This thread makes me grateful that my family will not exchange gifts this year due to the economy. Thank you!!!
Eew Ick! That is just … :eek::dead:
I’m with you Geek, no gift exchange this year and quite happy.
Hmm knitting can be pricey. Just think cashmere at $90 to $100 per ounce and how many ounces to make a sweater…
I had a bf who did the same thing, gave me a polo shirt with a picture of me riding. And no I couldn’t wear it, it was too well weird.
Now my DH on the other hand gets it and give me great gifts and nope not the same guy.
One year MIL sent me a Calphalon sauce pan. I was sorta “Huh?” 'til husband explained that she had asked him what to get me and that is what he told her I needed. Another year she gave me a blue denim shirt with moose appliques and plaid trim. Hey! I do live in Minnesota.
FIL sent us a wind-up, musical Santa in Sleigh with 4 Reindeer. It’s about 2 feet long. I need to dig that one out!
Oh Gosh - where do I start???
Gifts from my loving husband include:
A Plastic Timex watch…
A shirt with our farm name on it…MISSPELLED!
A Custom made sign made from a piece of slate - again the farm name misspelled!
A Robe he purchased in the "womans’ department …it could have doubled as a tent
…and my favorite…
the year before we moved to the farm …I opened a huge box with one of those bib front ski overalls inside. I was so EXCITED…OMG we were going skiing??? right??? Uhh - no - he thought they were “winter overalls” that I could use to do farm chores in.
God Love Him…
Like the year I got a new saddle pad, with skulls on it. Which was this year. I am so humiliated. The eyes have red hearts, not X’s.
Shut up!!!
But I do encourage everyone to think of these items as a tax receipt for 2010…when Special Horses Inc does their auction…
oh dear- i dont think i can count all the calendars, figurines, wall plaques, etc. i’ve gotten over the years.
But this year should be extra special. My mother is adamant about getting me “horsey” stuff…the woman who shuttled me to lessons and shows for 15 years…who knows what a tack shop is, and where to find them…asked for my xmas list, on which i described, with links, catalog id’s, etc, the items i’d want…calls me on black friday from the mall telling me she’s so excited she found riding clothes and “riding” boots in the stores there. Mom, despite the word “riding” in the article’s description, i’ll bet those are for fashion and not function, and please dont spend your money on them… “oh dont be silly, honey, you NEED new things.”
:uhoh:
Ted, we need to find the Willem quote about not giving our horses “ugly ass” things and pretending it is for them?
I read this thread from start to finish this evening. In the beginning, I’d smile while reading about the strange gifts. At about page 17 the cumulative hilarity of the ridiculosity of the gifts finally got to me and I started laughing and snerkling. I was so overcome, I had tears in my eyes.
Mr. Nuts ran into the room from the bedroom shouting, “What’s wrong! What’s wrong!” He thought I was having a heart attack or some sort of seizure. The noises I was making was a laugh gone wrong and he was ready to call 911.
As for gifts, my mother was a very practical sort. One Christmas I received a big, beautifully wrapped gift box. Inside were some boxes of tissues, rolls of toilet paper and a six-pack of light bulbs!
Before Mr. Nuts, I dated a man who was a weird gift giver. He loved fine china. I’d get a box of mismatched pieces of fine china. A gravy boat in one pattern, a cup and saucer in another pattern, a platter in even another pattern. But an odd assortment. This same man gave his SIL who was about 25 at the time, an assortment of about 15 different colors of suspenders! The lad didn’t wear suspenders.
My dad received a $5 gift card for a car wash last year. To a car wash place that is over an hour and a half away.
He owns a car dealership, and drives a demo, which is washed FOR FREE every day while he is at work.
The irony- my aunt who gave him the gift card is married to my father’s brother, who co-owns the dealership with my dad. He and the aunt in question also both drive demos, and have the same car-washing perks.
Can you even get a car wash for $5 these days?
