:lol::lol::lol::lol: Gosh DGRH…you must REALLY like their parents!!! :lol::lol::lol:
Well, I love my brother.
So, by the process of elimination…
[QUOTE=DressageGeek “Ribbon Ho”;2886566]
Well, I love my brother.
So, by the process of elimination…[/QUOTE]
Oh the joy that is a sister-in-law…
>>Anyway, the fun part of this gift is I regifted it as a joke to my SO’s cousin and then she regifted it to another relative and so far it has not returned, but it ended up causing howls of laughter across the nation!!<<
In the GAFCT family we call this an ‘oogie’. He who is last to possess the oogie each holiday season must store it for the year and see who they can unload it on the next year, which usually requires stealth, as most of us won’t open anything even vaguely shaped like one of the oogies currently in circulation.
These include:
-
A frozen square of shrink-wrapped bannanna bread from my grandparents’ assisted living facility with the word ‘MILK!’ scratched in ballpoint pen on the top (because, presumably, it’s not non-diary?). This was lovingly wrapped and given to me by my grammie probably five years ago, in a box that’d originally contained one of those butt-donut hernia cushions. When I opened it, she just stared at it, perplexed, and said, “Why would anyone give something like that as a present?” {I feel okay poking gentle fun, because she’s now medicated and much sharper, thankfully.} Said bannanna bread has lurked in freezers across the country in the years since.
-
A pair of Groucho glasses with male genitalia where the nose should be, given to my fairly staid grandfather by my (very not-staid) uncle, and bearing a yard-sale price tag.
-
A six-piece set of placemats made out of heinously scratchy acrylic yarn in this odd brown, pink and yellow color scheme straight out of the shag carpet era, courtesy of Mr. GAFCT’s side of the family.
We currently are oogie-less here at GAF, and are hoping to avoid becoming oogie custodians for the year. As an added degree of difficulty, a couple of family members on his side have… interesting taste. There have been a few unfortunate incidents where heinous gifts were assumed to be new oogies to put into circulation, but turned out to be real gifts. Oops!
To keep this HR, I’ve gotten the usual assortment of vinyl horse picture-bearing t-shirts and the like, but I think the oddest was the ‘Visual Horse’ I got from my father (you know, the clear plastic model you can assemble all the organs and such inside). Which was cool enough… except I was maybe nineteen or twenty at the time. I regifted it to one of the pony kids at the barn, who thought it was the coolest ever.
This year, Mr. GAFCT’s present request to his family (after one too many brass horse head bookends) was ‘donations to the Vogel fund’. Gotta love a guy who’s got his own horsey gift list.
Ok, I now have another thing I need to ban my friends from doing: shopping while on vacation. Now, I shop on vacation lots of times, but it’s for ME and is a remembrance of a trip I’ve taken. Friend Dave recently went to China (for work) and warned us he was doing his Christmas shopping over there. No, he didn’t buy anything with lead-based paint. But he got me a piece of art…a painting, more precisely…of a Chinese woman in the moonlight. Which would have been great except that I have nothing in my house with an asian theme. Had he gone for a Chinese mask, I would have had a great place for it, but no. Even better, I had given him a list and he decided to be creative instead. Good for him, but…now I have to find a place for this thing so I can pull it out when he comes over. It will likely end up in my exercise room and then be strategically placed in my bathroom for when he’s here. Never, never buy art for someone unless you know precisely what they like!
I feel the same way about clothes. My ex-fiance had this thing about beautiful clothes and he did have great taste. He could not understand, however, that I’m a petite. I returned many beautiful clothes that had sleeves a foot too long and the lenght of the legs were way beyond my feet. My SIL understands the petite thing, but thinks I’m still a size 4 which I haven’t been for 25 years. She also loves to get me sweaters with huge flowers on them. I’m not a print type even when I was a size 4. And, if I get one more copy of “Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover’s Soul” I’ll have more than Amazon.com.
At our horse club Christmas party we did a Chinese Christmas and the set price was 20-25 for the gift.
We got a nice horse bucket and put in it a round metal curry comb, a over the rail bucket holder, a body brush, hoof pick, small bag of horse treats and a few other items, we just put everything in the bucket and didn’t wrap it, spend about 25.00.
