It's pretty lame, but when you purchase stuff at Christmas generally you get a little carried away and buy things that either someone really didn't want much, or are such poor quality that they break if not in 12 months the do a few years later. Not to mention electronic stuff that just goes out of date in an instant (lol). I don't have many memories of gift giving past mainly due to that, save one:

One Christmas in the 90s I purchased for my father a really, really decent Maglite security torch. Over 1ft long, strong aluminium casing, powered by 4x D-cells, really bright standard bulb with a focusing adjustment, the works. One of those bl--dy heavy ones that you saw ad-nauseam in action movies which if you cracked someone over the head with it you'd at least give them a concussion.

Why bother with this anecdote? He's still using it. It's the go-to torch for every midnight animal check, every power-gone-out meter check. It consumes batteries like a beast and although it doesn't perform quite as well as the ultra-bright halogens or LEDs now popular but it's there. Enamel paint scratched, casing a little bruised, but functional and beloved. Every time it gets picked up it's a reminder of the happiness my dad had in his eyes when I bought it for him as a kid so long ago. I didn't have much and the torch was expensive back then, but TOTALLY worth it. Nothing like a gift still giving decades later.

NOT in this year PaterAlf & Skimmie. I've had many gifts this year from so many others which are still making me happy. Have a great Christmas y'all.

When I was a kid we decorate christmas tree with soviet union xmas toys. Some of this looks weird. I remember shiny cucumbers and corn with clothespin. I added an photo of this artifact. :D

I'm in.

As my family is moving to a island we have to pack everything in a container. All the Christmas decorations are in the back so no tree of lights for my family this year

I see we're off to a great start already! Thanks to everyone for the lovely stories so far :)

The best christmas gift i ever gave was to my mother. She and I have always been the Christmas fans of the household, so when I was still living at home I was always tasked with finding a good christmas gift for her.
One year, I managed to convince everyone that we should get her a new nativity scene (the old one was small, ugly and pretty damaged). I wanted to get her a new crib, new sculptures, the works. That did take some convincing (a new set is expensive as hell here) but eventually everyone agreed. So we went shopping and we found a really beautiful scene, with lovely liflelike sculptures and a real woorden crib and everything. I wrapped every statue separately, so when it was time to unwrap the gifts and she got one little sheep statue, she liked it but wasn't especially impressed.
As the evening progressed and she unwarpped more and more statues, it slowly dawned on her that it was a whole set. The final gift was the crib itself and by that time, she was almost in tears.

That nativity scene must be 20 years old by now and it's still in use (and in almost mint condition, too, despite it being a dog household). She still talks about that gift every christmas.

Thirteen years ago, I traveled to Indonesia through the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. During Christmas time, I was living with a Catholic family, and -- as common in Canada -- I purchased Christmas gifts for everyone. Although the exchange of gifts is not a particularly strong tradition in Indonesia, they also got me something. They didn't exchange gifts amongst themselves. They didn't put up a tree. But they still recognized that giving me a present would be important for me, just as going to Mass was important for them.

The gift itself wasn't particularly important... I don't even remember what it was. I think it might have been a CD (I had been using songs to learn Indonesian). The most important thing was that they were willing to acknowledge that I had different traditions and to practice them for my sake. That sort of kindness is far too uncommon.

EDIT: Turns out I have a picture. It was an AlfaLink (a sort of digital dictionary).

Best gift I gotten is book I wanted from my aunt.
Worst Christmas time was in first grade, which I spent crying and arguing. :(
Thank you skimmie and PeterAlf for great Christmas tradition.

Please do! This thread is about enjoying the christmas spirit together, so anything related to that is welcome.
Congratulations!

Congrats, firstpastthepost!

This has become a continuous thing, awesome!
Thank you PaterAlf and skimmie for doing this again and thus creating another lovely Christmas tradition! :)

Can't really remember any cool or amazing physical present I received from my folks or friends. I guess the most awesome gifts I got for Christmas are the games I got in Secret Santa events over the last few years (Don't know exact count but I think I've been participating for 5 years or so in those).

