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It’s a Surprise!
Staring at the open box of 750 jigsaw pieces, each individually wrapped in a piece of toilet paper and scotch tape, I knew I’d been had—but good—by my six younger siblings.
They were hoping I would take the time to unwrap each piece, but instead I saved this creative treasure intact and it was re-gifted several times on other holidays. I like to think it’s still out there somewhere, causing outrageous laughter for some hapless recipient.
Speaking of surprises, many years later when young egrDaughter was old enough to understand the idea of presents, she was all excited and helpful when taking a wrapped package over to my brother: "It’s a camera! It’s a surprise!"
Sometimes you even get the good stuff on video. Younger egrDaughter opened up the package with her Barbie house, containing all the little plastic stuff doomed to be broken or lost within 48 hours, and shouted "Now I know there’s a Santa Claus, ’cause you said you would NEVER get this for me!"
You know, I love Dave Barry’s wacky presents but he isn’t the only one who can make us laugh at funny gifts or stories. I want to hear from you all about holidays past or present when you found yourself laughing aloud at something silly.
We’ve worked hard this week, it’s time for some fun. So put the politics aside for a little while, pass the scotch tape please, and pull up a chair….
This mesmerizing photo from MarkyBon, flickr creative commons
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Hey there
Good morning everybody! We sure have had a lot of surprises this week.
It is -18 deg & so still outside, you could hear bird droppings land if the birds were awake.
good morning egregious and cc
it has been like Christmas around here
ccmask gets to open the first package :)
pulling up a chair
waiting for the stories. Good morning, egregious!
Good morning egregious et al,
Funny . . . . there are several “traditions” that I observe every year around this time. Last week when Mr. Rev. and I went out on the road for the day I pulled out my recording of David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries. Even though I know it almost by heart I laugh out loud every time I hear it. Also on the list is the video of the Claymation Christmas (1988). It is brilliant.
We lit a fire in our new house last night for the first time. Wood burning fireplace insert that puts out lots of heat. It’s the first time I’ve felt warm in weeks. Life is good. Don’t know how long that will last but I appreciate every bit of it now.
Hoping to round up firepups in the Philly area and surrounds who want to come over for New Years’ Eve. We’ve got lots of plotting and planning to do to save this country so we might as well have some fun while doing it. Anyone out there who is interested let me know.
Ironranger, I’m guessing you live somewhat north of chez egregious here in VA. 18? ok who can top that?
I don’t know if this counts but…There is an acorn duck that has been making the rounds in my family. My mother bought this beautiful duck which is about 18″ Tall and 18″ wide and made of pressed acorn shells. She came home from her trip and had me and my sister over for dinner and she was really really showing off her duck. So, on the way out the door, my sister lifted it and threw it in her trunk. Well, my mom was pissed. So I went to my sisters when she was at work and stole the duck from her. Then I had them both over for lunch and had the duck as a centerpiece on the table. Laughs all around.
The other story is my aunt was a single mom and never had any money. She absolutely just loved collector dolls and decided to purchase this newborn baby doll that looked so real that it was $600.00 She spend about 6 months paying it off on layaway. Finally, she paid it off and took her baby home. When the family came for dinner, she was showing off BIG-TIME. This pissed off her brother Larry (a cop). So, when my aunt went to work, her brother slipped intop her home, took the baby, and left a ransom note. The note said he wanted $1,000 for the baby or the baby gets it. Unfortunately, my aunts daughter came home from school early, and saw the note in the carriage and called my aunt at work screaming and crying. My aunt called 911 and ran home from work. When my uncle found out he was really livid atmy aunt and cousin for being so stupid and confessed.
About two weeks later, my aunt and her gilfriend, went to the dump with her exhusbands pickup truck and loaded up the back of the truck. In the middle of the night, late Friday night, they laid out all of the junk on his front lawn. He lived in a very nice area. Then they put out the garage sale signs leading to his house.
About 8:00 he started hearing doors opening and closing and looked out his window and saw all of the stuff on his lawn. He ran out of the house screaming. Well, there was a very big pink tree stump my aunt had placed right in the middle of the front lawn. He was so embarrassed by the quality of is “goods for sale” that he knew right away it was my aunt. The first thing he did was pick up that stump, but it was so heavy that he threw out his back and ended up in the back of an ambulance.
Stuff like this has been going on in my large family for years. I love the puzzle story and may use it very soon.
egregious, I’m confused. Are you in VA or in CA? I thought you moved and I’m sure you were in CA recently. So where are you?
RevDeb- I wish I had a fireplace.
good morning all.
i’m there for revdeb’s NYE roundup, can’t think of a better way to bring in the new year.
Hey Elliott, Beth, how are you guys doing today?
PS: The acorn duck is now in a military base in Georgia. It was lifted Easter Sunday.
I was just thinking…..might be nice to send my mom postcards from the duck. Hmmnnn.
a la the garden Gnome in Amalie?
My chair has a rather large politician on it.
Oh dear…
.
speaking of re-gifting. That goes on at our Christmas. But it stays with Christmas. One year my mother bought me a pair of saddle shoes (a fashion holdover from my cheering years.) The problem was, they were two left feet. Those shoes still circulate although one year I hid them at my cousin’s house and they didn’t show up again until a couple Christmases later, after she moved.
Hey, maybe I’ll see if I can find myself a pair with a left and a right shoe.
Someone please enlighten me (I’ve been out of the loop for a few days), where’s Christy?
I still kinda laugh at the image of my nephews opening presents on Christmas morning, only to find clothes inside. Followed by a cursory glance, a look of disappointment, and a flinging of said present to the side, looking for the next one, in hopes of a “real” present.
*My* son, otoh, was, at the age of 2 years and 2 months, already a clothes horse. I remember him opening one that had a funky, brightly colored jumper in it. Everything came to a screeching halt as he demanded to be allowed to put. it. on. now.
give me a f (shaking his pom poms)
Christy is on a well deserved vacation with her family. She’ll be back in a few days. We’ll try to limp along here as best we can, but we all miss her like crazy.
I just realized it wasn’t Christy. Nice post egregious.
Morning, all.
A few years ago my wife’s cousin did all his gift shopping at the gas station. On Christmas morning. On his way to their Aunt’s house for dinner. We each got to dip into a plastic bag & pull out a gift. I got a tyre pressure gauge. It was kinda cool, actually.
My mother was an alcoholic and notorious in our family as one of the worst gift givers in the world. The older she got the more wildly inappropriate and bizarre her gifts became. The year I divorced my first husband I struggled to put up a brave front for my eight year old daughter at Christmas. Money was really tight but I managed to get the tree, do a lovely meal, get her several gifts and even give Santa some much needed assistance. The only other gifts under the tree that year were from my best friend and a package for my daughter and I from my mother which had arrived the day before Christmas. This was a first because my mother’s Christmas gifts sometimes arrived as late as February.
On Christmas Eve we opened my mother’s gift first. It was a jointed wooden trivet which could supposedly be opened into one of the ugliest baskets I have ever seen. It had either gotten broken in transit or more likely it was broken when she bought it, so what lay before us were hundreds of tiny pieces of wood. We had a fireplace and the Yule fire was lit, so my best friend and my daughter took turns feeding the little bits of wood into the blaze while we opened and admired the rest of the gifts under the tree. Then we tossed the crumpled box my mother’s gift came in into the fire as well. My daughter stared into the roaring flames and sighed in contentment. “You know, that was the best gift she has ever sent us,” she said with a giggle. She was right. There was something very symbolic about burning my mother’s gift that year. We were, in effect burning all our bridges to the past, moving into a future that loomed ahead of us as frightening and different. The path we were on was not the one we had intended to take, but all three of us knew it was the right one. And for that hour on Christmas eve, my mother’s bizarre gift made us laugh and warmed us and gave us courage to keep going. It was the best gift she ever sent us.
Who got the Hess Truck?
*My* son, otoh, was, at the age of 2 years and 2 months, already a clothes horse. I remember him opening one that had a funky, brightly colored jumper in it. Everything came to a screeching halt as he demanded to be allowed to put. it. on. now.
reply
This is a good paragraph.
.
One more story. Dad was the only child of his widowed mother who had to be very careful about her money. For Christmas of course he tried to shower her with presents of all kinds since she wouldn’t take help any other way.
One of the boxes was really huge and she started opening it with glee, saying “This is what everybody’s been saying I need!” thinking it was the much-desired kitchen stool. It was a case of toilet paper.
This is the grandma that would give me the grocery money, and a homegrown rose, each time I went back to college. Remembering her with love.
Thanks!
Marretta, I loved that story! My mother was mentally ill and it still makes me sad to think about it, but you deal with it the best way you can.
Mornin’, gang -
What a lot of wonderful family gift stories! And a lovely way to polish off what has been one of the better weeks in recent memory, eg.
Has anybody seen Pfifferling recently?
Maretta that’s such a touching story, bittersweet with a warm smile at the end.
I wanna be like Christy when I grow up. Thanks ccmask and great stories!
Hey, egregious!
I’m in tropical NE Minn, heh. (”Tropical Minnesota” was actually a slogan a bank came up with years ago.)
I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere in Alaska beats -19 which it is here right now. Always coldest right at dawn. High of -4 yesterday.
“Sometimes you even get the good stuff on video.”
Many years ago, (8mm film rather than video)we filmed my two-year-old daughter’s Christmas. She was truly angelic looking as my wife led her into the living room, to the tree, and handed her a present. Although still lookink like an angel, her eyes focused with an intensity that reminded me of Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madres. The little darling tore into one beautifully wrapped prensent immediatly after it’s tossed-aside predecessor, all with an intensity which is slightly frightening, even today. When she had finished with opening them all, she looked around, got up, marched to the hall closet, opened it and stared into the empty space where we had hidden the presents from the two-year-old. Thankfully, she grew into a much less materialistic person.
Tropical MN lol! My sister-in-law was from Thief River Falls up by International Falls. She was surprisingly unimpressed by my tales of cold Russian weather.
I made the big mistake of ordering yarn to knit a couple of Christmas stockings for gifts. I have no idea how I will get those done in time. The yarn isn’t even here yet & I still haven’t worked out a pattern.
Wonderful story, Marretta. What a great gift to your daughter, to take something troubling and transform it into something beautiful.
My ex husband was notorious for getting “bad” gifts. That is, gifts that just weren’t my taste, style or desire to own. So one christmas I set out to make the perfect “gift” list for my husband and I. I set up a scheme. List the 5 top “wants”, and rate each one according to priority. Then a list of 10 smaller items to be rated as well. So we worked on his list and then my list.
I sent him off christmas shopping that year, thinking that I was finally going to have a good christmas. (trust me, when I hear my own self centeredness on this issue today, I know why that marriage did not survive). So on my list I stated I wanted something nice for the walls, a lovely painting or something like that. Then I asked for an antique table for my kitchen, then I asked for some costume jewelry…nothing expensive, then finally I asked for some pajama’s (something comfortable not sexy).
Okay, so it’s christmas morning and my spouse has the brand new video camera recording. Once in a while I look at the video just for fun. Have you ever noticed how transparent we are on video.(video because the year was 1985) Well, that morning I went through each gift.
So here’s what my husband bought me:
1) one large nature poster. (no frame…just the poster)
2) a huge antique buffet table that took 4 men to put in my little tiny kitchen. It literally took up half the kitchen.
3) two necklaces. At the time, I was nursing a baby and had a huge chest. One necklace was great big 2 inch size african animal wooden peices. It looked like the safari was standing on my too large chest. The other was great big huge rocks that fell just at the level of my bust. (a nice plain fake gold chain would have been lovely, but I could not in my wildest dreams put on those necklaces)
4) a men’s pair of pajamas. (he thought i would look cute in them).
My obvious disdain for each present, my utter and complete disappointment was so painfully obvious despite the fact that I kept smiling and saying “thank you”. I asked at one point slyly “so why did you pick men’s pajamas?” but you could tell by my tone, that I didn’t really care what the answer was.
Today it makes me laugh. And looking back, it truly showed me why the marriage ended a few years later.
Today, if I really want something, I save up for it. I don’t expect anything. Some years there have been glorious gifts from my new (er)husband, and other years there have been none. Somehow what I get just doesn’t seem to matter anymore. I don’t think about it, the way I did when I was 22 and expecting just the right gift from my husband. Today I am happy no matter what…truly happy, not expecting. But back then…it was a different story.
A dear friend gave me the kit to weave a cat head shaker basket. Problem was I needed the wooden form in order to make the basket and that wasn’t included. I toted that kit around for years . . . . it may still be in a box somewhere for all I know.
It was my aunt who always sent the most useless, ugliest gifts. ever. It didn’t matter whether it was labeled or not we could always tell who it was from when measured on that scale. I vaguely remember a sweater she sent me with a kitty sewn on and glittered. Anyone who knows me, well . . . . .
I wish I could knit. Last week I bought my mom a hand knitted teapot cozy on ebay. It is beautiful. It covers the teapot and has knitted flowers on the top.