Oh well, its the thought that counts:D
[QUOTE=LD1129;2876166]
I love this thread I read it all over again for fun and out of boredom at work.
I don’t have many bad gifts but a year or two ago I got a gift from my aunt (my mom told her it would be a good idea) to get me a flashlight that sits on your head like a miner. They thought it would be good for when I walk out in the large fields to catch my horse. Well my large boarding farm does have lights and no matter what time of night I can easily find my horse and not to mention he is stalled at night in the winter.
It has stayed in my car trunk for years never used! I guess I am prepared in case I am ever in a cave in.:winkgrin:[/QUOTE]
This is funny, because that’s EXACTLY what I picked out for my grandma to get me for Christmas (that, and wool socks)! I don’t have as many lights or an indoor, so this way I can ride at night on a couple hundred acres and still see where I’m going. I was utterly thrilled and can’t wait for Christmas to get it :D.
Not sure if I mentioned this…it was actually a fabulous present - Ted’s first leather halter, a gift from my cousin (who is like a sister to me). We are opening gifts, I lift the halter out of the box, it is exactly what I asked for, I am exclaiming over how beautiful it is, and she keeps shushing me and glancing over at my godson (then 10). I don’t get it, I am running my fingers over the leather, she all but grabs it and puts it back in the box, and then, as soon as my godson leaves the room, grabs my arm and whispers urgently, “Really. What is that FOR???”
Apparently she equated leather with, um, well, some sort of bondage device…
Well, I spoke about my dear brother last year- he’s not a great gift giver. Let me add another of his brilliant bequests to the list.
He spent several months around xmas one year being very sneaky and furtive- it was obvious there was something mighty in the works, but I couldn’t fathom what it might be. It eventually became apparent that he had employed my boyfriend and best friend into whatever massive scheme he was plotting, but no amount of prodding and goading would release the wondrous secret. I eventually became concerned that he’d done something realllly silly, such as purchase me a worn out rescue case type horse- which admittedly filled me with glee. Imagine my shock and awe when I walked downstairs christmas morning to find- a bar. A bar fashioned out of a disused upright video game cabinet. It was decidedly NOT a horse.
It was an interesting thing but it had some notable issues. It had come from an actual bar, so it reeked strongly of cigarettes, vomit and waylaid dreams. It was impressively large- over two feet square and nine high- and frightened my confident rottweiler with it’s lurking massive presence and unmistakeable aura of malcontent. It had been a shooting game of some description in it’s past life, and my brother had taken the liberty of relocating the large, fairly realistic gun to the top of the beast, which led to a memorable 911 call from a neurotic elderly neighbor. The door to the bottom where the glasses were stored, formerly the guts of the game, stuck terribly, so every time you pulled it open there were seismic disruptions within that resulted in glassware shaken to it’s doom below.
Slightly more horse related, my sort-of-sister once gave me a halter. My mother told her that I desperately wanted a black leather halter with silver hardware, so bless her heart, she went and found one. It was MASSIVE, easily appropriate for a draft horse with a glandular problem. My araby arab x could have worn it as a harness. I sent her a pic of him wearing it anyway- she didn’t know the difference :lol:
But, is the thought a GOOD one? :uhoh:
Voila’!
Don’t nott to buy no ugly ass things for us to wear und den say it be a present for us; it don’t nott to be. It be for you.
Thank you Chocomare! When I saw that you had posted, I though, I bet Chocomare has found it!
If you seach for “ugly ass” in the archives, lots of theads come up! And that says what about us???
A few years ago at a family gift exchange, everyone was all about “crafting” the gifts. We received a lovely plastic ornament, that was filled with pot pourri and a strand of christmas lights stuffed in there, too.
The idea was, that you hang it on the tree, plug it in, and the heat from the lights creates a lovely scent from the pot pourri. The gift also came with a SMOKE DETECTOR as the thing was known to be a fire hazzard. :eek::eek:
Who would give someone something that could potentially burn their house down??
The person who has alway harbored a secret resentment, perhaps? :lol:
