What did you give to someone that he/she just loved?
My son finally got a dog, after begging for several years. They adore each other.
I bought ice scraper mitts for the ladies at work (on clearance at Kohl's over the summer for $1.80, normally $18 each). They were some of my best received gifts! I guess it is the thought that counts, not the price tag.

In the early fall of 2007, my aunt lost her husband. She didn't get a tree that Christmas, which was understandable. I heard her telling my mom that this year she probably would get a tabletop tree.

I was glad - since I had purchased about 20 "bird" ornaments at the 90% off sales at Target the year before, with the idea of designing a table top tree for her. I even mounted the tree into a real birdhouse (her DH used to make birdhouses in his retirement - that was his passion). I put their house number on the birdhouse, put lights and birds on the tree, and I have to say that I thought it turned out gorgeous.

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"The errors of faith are better than the best thoughts of unbelief." - Thomas Russell

That sounds so cool! I wish you had a picture for us!

This year I made a scrapbook for my only sister (and her husband). They have no children, neither does my only brother, so my two boys are it on my side of the family. The scrapbook was made with a page dedicated to our mom and one to our late father and the rest have her (or her husband) with my boys. It covered Christmas, Baptism, birthdays, Halloween, graduation, Easter, goofing around, etc... She loved it! My mom and I also went together and bought her a laptop since she loaned my brother and me some money-long story, has to do with putting my moms house in my brothers name and paying me for his share and he didn't have enough, etc..All worked out well and I thought she should be rewarded and my mom agreed. She had no idea! It was really fun! So, two awesome surprises this Christmas for my sis.

My DH got me a topper for across my Whirlpool washer and dryer. It's like a big shelf with a ledge across the back. No more lost socks/undies etc dropping behind and in between. The cool thing was.....my DH and DS were walking through Sears and saw it on a display with a clearance sticker. My DS said to the sales clerk, "take another 10% off this and we'll think about it, take 15% off and we'll take it." She checked with her manager and came back and said ok on the additional 15% off. I've raised both of the boys to "drive a hard bargain."

What a lovely and thoughtful gift! Did your aunt love it?? I'm sure she did!

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I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code. -Emo Phillips

We were able to buy all 3 kids (all in college) new MacBook computers this year. They were very unexpected for all 3 of them, and they were so excited and grateful to get them. I don't know how I'll ever top this one. ...LOL

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I got my oldest daughter a lambie blanket, and relaxing lotions that I got on sale. I thought it would be nice for her to cuddle up in the soft lambie blanket when her dh is out to sea. She loved it! I gave my dh a GC for a local inn, so that we could go away and have a nice romantic dinner, and stay in one of their fireplace rooms for a night. My youngest daughter got several nice gifts, she seems to enjoy the Wii games the most! As for me...I am loving my dustbuster.

That I gave would be the digital keychain to my mom and the collage frames to my MIL, G'Ma and my Dad. None of them had been given updated pics of my kids in SEVERAL years and we (hubby and I) actually had a couple pics of us too. lol
To my DH he really loved his Wii games for GH and RB and the extra guitar for RB, but I think the U of O Duck (who won their bowl game last night!! GO DUCKS!!!) stadium chair with arm rests was a hit! This is actually for next years high school football season as we will have two cheerleaders to go watch
For my girls....I think they were the most excited about Mario Kart for younger DD and Madden '09 for older DD. They wanted those games but really didn't think they would be getting them.

To DH, would be a Canon digital camera.
To DS2, would be his Ipod and Ravens game tickets.
To DS1, would be his tuition...LOL no actually, he seemed to like the Hell in the Cell DVD set that I picked out all on my own and his full-size, noise cancelling headphones.
To someone with O+, A+, B+ or AB+ bloodtype, would be the pint of blood I donated. The gift of life.

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I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code. -Emo Phillips

What an awesome gift.

My dad had been a 44 pint donor, and this year I made it my lifetime goal to match his amount (I'm at 18 or 19 pints...a long way to go!). In his obituary last year, we asked that in memory of him, if anyone was willing, a blood donation would be most appreciated.

Regarding your other gifts to family - I gotta become a member of your brood!