Eg@36: Intl Falls used to be the official temperature standard. I don’t know if they still have that job. However, here we would always snort at hearing on national weather reporting the Intl Falls low temps because Embarrass, MN would consistently be much lower.
Yes, we do tend to find it amusing when people in warmer states get hysterical when the temp goes down to zero. Minus 40 is not unusual to us.
One of the funniest gifts I received was also one of the most memorable: A wrapped refrigerator-sized box. It seemed pretty heavy – my boyfriend could hardly get it in the house. I thought maybe a hope chest – what else could be that big? But inside was another box, and inside that box was another wrapped box….and so on, through what seemed like 50 progressively-smaller boxes, until I finally came to a small one, the size of a juice cup. Wrapped in white freezer paper, it had “Will You Marry Me?” written all over it. Inside, of course, was a jeweler’s box.
We didn’t last, unfortunately, but that’s still one of the funniest, memorable Christmas moments.
I’m in a state of confusion. Legally living in California, logistically moving little by little with the moving van coming the end of January. With kids in both places I’ll be commuting after that too.
uh-oh
I’m cold and wet today. Well, for Southern Arizona values of “cold”. But we’re getting the southern end of the storm that’s wailing on Utah and Colorado.
But there’s a lot to be said for staying inside with hot chocolate on a day like this.
Good morning everyone! I’ve got a great story for you. It concerns a prank we pulled on my brother-in-law2 years ago.
They are very uptight and particular about what they do. For example, they spent the additional money for stow and go in their car, yet would only allow the police to put the car seats in their car, thinking they were the only ones who knew how to do it right. They would literally never move the seats.
Anyway, 2 years ago, my other brother in law called us a few days before Christmas and wanted to prank other in laws. It seems they found some really tacky Xmas lawn decorations in their attic, and wanted to put them on D & M’s lawn. So, we piled in the car and went over there under cover of darkness with this crap. One was a huge plywood candy cane, which we wrapped with lights and plugged in to their decorations.
Now, keep in mind that D has NO sense of humor, so when we saw them on Xmas, we didn’t bring it up and neither did they. So we were left wondering what happened to the lawn decorations we “gifted” for them.
About a year later, we were re-telling the story to my wife’s Dad, when he filled in the rest of the story…Apparently they were so concerned that someone had had their Xmas decorations stolen, they called the police and filed a stolen goods report about them!!!
I always remember my sons fifth or sixth Christmas(He is now 45)we gave him a dog collar and dog bones all wrapped up. He cried and was devastated and thought it was a trick until we took him to the porch and showed him the real dog.
Im not a Christmas fan,but I have some young Grands that Im looking forward to sharing with.
omniblogging
ccmask@41: Now that knitting has made a big resurgence among younger people it is pretty easy to find knitting classes or a knitter happy to teach. Scarves are not hard once you have the basic knit & purl down & make great gifts.
Knitting is a good stress buster.
That works out ok. There are a lot of people who say they can’t dance because they have two left feet.
epu’ed by hours. re Looseheadprop downstairs
If anyone else is just catching up they might want to know that I have sent her post to a pakistani friend who knows many lawyers who were jailed.as well as the usual American friends and relatives.
I sent them news of Sen. Whitehouse’s floor speech revealing the shreding of the constitution from unclassified OCL documents.
Since the Whitehouse’s speech is not covered in the NYT or in the BlueBayState, the Boston Globe, I ask you to do the same…
Think progress has an article and video. The Nexthurrah has the full text. Just click on masthead. One stop shopping, thanks Jane.
preview does not work. again.
Im not a Christmas fan,but I have some young Grands that Im looking forward to sharing with.
Uh-oh. Bill O’Reilly’s head just exploded.
As some know ,I am a artist. I just discovered a site called Etsy Its an Ebay for handmade things. Go take a look, I saw some wonderful handknit things and I have a few things under my name here.
http://www.etsy.com/index.php
I bet he has a miserable Christmas! For me it was always about the expectation that never quite happened.
LOL!
elliot@45:
I never learn.
Correction: Knitting is a good stress buster until you give yourself unrealistic completion date goals.
eg, if you want a break from the moving thing, and are on the right coast, come on up for a day.
I used to be an extremely sound sleeper who fell deeply asleep when head hit pillow.
Literally in seconds (sleep tests confirmed this, btw. I was called an Olympic sleeper.)
