What's on your Christmas list?

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Difficult to wrap though.

My 40th birthday was three weeks ago and the only thing I wanted was this necklace which is very pricey so I asked my parents to get it for my birthday and Christmas. (I've tried it on at jewellery parties 4 years in a row and had to be forced to give it back at the end of the night!¹) My mum says she'll pay for my Take That ticket for Christmas as well, which is lovely of her.

Other than that, the only thing I want is waterproof overshoes, and a proper icing set with a piping bag and a connector and loads of fancy nozzles. So I've told my friends about the icing set and I might mention Wiggle/EBC vouchers too.

¹ I wouldn't normally go to such a thing, but a friend of mine has a friend who does them so my friend hosts one once a year and we all go and get sloshed and try on all the jewellery and don't buy any of it.

[Torslanda]

I really need to change my glasses coz my eyez iz kernackerted!

For some reason this thread inspired me to go here and check out the coming spesh offers.

I read the 'From Thursday' header as 'Warm Kid's Testicles'.I think I need help.

Anyways, for Christmas, if you're listening Santa, I would like an Aisin Warner AW55-50SN transmission assembly for my pet Volvo. He is quite old now and having some difficulty in getting about.

Warming his oil is not helping much but if you could see your way clear I can promise that i have been a good boy this year and will continue to do my best for everyone.

[JJ]

Not my list, but senior daugher, Micro J, wrote her list the other day, and I took a peek.  It read like this:

Paper
Teeth

She is currently sporting a gap about 6 gnashers wide where her smile ought to be.

 

[Pancho]

Christmas?

Nothing.

[Oscar's dad]

Difficult to wrap though.

My 40th birthday was three weeks ago and the only thing I wanted was this necklace which is very pricey so I asked my parents to get it for my birthday and Christmas. (I've tried it on at jewellery parties 4 years in a row and had to be forced to give it back at the end of the night!¹) My mum says she'll pay for my Take That ticket for Christmas as well, which is lovely of her.

Other than that, the only thing I want is waterproof overshoes, and a proper icing set with a piping bag and a connector and loads of fancy nozzles. So I've told my friend about the icing set and I might mention Wiggle/EBC vouchers too.

¹ I wouldn't normally go to such a thing, but a friend of mine has a friend who does them so my friend hosts one once a year and we all go and get sloshed and try on all the jewellery and don't buy any of it.

Hey, you've given me an idea    Perhaps the next Essex Christmas Do could be a jewelry / Tupperware / Anne Summers party! 

[andygates]

I'll probably get a freezer full of meat again, as my mum appears to be locked in pattern now.

Be nice to score a handheld VHF.  Caek.  A strap-on NARWHAL horn for swimming...

[Mrs Pingu]

Caek.

We prolly won't get any caek. My mum made about 50gazillion tyes of caek a few years in a row, and when I said 'whoa! it's making me enormous' she seems to have (true to form) gone from the sublime to the ridiculous and now won't make anything at all.

[CrinklyLion]

I quite like getting people presents, and quite enjoy getting presents from people.  It helps if the presents show a small amount of understanding of what I like.  I don't see why we all have to go bonkers spending silly money on presents for that sake of presents just because of a date on a calendar.  I like what are termed in our household 'just because presents' best of all - the ones where you buy/make/acquire something and give it to somebody just because you think it would be appreciated by them.

Last year I just bought everyone (well, 4 people anyway) a bike.  I enjoyed that, and I think the recipients all did too 

My mum's quite well trained - it I say that there's nothing I really need or want she just says OK and doesn't get me anything then at some random point in the year when I'm chuntering on about possibly buying panniers or something an envelope with my 'christmas' present will appear to subsidise the purchase.  My mother-in-common-law really can't get her head round the not-being-bothered-about-presents thing at all and experience has shown be that saying 'nothing' will result in a cluster-bomb approach as she tries to work out what I want, so I tend to try to find something to ask her for.  I might ask for a buff this year.

[gordon taylor]

We're doing family secret santa for the third year. There are nine of us and we all just buy one present - plus another for a partner, natch.

£10 limit, and nothing with a plug or batteries is allowed.

It's great.

[Andrij]

A strap-on NARWHAL horn for swimming...

New keyboard, please!
 

[Pancho]

A strap-on NARWHAL horn for swimming...

I just swim on my back.

[Butterfly]

If you stop buying tat lovely gifts for everyone else, you can buy what you actually want for yourself Win win.

[nutkin]

I think the whole Oxfam goat thing is a swizz. If people buy me a goat, then said goat ought to be delivered to me, not some family in Kenya or wherever!

I'd like a pet goat.

I once lived somewhere with a goat.

It headbutted me over the wheelbarrow.

Goats are to be regarded with the utmost respect...

[Pancho]

I used to have goats. My very first experience of entrepreneurialism; fattening up kids and selling them to the Muslims in our local town who would  slaughter them in my mother's garage.

[rogerzilla]

http://www.play.com/Clothing/T-Shirts/4-/15364161/Star-Wars-Men-Haynes-Manual-AT-AT/Product.html

[andrewc]

I used to have goats. My very first experience of entrepreneurialism; fattening up kids and selling them to the Muslims in our local town who would  slaughter them in my mother's garage.

