Take the aging hippie with you. Go pick out a homeless person, ask them to wait wherever they are for an hour. Run out with the hippie and buy needed stuff for the homeless person and go back and give it to them.

I later found out that my mom hated Carly Simon, pitched the records and I think the CD is probably still in it’s cellophane wrapper now, years later.

Oops.

Worst Gift Story:

One year, my grandmother gave me this horrible red sweater. It was easily two sizes too big and it looked like I was wearing a giant red sack, plus I was in the middle of the adolescent awkward stage so the red in the sweater brought out the red in my face if you catch my meaning… Luckily it had tags from Macy’s, so I returned the sweater, and purchased a blue one that was flattering for about $10 less than the original sweater.

However, I loved my grandmother and, like the responsible young adolescent I was, sent her an eloquent thank-you card, thanking her for thinking of me and purchasing the sweater.

Fast forward to two weeks later, and I’m sitting on my Grandmother’s couch, wearing the sweater that I swapped hers for when my mother opens her big, fat mouth. “Doesn’t that sweater look nice on Ashley? The one that you bought didn’t fit, so we took it back and she bought that sweater and got ten back as well!”

I felt about three feet tall. the next year I got a basket of candy from my Grandma — Maybe she was trying to belatedly make the sweater fit…

I find that as I get older I become increasingly disinterested in all the commercialism surrounding Christmas. I enjoy the holiday with all the family get togethers and the celebration of Christ’s birth, but the gift giving is tiresome. It seems that as time goes on buying a gift that will be appreciated is becoming more and more difficult. My family asks me what I want, and all I can think of is a week off.

This year we got a copy of the World Vision Gift Catalog in the mail, and it has gifts much like what Amy described above; you buy something for someone who can really use it, and the gift is given in your giftee’s name. Everything from live poultry to cows to fishing gear to a school building. Pricing is listed for the whole gift/project or a more affordable share in it. I think something from that catalog is going to be on my wish list this year. I wrote about it in my blog a little bit ago; click my name to go there.

You can buy an animal or share of an animal (1 share of pig = $20) in someone’s name that Heifer International will send to a needy family. Part of the fee goes to training the family how to properly take care of it and how to use all its resources (poop for fertilizer). Even better, the first born animal goes to another family.

Variable price, helps others, no cluttering someone’s house with useless junk.

Failing that, I would rather give (or get) a complete failure of a gift than a gift card. I hate gift cards. Get your nephew a Barbie with the gift receipt and let him exchange it for something he wants. At least he’s got something to open!

Then there’s the homemade gift. Super special, even if it’s cheap and quick. Even if it’s just a batch of my favourite cookies.

Traditionally, when a new rep enters training, they are given a welcome packet with things such as pens, highlighters, candy, squish balls, etc… Well, since they made these welcome packets up ahead of time, someone just shipped a bunch of them down to the new center. So what was one of the great gifts? Ice Scrapers. In El Paso. Where it has probably snowed (other than the mountain, doesn’t count) once in 20 years.

Wasn’t a horrible gift but it got a very big laugh.

Though when I buy for friends, we usually come right out and ask “What do you want for Christmas?” It’s straightforward, and if we can’t find anything, we go with the cleverly thought-out gag gift. Always fun!