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"The errors of faith are better than the best thoughts of unbelief." - Thomas Russell

I'd like to thank you for that gift!! I was diagnosed with leukemia in Dec. 2002, and depended on blood and platelet donations to keep me alive!

Dh transferred all his childhood family home videos to CD this past year. As he was viewing the footage, he realized that he had alot of tape of his cousins and their parents (his aunt and uncle) The aunt and uncle have been gone for years and years. He realized that his cousins probably didn't even know that this material existed, and that they would love to see it. So he made copies and sent them off to each. Needless to say, they were very thrilled and touched to have the memories back. DH lost his dad this past year- I'm sure that is what motivated him to do this for his cousins.

We "adopted" a little girl this year for XMAS. We bought her all of her Christmas gifts. We have no idea who she is, other than the school she goes to, but, am sure she was thrilled on XMAS morning.

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

Youngest DS and I went and bought 7-8 baby outfits, some baby socks, a couple of baby toys, added all that w/ the cheap diapers I got from the CVS.com deal and we took them to our local home for unwed mothers.

Youngest DS was so sweet picking out baby outfits--he wanted to get things that were cute, but would keep the babies warm!

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

Reading all of these posts, but especially this one gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, esp. when you think she may not have had anything to open if it had not been for you!

cjs216,
Sending another Thank You from our family too.

For the last 2 or 3 yrs of his life our son had been getting blood transfusions regularly.

He got to live longer because of people like you giving blood.
thanks, Shirley

While I didn't actually 'give' this gift, my son did; but the story behind it warms my heart.

Finances have been tight these past two years and my oldest son really wanted to give his dad something for Christmas. Well, he wrote him a note that included a picture of this expensive speaker set, saying that "I've got you covered, dad".

Turns out that my son sold his very expensive gamepod chair that we had given him two years ago to be able to buy his dad this gift. Even though he is my most difficult to raise, he is really a tender-hearted kid. (He did a similar thing so his brother could get an ipod touch).

It was a great Christmas.

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The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near."

I gave my kids their FIRST trip to Disneyland. I sent them on a treasure hunt after all the gifts under the tree had been opened and at the end of the hunt was a note telling them them(in the form of a poem) they were going to Disneyland. The funniest part was my daughter(who just turned 8 on the 23rd) telling me we didn't have enough money to go. She didn't believe us. She just kept saying we didn't have enough money. I had forgot about our BIG money bucket and telling her it was for Disneyland(3 years ago) and telling her when it was full we could go. Well, needless to say the bucket isn't full so she just kept saying we didn't have enough money. When we finally convinced her we were really going then all she could do was obsess over the bathroom and how she could hold it on the drive from AZ to Cali(she is diagnosed OCD so it can be a little crazy!!!!). It was the PERFECT trip!!! We left on the 29th and got back yesterday. The kids had a blast which made it all that much more perfect for me.

Dil has a Christmas b'day, so my gift was really her b'day gift given at Christmas. (we only do stockings for Christmas, big gifts are saved for b'days here)
Gave my dil a starter set of the good china she'd hoped to receive as wedding gifts. She didn't get even one piece, and though she'd never in a million years say so, she was disappointed.
I found an unbelievable deal on her stuff and was happy to be able to give it to her. She is every mom's dream of a young wife for her son, I'm thrilled she's in our family. She is from very staunch Scanderhoovian stock, and whilst she laughs easily, I doubt I will see her moved to (near ;-) tears of joy very often. I did see it this Christmas, it was a real thrill for me to be the one who made her eyes glisten and leave her at a loss for words.
Gave the adoptive mom of one of my kid's bio sibs a scrapbook with pages of our relationship through the years, she told she bawled over it.
DH always gives me gifts that move me to tears, I love when I am able to do it for him (rarely ;-) or someone else, what a great feeling!
MZ

MZ, you about had me bawling reading this post. What a WONDERFUL thing to say about your DIL.....not many of us are that blessed to have a MIL like that.

Love the scrapbook idea, too.

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

My favorite gifts were to my nieces and sisters I wrapped a whole bunch of gifts and put them into gift bags they loved opening a lot of presents.

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