However, I can tell you about my absolute favorite present which I gave to my loved ones. It's easy to describe it in detail because it's happening this year and in all honesty I can't wait to see my parents' faces once they open the present. :D
It's a useful present that is also a very good joke thus making it even warmer on the family-holidays-meter.
Earlier this year I noticed that the toilet seat in my folk's bathroom is in pretty bad shape and told them they should definitely get a new one. They replied in total disagreement with my statement and no intention to act upon it.
So, about a month ago I got an idea for their Chritmas present. Bought a toiler seat in color matching the active one and wrapped it very nicely in a gift paper. The gift paper is totally childish and was worth about 1/3 of the actual gift, another funny thing I enjoyed about this whole deal. xD

As for the giveaway, I would very much like to be in. But as it was last year as well, I would ask you that you sent me the present outside of Secret Santa event active dates. That means before the 16th or after the 25th. Of course, no biggie if I don't make it on the "good children list", I'd still be happy about all the other GOGers you'll make feel the warmth of Christmas with this giveaway. :)

Ah, decorations. We had many, some pretty neat and other that failed badly! :P

My favourite comes from my early childhood. We used to mount a big (or at least, back then it seemed big to me) metal pole with some smaller metal branches and use them to form the silouhette of a pine tree with respectably sized Christmas colored lights. I liked it so much, and during the night the lights always filtered from the windows. I also thought I was some kind of engineer when I went downstairs to turn the switch on.
Alas, a certain neighbour didn't appreciate. The same one who made another boy from my area quit playing the saxophone because "noise". What an ass.

We also used to light a few fireworks, but with the years they had been made illegal since people smuggled real destructive bombs with the regular ones. Still today in some... uhm... less civilized areas of the country people tend to get themselves and others killed. A guy made the news once because he used a damn FRAG GRENADE to celebrate the new year. You can guess how that went.

Today we put blue lights on our olive tree, they look good, and various decorations outside doors and windows.

About the giveaway... well, I can't say no to such a generous offer! :P
It would help me quite a bit on the entertainment side, since funds are very few and the catalog is dry. Thanks a lot!

In Polish tradition there is a special Christmas decoration. Sadly, it's almost completely forgotten and I bet many Polish GOGers will not know what I'm taking about.

Well, this decoration is simply called Pająk which translates as spider. Originally it was made from straw but later other materials were used as well. This decoration is actually very old, much older than the Christmas tree which came to Poland roughly 200 years ago. At that time people with Christmas trees were considered progressive and sometimes even being accused of betraying our traditions! I'm very sad that Pająki are not popular anymore and as I said before - many poles even don't know them.

I attach a few nice pictures of Pająki. None of them is mine though. I do have a few but currently there are at my parent's place where I intend to go this Christmas.

I'm in

So, my daughter decided we are to have a Christmas Pickle, and we play that game every year, with different ornaments. Most notably, we do doves, because my daughter has this pseudo fear of them and their mastermind, Dave, who is observing us and readying for world domination. The doves will observe us and report back to him at random intervals on our whereabouts and our habits, so we find dove ornaments in the tree at different times of the month and some messages from the doves from time to time.

It's quite fun to play along, really.

Not in, but +1 for having a giveaway!!!

Thanks for the giveaway.
Not in, just reading. :-)
(And maybe I will come up with something to share. But so far, there was nothing "really" special I can think of, though all christmas years were special to me up until my late teens/early twenties. It was always very calming and just comfortable to spend Christmas with the family. I miss those times a little bit. Life seemed effortless back then.)

(If it was build/manufactured right, the blades should rotate when the candles are lit. It's what makes this particular decoration special -at least to me-.)

Edit:
Just remembered:
My dad and I went "window shopping" one year when I was still a teenager. He pointed out a shaving set (one of those with a thick brush for the shaving cream, nothing electrical), talking about quality and such, I believe it was summer. For that christmas I bought him a shaving set (don't remember for sure, if it was the very one he had pointed out, but it very well might have been, because otherwise I wouldn't have known which one to buy -I am female-). He was very surprised and happy. He still uses it.

K then...will do in a bit....:)