Mr. BlueStateRedHead would put presents under the pillow and wait to see how long it would take for me to find it. Would change the bed so I would not find it that way.
It could take weeks before presents were noticed.
He also slips books onto my shelves next to my most consulted volumes, as I am hyperfocused when working and would not notice the change.
same result.
I have learned to plump up my pillow at the relevant times.
Still works for books.
Thanks RevDeb, might just do that!
My ex was hit and miss. Sometimes he got fabulous gifts – like the refrigerator box hiding the engagement ring or the gorgeous solid-wood rocker he bought for my birthday, just a month before our son was born.
And sometimes…. Well, one year I got an Craftsman tool box – the big ones like mechanics have – for my birthday. That same year, my Christmas gift was a circular saw.
perhaps even new year’s eve.
Hi FDLers! My first post. And sadly it’s a complaint. :(
I clicked on your writer’s strike link. But it assumes everyone using it lives in America. 7 million or so of your fellow Americans don’t live in America, but many of us do watch American TV shows.
I would be happy to write to the studios expressing my displeasure with their treatment of writers. Better still, I’d like to add my voice to the FDL campaign. I’ll also be writing Irish TV stations asking them to reduce their American TV purchases until the strike is over.
But your form requires a zip code. Now I can mke one up, but it won’t really send the right message. I’ll be glad to point DemsAbroad and other Americans I know overseas to your letters page, but can you make your zip code field accept country names?
Thanks!
And love the new site design!
When I was younger I always had a slight envy for people who celebrate Christmas ss I got older, I realized …”not so much”
For many years I was a partner in a business in an airport and I always worked on Christmas to give an employee the day off.
Now that I am really old I don’t get Christmas at all.
I’m glad Ironranger qualified that because I couldn’t see having to knit everybody presents in a two week time frame as the slightest bit stress relieving
Speaking of catching things on video…Several years ago my brother had all of the reels of film from our past put on VCR..
So, it’s the 60’s and my family is staying in a little cabin on groovy Greenwood Lake. The place was very woodsy back then. We know now that my mom is the one holding the super 8 MM camera as my dad is chopping down a small pine tree in a path in the woods for a campfire. He has on a small white bikini and he’s just chopping away. He has a wonderful strong body and a deep tan, and suddenly, he stops chopping and looks up (like he’s surprised by the camera.) Then he smiles, holds in his stomach, starts talking and leans on the tree. Of course, the tree falls down and he is laying on the ground. I can remember as a kid watching these home movies and everytime we got to that part, my dad would put it in reverseand then forward it. He liked to watch it over and over and over again.
I hate to post bad stuff on such a warm thread but this is too much.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12…..ref=slogin
Lol. I can see where the refridgerator box and rocker would have been hugely disappointing.
elliot@65:
It’s only 2 stockings & depends on how fast one knits. Excessive coffee helps.
just don’t make them two left feet!
*grin* Yeah, they were the nice ones. The worst was the way he’d set them up: “It’s something you’ve wanted.” “It’s your favorite color.” “You saw it at the mall last week.” So, I’d be thinking it was the new couch we desperately needed, or the new sweater I’d admired, or possibly the garnet necklace and earbobs set I’d drooled over. But no.
He was pretty ticked though when I claimed the saw, the tool chest, and a couple other of my presents in the divorce. As I pointed out, they were gifts he gave me. I was just letting him use them. *evil grin*
although if you do, I can use them!
I love this!
I’m now wondering if I should tell the story of my ex-husband’s farewell and what we did to the bride doll he gave me. I think I’ll hold off.
Waccamaw, the last time I saw Pfifferling was the oktoberfest iirc.
elliot@70: No problem. These are the stockings to stuff little gifts in, no actual feet involved!
These gift stories are great. The jigsaw puzzle gift (from eg) is downright diabolical.
this is too much.
feh. Here’s what I want for Christmas. I wanna sit down with Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, Levin and other “leader” types in a high-stakes p*ker game.
I’ll bluff my ass off – they’ll all immediately fold, and I go home with *all* of their money.
Growing up, I had a great aunt that lived in an exclusive part of town. She would always wear her finest clothes and jewelry for Christmas at my grandmother’s (her sister) house. We would sit in my grandma’s family room as the adults watched the kids open their presents. I can’t recall anyone ever being in that room except for Christmastime. After the boxes of presents were opened, it was time to receive our gift from my great aunt. Without fail, every year, my generation received an envelope with a small amount of cash in it, as we opened it card, she would always say “And you can spend it where ever you want!”
