Best and worst Xmas presents?

Our family has a Xmas gift tradition of giving a a major gift plus a stocking full of odds and sods

No major gift for me this year but the stocking stuffers were interesting.
These usually consist of sweets and chocolates, small clothing items like socks and jocks, various quirky gizmos, small games etc.
Each year we can share a general list small gift items to the family - I always ask for low cost tools or gizmos etc, but you also get loads of other small things.

At the low end of the scale this year were the Xmas socks and the Sarcasm ball???
The Xmas socks which I get every few years go in the bottom of the Vinnies bag - I take the bags to the bin so SWMBO never sees this.

At the high end was the cheap burr remover and a set of small engineers clamps that were on my list :2tsup:.
The Choc covered nuts were also pretty good.

When I first saw it the other competitor for low end was the LED Dunny bowl night light illuminator.
Attachment 486806

However, once I had used it I decide it is one of the best stocking stuffers I have ever received.

It runs of 3 AAA batteries and clips to the side of the bowl under the seat (it's the small white square box on the LHS of the bowl edge).
It is both motion and ambient light sensitive.
In daylight the motion sensor does not operate and no illumination is provide - it assumes you can see the bowl.
At night or even in low light the LED is off until someone comes close to the bowl and then turns on the LED located at the end of the clip that is inside the bowl - this allows you to find said seat opening in the dark.
Light stays on till movement stops for more than x seconds.
You get choice of about 7 (some lurid) colours plus white.
The colour effects are interesting eg the blue light makes pee appear red!
Can demonstrate if required :D

SWMBO says she finds it useful as well as it enables her to more readily sit on the seat.

I complained just before Christmas that I couldn’t find my “Bah Humbug” badge.
I received these for Christmas

Attachment 486815

On on another note- we went out to a friends for dinner last night and down the road was this

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Some people have too much time on their hands :D

I got the "Grumpy old man" T-short a couple of years ago.

I wore it down south camping and approached a young bloke, who I had never seen before, to ask him a question about the camp ground and after answering my question we chatted pleasantly for a bit. As we parted he smiled and said cheekily, - not so grumpy today?

Best ever Christmas present from two of my grandkids:

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SIL usually sends one of those "gift" boxes of food from a commercial source. The only problem is that the English Muffins are baked about 3 days before they are packaged in a box. The box sits on the shelf for another 3 or 4 days before being included in a shipment. The package is in shipment for 4 or 5 days. After receipt, the box sits around for another few days before the English Muffin is consumed. The amount of preservatives used make the English Muffin just about inedible. Thankfully this year the SIL didn't send anything. Oh, last year Connie said that she would eat the English Muffins. Today I noticed three of last years English Muffins in the bottom of the freezer from last Christmas.

Growing up, my mother's idea of Christmas gifts for the kids were socks, underwear, tooth paste, tooth brush, soap, later deodorant and just the stuff that was needed. No such thing as toys. Whatever we got had to be an educational game. Then we were forced to play the game later in the day. By the time I was 8 or so I became rather good at hiding critical pieces of the game in the box so that the game could not be played.

I'll admit that those gifts were educational. We learned from my experience and did not punish our boys with those kind of gifts. Both Connie and I finished 12th year and didn't go near a classroom for learning until we were well into middle age. Both of our boys graduated from good universities.

We hosted Xmas this year for a few friends and orphans (just singles, not true orphans). It was delightful. However, one of our pet hates is the Xmas crackers. Not the crackers per se, but the useless, wasteful and relatively expensive nature of the commercial rip-off. Consequently we have made up our own crackers in the recent past. This year we took it to a slightly higher level. I said that we needed more capacity so the toilet rolls that we have previously used were not going to cut the mustard. Instead I saved the paper towel rolls throughout the year. We don't use much ourselves and I grabbed any from work as they were discarded.

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Then they were wrapped up like this

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The paper itself is interesting and is recycled toilet roll covering with a name that sort of sticks.

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Each cracker contained the traditional jokes: Actually two jokes in case people didn't get one. :rolleyes:

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and a hat made from the same toilet roll covering. It was hot glued with a piece of elastic so one size fitted all. In fact one guest stated it was the first time ever he had worn a hat from a cracker for the duration of the day. Not all the guests were as wooden as this one.

Attachment 486843Attachment 486842

We did consider that people might be offended but it seemed they didn't give a s**t. :cool:

Although there were only eleven guests we made twelve crackers and when I saw Bob's thread I shared the last one a few minutes ago with SWMBO and this was what was in it.

