Best and Worst Christmas Gifts You've Received?

[You Need a Thneed]

Best Gift: Korg M1 Keyboard and Amp - restored my passion for music after years of piano lessons.

[troutman]

Best Xmas gift - Drinking all night with the Irish in Banos, Ecuador

Worst Xmas gift - Missing Hotel curfew, and sleeping on the streets of Banos, Ecuador

[polak]

Originally Posted by troutman

Best Xmas gift - Drinking all night with the Irish in Banos, Ecuador

Worst Xmas gift - Missing Hotel curfew, and sleeping on the streets of Banos, Ecuador

[trackercowe]

Best: Sega Dreamcast, the first console I really knew about what to look for going in. While I did get previous consoles for Christmas, I was just a stupid kid who had no idea what he was getting into. When it came to the Dreamcast I knew why I wanted it and what games I wanted with it. 1999 was also the first year I went Boxing Day shopping to snag a bunch of games.

Worst: Stupid board games; every year my dad gives me terrible board games that never get opened and go straight in my closet, and eventually to Goodwill. Fun, playable board games that others are willing to play is one thing, but he gives me junk like these games:

[edn88]

Best - Atari 2600 VCS - I think when I was seven years old my parents got this for my sister and I. One of my most vivid childhood memories - opening the box and playing those games...

Worst - I probably blank out the memories, but also don't really think of gifts as worst. My wife has missed the mark a few times over Christmas, but they have been okay gifts in the end, and I typically go boxing day shopping for what I really wanted anyway.

[Dion]

Best gift - A week of skiing with family at Panorama

Worst gift - My mother tearing the ligaments in her right knee that same week in Panorama

[Sr. Mints]

This is probably going to come off as exceptionally cloying and lame, but nothing really stands out to me as a best or wost gift. In fact, I don't really like giving getting gifts and don't think I ever have. I find it much more satisfying to hunt down that perfect gift for someone; it's a really rewarding feeling to me when I feel like I've succeeded.

Some things I still have that I received for Christmas gifts over the years, though:

I received a book called Star Wars: Heir to the Empire. My dad got it for me, and I suspect it's the only gift he ever went out and bought on his own, everything else was done by my mom. And maybe 75 Star Wars books later, it was probably the first that I read, and one of the better ones. That is a good memory.

"Santa" got me a rock tumbling machine when I was a little kid. I polished rocks night and day for YEARS, and the thing still runs. It was blue with a black drum, and solidly built unlike cheaper plastic ones I see on occasion. I gave it to my cousin's kids not too long ago.

My brother got me a copy of NHL 09 for the PS3. He was pretty heavily into it, and wanted someone to enjoy it as much as he was. Two years later I finally bought a PS3.

[troutman]

Tell us your best and worst Christmas presents

http://holidays.canoe.ca/Features/20.../20392586.html

[troutman]

My friend's brother gave out fake winning lottery tickets one year. Good Times.

[dissentowner]

Best gift - Atari 2600 when I was 7. Close 2nd was getting my Big Wheel when I was 5.
Worst Gift - Really lame books my aunt would buy me that were boring as hell.

[J Diddy]

Best: I have to go with the NES as well. My parents turned into a scavenger hunt...took me all morning to find it. Not too many presents last as long as the NES did for me.

Worst: A Glow Worm doll. What 10 year old BOY wants a Glow Worm? Every gift i opened that morning was heman, starwars and transformers. so I thought it was just the glow worm box and the real present was inside. I tore it open and nope...stupid glow worm. Glow worm!!!

[WhiteTiger]

Hm, from a purely materialistic point of view, this was probably the best present I ever got when I was a kid (Spoiler for size):

Spoiler!

As to the worst...about 7 years ago, my then-girlfriends parents-in-law got me a "manicure set for guys". I spent a good while wondering what in the world they meant by that.

[Wormius]

Best: A Coleco - superior to the Atari and Intellivision, and awesome games and accessories (I guess at the time) and a mini Q-bert standalone game. Food-wise, I loved Nutchos.

Worst: A steam valet, when I was 16.

Best: "Clerks" shoes and a trip to Maui.
Worst: a leather backpack that the colour of a poop if you drank a gallon of mustard.

[MRCboicgy]

Best: Game Boy. It was a total surprise, they knew I wanted one, but I thought we were too poor for it, so I didn't ask for it (probably second year after figuring out the Santa deal)

Worst: ingrown hair tweezers. Really? What are you trying to tell me?

[Cowperson]

My birthday is a few days before Christmas so, as a kid, it was usually a linked thing.

BEST: Ski Boots for my birthday and skis for Christmas.

WORST: A tube of modelling glue for my birthday and a model airplane kit for Christmas.

We were poor.

Cowperson

[gargamel]

Best: Zubaz pants. Quite possibly the ugliest pants ever made, but I loved them as a kid.

Worst: Anything where I'd open the complementary part before opening the real gift, but I'd still have to act like it was nice just in case I didn't get the real thing. "Oh wow, a playstation controller! I don't have a playstation, but my friend does and this will be awesome to use when I go over to his house. Thanks!"

[East Coast Flame]

Best: Trip to Disneyland

Worst: Pooper scooper

[MRCboicgy]

Three pages in and no one has mentioned an STI? I expected more of this group...

(and maybe how you got it was the best)

[Mass_nerder]

I can't think of the best gift
but the worst was definitely a "Thomas the Tank Engine" book my aunt got me when I was like 13-14.
It's not even like I had some crazy interest in trains.