One year, I returned from college with my girlfriend. She was from France and really wanted to see how American families celebrated Christmas. She was very gracious as she opened her gifts from my family. Then came the time for her card. She was given the same amount of cash as everyone else, but then had a very puzzled look on her face… When we left, she wanted to know why my great aunt wanted people to spit during the gift opening. We all looked at her, unable to understand what she was talking about. So, she says, when I opened her card, she told me: “And, you can spit where ever you want!” She said since nobody else spat, she figured it wasn’t appropriate for her to spit either. She had never heard of this tradition before and wanted to know why a family would do such a thing! :)
We now have a family tradition – when you get a gift card, we say to each other, “You can spit where ever you want!”
Thanks, eg.
Been a long time, then; hope she’s doing OK. Always get a little worried when people disappear for awhile….OTOH, Stephen Parrish, CPA did show up again recently. If AK would just resurface…*that* would be a good Christmas present.
We had an AK sighting, he called one of the pups and said he was ok.
In our family we have these ULGY (an I mean ugly) / STAINED TIES that get gifted around. It’s a privilege to get them, add your own stain pass them on. My bro actually won an ugly ties contest at a local hooters with them. 10 wings and a bottle of Dom!
jayt -
If there isn’t an internets prize for “best new word coinage”, there should be…….your “suckcess” would definitely be in the running for top honors. *g*
ccmask says”He has on a small white bikini and he’s just chopping away.”
Your parents were pretty liberal, then.
I don’t know. When I was a kid, I think it really was a time when empathy, sympathy, and comapssion were stressed. I was encouraged to think about “peace on earth and good will toward men.” I still get a little choked at some Christmas stories. It certainly beat “greed is good,” even if that philosophy does underlie most of the activities today.
I wondered about Big Mitch. I mostly lurked, but it seemed he may have taken offense at some of the debate over Israel.
thanks. I try to never let the fact that a word technically doesn’t exist get in the way of my using it anyway. *g*
I had an e-mail exchange with AK yesterday. He’s OK but his minders won’t let him hang out here right now. He sends greetings to all.
Hey, new words have to get invented somehow. Go for it.
Love this conversation but we are going to make a raised garden for the local soup kitchen,
Well, snowbird, lettuce not stand in your way. Have fun!
Omilordy! That is too funny!
In our family – to save money and maximize funniness – each person buys one downright ugly object for the gift exchange – with no one allowed to spend more than $2. (We haunt yard sales and junk shops all year long to find just the right monstrosity.) Everyone draws numbers, and #1 gets first pick from the ugli-cious display on Mom’s mantel. Everyone else can either pick a new object or steal a previously picked objet d’art from another person.
My favorite was the year I “won” the mounted deer head with a lamp in place of the antlers. I got to go first and not one person stole it from me. Not even when I begged.
You’ve been corrupted by the punster, it would appear. *g*
Jayt @ 86
Chuffed to know, so many words have come into the language through the efforts of public school kids, not having anything else better to do than make up odd syllables and using them in a sentence. Not to be out done, only in America can “bad” be a form of approbation; go figure.
Along with our below zero temps comes very dry indoor air. We need a cost reasonable, tabletop humidifier & I have been researching but cannot make up my mind. Anyone have a cool mist humidifer to recommend?
Not sure if it would work for you, but I use two Vicks cool mist vaporizors. One upstairs and one down, which work quite well.
Well, “chuffed” was an interesting choice of words. I assume you know that it has diametrically opposing definitions.
One is – ‘delighted, pleased, satisfied; another is ‘annoyed, displeased, disgruntled’.
I’ll assume you meant the latter.
Sorry, Arnie.
I know lots of real words too, if that makes ya feel any better.
I’d better go turnip down there.
God asparagus all
Ironragner
Knit striped socks? (I do Christmas stockings so I can find out how the pattern will work before I use the reqlly good yarn.)
One year my grandma was driving from CA to TX with one of her sons.
We got a large flat box postmarked ‘Dateland, CA’ shortly before Christmas. When it was opened – not dates, but a seatcover (white-enameled wood, not plastic) with ‘Always Open for a Merry Xmas’ on it in glitter and red and green paint! (It went with the seat reading ‘God Bless Our Mobile Home’, which had been wired to the underpinnings of our VW truck a few years earlier. By one of her sons. In her driveway. During the night. Granny could be an excellent accomplice.)
Better squash this before it gets out of hand.
Waccamaw, hello!
I only registered just yesterday! How sweet of you to think of me. Life tossed a big boulder in the road this past summer. Things will be fine! But I’ve only been reading here casually since then, so not following the comments much. I’m so grateful for FDL and all of you that help me stay connected to the States.
Speaking of which, my husband and I will be flying to NY in January. It’s only been two years since we were last there, but it feels like a lot longer and it will be so nice to see my family.
Someday we’re going to pop down to NC, Waccamaw, and have a big FDL get-together (or maybe we’ll be lucky enough to welcome you in Munich!).
Egregious, it is so wonderful to have you posting more. Christy left “Pull Up a Chair” in the best hands. :)
I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that my first post in the new format will make it through the tubes!
Pfifferling!! So good to see you :)
Thank you for the kind words of encouragement. Don’t be a stranger, eh?
Too funny! ROFLMAO.
Down boy,
you used assume, and it performed, just leave me out of it
before me is the (New) Compact Oxford English Dictionary which gives for chuffed:
adjective Brit. informal very pleased
–ORIGIN from dialect chuff ‘plump or pleased’
pace
A little late to Eg’s pre-Christmas fun, been posting fresh food for thought about Good Neighbors over at my new place.
There’s too little fun and silliness and sheer joy these days, so thanks for this topic, Eg!
Our family has some special Christmas traditions, the spaniels do their own gift giving, and that’s where we unleash our silly side. No practical pjs or such. Each year has a theme for them. One year, Marley’s gifts all started with “M”–and it took some doing to figure out the “M” in a Gary Larson desktop calendar….Month-by-Month, anyone?
Thank you, egregious! I’ll definitely be spending more time here now. Life’s too short to let the challenges get us down. :) (Sorry. That sounds so corny. But it’s true!)
My best Christmas ever was the year my husband gave me a pair of gloves and I gave him a hammer.
It all started when an ad rep for the weekly newspaper we’d bought a majority piece of kept on bringing in ads, answered the phone, got the mail — and then two weeks before Christmas we found out the ads were bogus and she’d done it for the commission (Small Business 101).
But my folks were so supportive and loaned us enough money to tide us over until my husband got a daily newspaper job — and enough for Christmas for our kids.
My favorite memory is of my son, at five and a half beginning to question whether there was a Santa Claus. He sat on his new trike, looked at his other loot, and said, “Mama, I know there’s a Santa because I know you and Dad couldn’t afford all this stuff.”
And so there was. And is.
Au contraire, my dear, will be here with the hot chocolate and homemade cookies all day. Come on in.
My sister is known for wrapping presents very securely, so one year we wrapped her very small box present completely in tape and papers, put that in another box well taped/papered and repeated several times. It was really funny, but boy she was pissed :)
my bad, then. Sorry. (and I had to pull out a dictionary too for the definition of “chuffed”). Hey – learned a new word. *g*
Jackie that’s the kind of thing we would do but I share your sister’s wrapping technique: I’m incapable of wrapping a package without using at least 1/3 of a roll of tape.
I love gift bags from the dollar stores. Wrapping gifts is one of the worst holiday chore, so time consuming. Gift bags can be reused for years & sure cuts down on the trash.
I know that this is way OT, but I need help with this site. I have signed in at the homepage. When I go to any other post, I am fully logged in. When, however, I go to the last Jane post, the site has no record of me being logged in. Does anyone have an answer?
Thanks.
When I was six Santa left me a shiny new bike. My parents had told me I was not old enough for one. My mom said I told my grandmother that I hoped my parents would let me keep it. They did.
smart daughter. usin’ her head. I don’t think my kids care who got it, as long as they get it.
Morning, eg, way late to the east coast party. Morning, RevDeb, happy fireplace!
Last Christmas was the lawn gnome Christmas, and not by design. Everyone, independently, thought they’d be a riot, so we had mugs, T-shirts, sweatshirts and actual lawn gnomes littering the living room at Grandma’s. Even scarier, when the power went out for three days SOMEONE thought it would be funny to scare the kids, so all the lawn gnomes started disappearing, and then would re-appear in a kid’s bedroom in the middle of the night, arranged so they appeared ready to attack. Cousin awoke in the night, saw the shadowy figures and screamed bloody murder.
The year my mom died she was in the hospital over Thanksgiving. It was the Worst. Thanksgiving. Ever. One of the nurses was selling these stuffed turkeys she had made – really cute, with a little vest and collar and reading glasses. We bought one for mom and now each year at Thanksgiving the turkey has a place at the table and one of us takes her home until the next year. Got left on a plane once and has gravy stains from sprout giving Grandma a bite of mashed potatoes when he was 3.
Sorry, have been upstairs trying to keep up,
Not a problem, the word threw me too when I first heard it over here. I would have bet it was a past tense form of chaffed (or irritated), and that was the source of the English Public School remark. (And I note “pace” should be “peace”, latin being a rarity usage). Since 1994 I have been enjoying how differently the mother tongue is developed in different places and in this instance, had a distinct advantage. Enjoy a new word.
Peace
Actually, they really weren’t liberal at all. He has on a white very low bikini and she has on a one-piece white bathing suit and white wing-tip sunglasses. I can never remember seeing him in something like that ever again–must have been because we were all in the woods.
Define “bikini”. A bikini is a two-piece bathing suit worn by women. Or it is where I come from. Is this an Americanism I’ve somehow missed? The name derives from Bikini Atoll, which the US nuked in an H-bomb test in the 1950’s, without resorting to Wikipedia.
I had a GF that once gave me a woolen “p*n*s” warmer (with a dingle bell on the end, no less)…I had to explain to her that whole issue of shrinkage. That if it was ever cold enough to wear it wouldn’t fit ;-)
She had no idea…
The late lamented love of my life taught me everything I know about quirky.. [He was a big handsome bold man and got a pass on things others simply wouldn’t dare (ask me about my private tour of the Queen’s yacht Brittania, or my trip to Tobago, or the mens locker room in Augusta during the National- I got a million of em )]
One xmas he flew into the city to spend the day with me and showed up bearing a huge gorgeous poinsettia. The next morning when we were leaving for the airport, he put the plant in the car. It was revealed he had tried to buy it from the security woman who had it at her station at the airport (old days)but she refused — it was a gift from her bf. So he paid her big bucks in rent and left his AmX card as additional security. She took the bf out for a fancy dinner. Both were quite pleased with their deal.
I experienced one of the quirkiest Christmas moments a few years ago while standing in line at a US Post Office. Everyone was waiting to mail holiday presents and cards. One middle aged man who was somewhat slow mentally announced to no one in particular that this was going to be the best Christmas ever. Every December for the last 3 years his ex-girlfriend had sent him a restraining order. This year, however, he was pleased to notice she had not done so. The absence of a renewed restraining order he interpreted as a sign of budding love and he was planning to suprise her with a Christmas card professing his love for her.
After an awkward silence among the crowd trying to avoid his gaze, one anonymous gentleman kindly suggested to the man “maybe you ought to hold off on that Christmas card.” Another woman agreed. I suggested to him that he wait until his ex-girlfriend sends him a card to know if she was interested in hearing from him.
The man initially waivered upon hearing this advice, but he then agreed with us that he would not send the holiday card.
I think we all had a better holiday knowing we helped in a small way to make the holiday more peaceful. We spared one woman from receiving an unwanted card and spared a “love-sick” man one more unwanted restraining order at Christmas.
Peace on earth, good will toward men. Is that too much to ask for?
http://video.google.com/videop…..;plindex=4
A Pachinko game.
Great story. A major gift to an unknown stalkee..
eg, this is a wonderful thread:-)
Thanks Sunny and I loved your story :)
Now about that men’s locker room….
And I’d like to hear about the tour of the Brittania…
anyhoo….
When I was a kid, we would get presents that had no original box wrapped in random shoe boxes. One year, I got what I knew was a shoe box and was delighted! “What could it be?” I thought as I opened the box and found — shoes.
But morleytrunk, what could be better than shoes?
They were pretty swank, shoes, i will admit; but I was expecting something else and my imagination was in high gear. It seemed a bit of a letdown that the shoe box was being used for something so pedestrian. Heh.
Pedestrian lol.
SunnyNobility @ 120 and 124
Thanks. The post office experience was quite a moment of group compassion for a stranger –or strangers if you include, as you say, the unknown (to us) stalkee. It’s the first time ‘don’t send a card’ was a wholesome holiday message, albeit an anti-Hallmark one.
Your experiences, however, DO sound like the stuff of romantic movies and would make a great holiday feature (maybe with some editing of the locker room scenes, I suppose). /smile