Attachment 486840

An Ipad or phone stand (when folded it just fitted inside the tube with no room to spare)

Although you could level cheapskate at us, quite rightly, we partially made up for it in selecting some better gifts (although they were not all better!) These were some of the others. A small telescope, a glasses cleaner and a UV style "gluing" product.

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When I purchased, I bought extras because I wasn't sure I would pick the right cracker, which is how we ended up with more than out share :wink:.

I just thought I would continue with Bob's effluent trend.

Regards
Paul

A few years ago My Beloved and our daughter gave me a wrapped up packet of Oreos and a tin of cake frosting; they were marked “Biscuits” and “Biscuit Joiner” respectively...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BobL

Our family has a Xmas gift tradition of giving a a major gift plus a stocking full of odds and sods

No major gift for me this year but the stocking stuffers were interesting.
These usually consist of sweets and chocolates, small clothing items like socks and jocks, various quirky gizmos, small games etc.
Each year we can share a general list small gift items to the family - I always ask for low cost tools or gizmos etc, but you also get loads of other small things.

At the low end of the scale this year were the Xmas socks and the Sarcasm ball???
The Xmas socks which I get every few years go in the bottom of the Vinnies bag - I take the bags to the bin so SWMBO never sees this.

At the high end was the cheap burr remover and a set of small engineers clamps that were on my list :2tsup:.
The Choc covered nuts were also pretty good.

When I first saw it the other competitor for low end was the LED Dunny bowl night light illuminator.
Attachment 486806

However, once I had used it I decide it is one of the best stocking stuffers I have ever received.

It runs of 3 AAA batteries and clips to the side of the bowl under the seat (it's the small white square box on the LHS of the bowl edge).
It is both motion and ambient light sensitive.
In daylight the motion sensor does not operate and no illumination is provide - it assumes you can see the bowl.
At night or even in low light the LED is off until someone comes close to the bowl and then turns on the LED located at the end of the clip that is inside the bowl - this allows you to find said seat opening in the dark.
Light stays on till movement stops for more than x seconds.
You get choice of about 7 (some lurid) colours plus white.
The colour effects are interesting eg the blue light makes pee appear red!
Can demonstrate if required :D

SWMBO says she finds it useful as well as it enables her to more readily sit on the seat.

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so where could one purchase these if they were interested.?

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Originally Posted by Tonyz

so where could one purchase these if they were interested.?

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GlowBowl Fresh – Your Toilets LOOK AND SMELL GREAT!

The gizmo also generates a supposedly air freshening perfumed scent and comes with two scent sachets but I did not install the scent sachet. I suspect they will charge a bomb for sachet replacements

Santa gave me a Lost art press book this year. Hand held coffee bean grinder and a Lie Neilson Australia gift card :) pretty useful book for me so farhttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...d618f8cd0a.jpg

Sent from my Nokia 5.3 using Tapatalk

As a followup to Paul's Xmas crackers, MIL was big on crappy Xmas Crackers and always bought the cheapest ones that had worst jokes/hats/and gifts. One year I ended up treading on one of the hard plastic gift things that had fallen on the floor and was lame for a week thereafter. SWMBO was motivated one year to make the crackers but the punters generally deemed they were not as good as the bought ones, jokes not cheesy enough, gifts not corny enough etc. Have to admit the use of who gives a crap toilet paper wrapping for the crackers and hats would be one way to go to reclaim the levels of cl-ass required.

My favourite was this hammer pen from my daughter.

Attachment 486853

This year I'm told I'm getting a Ledacraft 10" combination planer/thicknesser.

I've already re-arranged the shop to suit, now 'tis just a matter of waiting on the delivery... while praying that this wasn't just an evil ploy by SWMBO to get me to clean the shed.

:fingerscrossed:

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Originally Posted by apple8

My favourite was this hammer pen from my daughter.

Attachment 486853

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I can see why this would make her the apple of your eye. :)

Actually it reminded me of the Marty Feldman quote (he was the boss eyed British comedian)

"The pen is mightier than the sword; and much easier to write with."

Looking at your hammer pen I trust you have a largish, tending to giant size hand.

Regards
Paul

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BobL

Have to admit the use of who gives a crap toilet paper wrapping for the crackers and hats would be one way to go to reclaim the levels of cl-ass required.

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Is this the origin of "the bottom feeder?"

:shrug:

Regards
Paul