Now Chinese Christmas (for those who don’t know) is you draw numbers and then pick a gift you want, and if someone gets something you want you can take theirs from them and they then pick another gift. One gift though could only be “taken” 3 times then it belonged to that person (our bucket gift was “wanted” three times so that made us feel good) what did I get? A 2.00 PLASTIC coffee cup with a horse on it, and I don’t drink coffee!! Nothing else, they had just brought a coffee mug. :shrug:
Now at our barn party hubby and I went to the dollar general and TSC and bought a lot of small odd cheap items for “Bad Santa” gifts (A can of WD-40, a travel sew kit, a cented candle in a jar, a jar of vanilla frosting, a childs toy feather boa, toothpaste with a toothbrush, small first aid kit, tobogan, small toy john deere tractor, bag of peanuts, bag of taffy candy, weanie dog dog sqeak toy, felt reindeer antlers you wear on your head, Mr Clean Magic Eraser (hey they’re the BOMB!) tidybowl toilet cleaner, etc) then we went around and got some junk from around the house (4 used dirty spark plugs arranged in a necklace box, a door knob, old wall light switch with a burned out car tail light bulb, a sink drain plug, a piece of broken hose, two old porceline faucet knobs, the ones like a white cross with a “H” and a “C” on them. Funny thing about that is one of our boarders is redoing her house to it’s orginal era and has been wanting knobs like them! She got them from the person who picked them and she is tickled! One mans trash…) and you drew numbers out of a cowboy hat and then picked a gift. Man it was hilarious! You just didn’t know WHAT you were going to get! Some things aren’t something you would normaly give as a “gift” but you WOULD use (for example WD-40, magic eraser).
Whats fun is to have EVERYONE do this and bring their “Bad Santa” gifts to the party and put them in a pile, that way you have a HUGE variety and everyone is literally on the ends of their seat to see what is someone else gift is. It is a hoot!!
I just found out last night that this year, my step-siblings are getting deer meat from their dad and step-mom.
Yep. A check didn’t come through, and since my step-dad and brother had just been to the deer lease and come home with a couple of big bucks last week…
It’s hilarious… no matter what my mom has done for those kids over the years (and she’s sacrificed a lot), it’s never enough. The one step-brother already knows and is ecstatic… but when it comes time to tell the girls that their presents are in the freezer (along with a couple of frozen heads)… I will be rolling film.
:winkgrin:
[QUOTE=BelleBoyd;2886306]
One year, we drew names at work and the girl who got my name kept telling me weeks in advance about how hard she was working on my present and how much I was going to looovve it (WARNING, WARNING). Gift exchange day finally arrived and she was practically giddy while I was opening it. She had started doing ceramics and yes, you probably know the rest of the story…approx. 18" tall, the horse is white with sparkles and astride it sits a beautiful American Indian angel complete with sparkly wings and long black sparkling hair. The creator of this beauty then began to go on and on and on about the special techniques she had used to achieve the overall sparkliness of her masterpiece.
Anyway, the fun part of this gift is I regifted it as a joke to my SO’s cousin and then she regifted it to another relative and so far it has not returned, but it ended up causing howls of laughter across the nation!![/QUOTE]
That’s what I gave everyone for Christmas - when I was 10 and a new pottery shop opened up the street! Do you mean everyone wasn’t thrilled with all my various creations???:lol:
I just got the worst present last night…
My mom (slightly crazy) got me a bunch of great gifts, and then made a goodie bag for my dog with treats and toys. I was going through the bag and pulled out two pairs of baby socks…
I don’t have kids.
She told me the socks were for…the dog (“Do dogs have ankles?” my SO quipped). She said she saw them and thought they would be perfect for her. I hear they’re all the rage with rottweilers this year? 
She insisted I put them on, to my dog’s dismay. The dog put up with it for a little while and then, in a flash, gobbled them off of her feet. In less than 10 seconds she swallowed 4 infant socks!!!
I was freaking out!! To say the least. Luckily my dog just ended up getting sick this morning, and threw up five giant piles of muck (containing 4 baby socks). :no:
[QUOTE=King’s Ransom;2054345]
Well, I have one that is not funny and not horsey. But since Christmas is coming up again, and we’re all talking about it, I would be interested in what you guys would do with this.
A few years back, at the end of a very serious relationship that went suddenly and unexpectedly sour, my soon-to-be ex-BF gave me a VERY expensive watch. Here is how he did it. He called me and gave me his cc # and exp. date and told me to go online and buy it. He really wanted me to have it, but was too busy to do it himself. ??? At any rate, the danged watch is a Cartier and it cost a bundle.
Fast forward to today. I love the watch. In theory, at least. It’s a wonderful watch. But I hate the whole situation surrounding it. I always think of it as my “booby prize” (no pun intended) or “parting gift.” I think the guy felt very guilty for the very slimey thing he was doing, and this expensive watch made him feel better. In many ways, it made me feel worse. Definitely my worst Christmas gift ever.
AND, to keep it horse-related, I have nowhere to wear this watch anymore. King entered my life as the ex- exited. Now I live on a small farm with two horses and absolutely nowhere to wear this expensive watch.
So … do I keep it and wear it occasionally and forget about the whole awful-ness of the thing … send it back to the guy with a hateful note … or sell it on ebay?
Hate the guy. Love the watch. What to do?[/QUOTE]
Sell it on ebay, with that story attached :)…and then buy yourself something nice!
Aren’t you curious?
Every year my MIL sends all her children a calendar, the kind that you have made up with your own pictures. Really bad, unflattering pictures taken while you’re eating or when your eyes are closed. Every month features a different (adult) child or grandchild captured in a fine moment. It would almost be funny…but it’s not meant to be. One year she didn’t get around to having the calendars made up in time I guess, so instead she sent us a WWF calendar with photographs of us --pictures we had sent her intending for her to keep-- taped over the calendar pictures.
One year I got a pair of leg warmers for riding – they had suede knee patches. Very 80’s.
I of course have received the obligatory collection of odd horse-themed items: wall-hangings, socks, mugs, earrings (my ears aren’t pierced), you name it.
[QUOTE=TwoArabs;2886758]
And, if I get one more copy of “Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover’s Soul” I’ll have more than Amazon.com.[/QUOTE]
:lol::lol:
I think at one point I had 5…
not horse related, and not me— but when my kids were 4 and 5, my MIL ( who had been to Europe 3 times that year,plus China) gave them a tin of popcorn and some Andy Warhol postcards.
Well - here’s a spinoff - did you ever get a gift that was crappy for you but that you managed to turn into a good present for your horse?
A few years back I told my parents Ted would convert to Judaism if they got him 8 presents. After all, Ted’s no dummy: he gets 2 stockings (one at home, one in the barn) plus presents…why should he accept less than that?
So they got him a package of 8 rice cakes (they are NOT horsey people).
Needless to say, Ted did not convert. However, my parents do send care packages to the lab, and they always throw in peeps, neccos and/or goodnplenty for Ted (and maybe even some bona fide horse treats), so it’s not like they don’t care.
Rice, wheat, oats, hay - it’s all the same, right?
Without fail, every single year my MIL gets me a pair of earrings. Sometimes silver, sometimes 10K, this year it’s vermiel (silver coated with gold). They are usually tasteful earrings, nothing gaudy. . but I wear earrings maybe a dozen or so times a year. I have plenty of earrings and I know the gold ones. . the price would buy a couple of nice brushes, some boot socks, some fine chocolate. . etc. I have tried getting the husband to drop hints, but I guess he’s lousy at it. I do like the earrings, but I would never ask her where they came from to return. I’d be afraid of hurting her feelings. I love my MIL, but I wish they weren’t so dead-set on never giving me a horse related gift.
That would be today! When I got off work, I went out to my car to find that someone had shattered one of my car windows. Tiz the best present of all!
This thread makes me miss my MIL sooooo much. She always bought me the most wonderful horse gifts. The last Christmas gift I got from her was a marvelous cream colored hand knit sweater (which she made) with a horse colored like mine own knitted on the back. I will treasure that forever. My SIL however, one year gave me a horse clock, it was like a tin pie plate with horses painted on it, but it had the sound of horses galloping and neighing at the hour and half hour. It was sooooooooo annoying!
[QUOTE=Aggie4Bar;2877052]
:lol:
I have a book titled, Sixteen Hands Between Your Legs. It’s actually a funny read… light-hearted description of eventing.
But no… I would not wear a tee-shirt with that phrase. That ranks up there with the free tee eCampus sent me when I ordered some books in college. In HUGE letters: “Easy! Fast! Cheap!” I gave it to a male friend who thought it was funny, and - sad to say - he wore it often. Oddly though, it seemed to suit him. :lol:[/QUOTE]
LMAO!! That reminds me of a jacket that my grandma gave me. She and my grandpa used to go to Vegas regularly. I think the back of the jacket said “Slots R Fun” or something…I was maybe 12 and wore it to school one day. Don’t know if I knew what a slut was, but I heard it a lot that day!
You know when you’re in New York City and it suddenly starts to pour and all of a sudden every corner has a man on it hawking umbrellas and rain slickers for $5 a piece?
One Christmas, my ONLY gift from my mother was just one such yellow plastic (vinyl?) slicker, which came with a matching yellow plastic hat. It was XXXXL. I mean, if I were to sit on the horse wearing it, it would cover him too.
The card?
“For the rainy days in the paddock.”
I was working as a stable hand at the time and my old boss still brings it up.
(My boss and her husband got me flannel sheets. They were LOVELY, exactly the perfect color, and five years later I still have and cherish them.)
