas Island would’ve been PERFECT – just like last year’s Made in China. Thank you all so much!!!!
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Sounds fun, CB.
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Last year, Steve chose some country which is known for snakes. He constructed a snake, complete with eyes and a tongue out of five dollar bills. All the teenagers went crazy over this and battled with each other to end up with it. His creativity blows me away!
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I am wearing a gift from a past Christmas today – a long-sleeved T-shirt that features an image of a cat wearing a Santa hat and a rhinestone necklace,
Many of the Christmas ornaments I’ve collected over the years have been gifts, and remind me of the giver. An ice cream cone, a Kokopelli, a poodle head, a blown glass swan, a rendering of the Duluth lift bridge on a glass ball, cats of all colors and sizes.
I’m sentimental about gifts, and they please me on a daily basis, especially this time of year.
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