_Daily Express_ Evul Mooslums eat our children _Daily Express_

[CrinklyLion]

 One of the more esoteric volunteering jobs I've done in the past was shepherdess/general farm labourer/childminder/chief cook and bottle washer on a rare breeds organic-ish farm in the south-ish of France.  One year they had a goat that wasn't kept with the herd because of being just a bit too related, but that they were keeping because there weren't very many at all of that breed around so they needed to keep him around in case they found another herd for him to go and live with or got any new, unrelated, lady friends for him.  So he was on his own in a field near the farmhouse.  I used to collect acorns in the wood for him (whilst I was taking the sheep out for a wander - what a pastoral idyll) and visit him for a natter most days.  A most elegant chap, he was.  Hurt like billy-ho if he shook his head whilst eating acorns out of your hand and accidentally caught you with his headgear mind.

[teethgrinder]

My Christmas list?
If I get the week off before Christmas so that I use up my holiday from work. Then some mountain biking, probably in Snowdonia or the Brecon Beacons. Then visit mum for Christmas Day and the next two days. Then mountain biking in the North York Moors.
 

On the present front, the usual farcical exchange of cash (actually, I might buy my mum something this year). I think it's daft, but it keeps everyone happy. I don't mind giving it to my young nephews though. That's what Christmas is really for.

[barakta]

Yay a thread full of people who feel/think/do much like we do for Xmas etc.

Kim and I don't usually exchange presents, although she is better at buying me random stuff like titanium sporks than I am at buying stuff for her.  We usually agree on anything we want for ourselves/house/other etc as all money is joint anyway and means I don't buy the wrong thingTM.

I am bad at, and REALLY hate buying presents for anyone cos I'm not good at it. I only buy presents for my parents and sometimes younger sibling to "play the game".  Mum is happy for her present whenever - so I can usually find something or buy something she asks for.  Dad just gets nasty pickle things cos anything else would be £too-expensive or something he bought himself already and he's always up for FOODTM.  Younger sister often gets nothing cos I'm trying to train her out of pointless spending for pointless sake, esp at Xmas when she's got $obligations and squeals about skintitude so much.  Also she's an obnoxious family-values-Tory who cries hard up on a DINK household income nearly 3 times what we have who can waste her own money on crap.

I'm funny about receiving presents for many of the reasons cited elsethread - people have spectacular ability to totally misread me and get me something completely useless or just icky.  Family are mostly well trained to give me money if they must, and mum knows a few things which are usually appreciated.  Stepmum usually makes dad give me something overpriced and pointless but is once a year thing we can ignore otherwise. Friends don't usually buy me gifts and vice a versa.

Thankfully people at work don't do presents - we share food instead which is winsome.  Although last week the other team's senior manager bought me a scary plant (arrangement?) for helping with what for me was a tiny tech thing for her disabled mum which was officially the least appropriate gift ever (all my own colleagues sat there saying 'but you HATE plants') which mad eme feel all icky cos what I did was tiny and not worthy of a gift at all - the card would have been ok and not-squickyfeeling but gift was clearly expensive AND horrible AND is dying already ;(  

[teethgrinder]

Thankfully people at work don't do presents - we share food instead which is winsome.  

Food sharing at work. Now there's a good idea.

Although last week the other team's senior manager bought me a scary plant (arrangement?) for helping with what for me was a tiny tech thing for her disabled mum which was officially the least appropriate gift ever (all my own colleagues sat there saying 'but you HATE plants') which mad eme feel all icky cos what I did was tiny and not worthy of a gift at all - the card would have been ok and not-squickyfeeling but gift was clearly 

Sometimes, those little things you do for others, that seem very easy or insignificant, can mean an awful lot to someone and make all the difference.
That's much better than spending a shed load of money you don't have on something that someone doesn't really want. But that is what people seem to think is the best way of showing appreciation or affection.

[longers]

Mum always wants to know early what I'd like and this year I plucked the idea of an electric blanket out of thin air*.

So she wrapped it up and gave me it three weeks ago, just in case. I'll not be unwrapping it until the proper time.

I do like buying for other folk, nothing extravagant but it's nice buying things with a little thought behind them.
It was even better when I was able to make presents for people, don't have the capability now though.

*I'm normally happy with a hot water bottle but I got the idea from a friend for helping with the aches and pains of recovering from interfacing with tarmac, he said found it very good for easing the creaks and groans.

[LindaG]

It is fun buying stuff, and anticipating the pleasure of people receiving.

I have bought this for my brother, the one who Works In Space Building Satellites  

I can't wait till he opens it.

Many thanks to Mr Gates of this parish for sourcing these originally.

[Torslanda]

Anyways, for Christmas, if you're listening Santa, I would like an Aisin Warner AW55-50SN transmission assembly for my pet Volvo. He is quite old now and having some difficulty in getting about.

Warming his oil is not helping much but if you could see your way clear I can promise that i have been a good boy this year and will continue to do my best for everyone.

Actually what I really want is my Dad to not have cancer any more and my Mum to stop coughing like she's got it as well . . . 

But life's not like that, sadly. 

[CAMRAMan]

I think the whole Oxfam goat thing is a swizz. If people buy me a goat, then said goat ought to be delivered to me, not some family in Kenya or wherever!

I'd like a pet goat.

I once lived somewhere with a goat.

It headbutted me over the wheelbarrow.

Goats are to be regarded with the utmost respect...

I am more than happy for my goat experience to be vicarious. Cue the Oxfam pressie request...

[Mrs Pingu]

I really don't mind buying something I know someone really wants, and I don't generally have a problem buying stuff for Pingu cos I've usually got a fair idea what he needs to wants (I think!), but I really do find it pointless people having to rack their brains to think of something for me to buy them.