Best Christmas Gift Ever

[Sentry18]

Now that it is December and Christmas time has arrived, tell us what was the best Christmas gift you ever received. Feel free to throw in a 2nd and 3rd place contender too if you are so inclined.

For me it was many years ago when I still had to work all the holidays. I was alone with everyone (friend and family) away celebrating Christmas, including my new bride who was at her parents two states over. I worked 3 straight shifts, got one day off (12/25), then had to work straight through New Years Eve. I was all set to spend Christmas Day at home all alone eating a Swanson TV dinner and watching National Lampoons Christmas Vacation when I got an unexpected text to meet my wife at the airport in 3 hours. She decided that there was no way she was not going to spend her first Christmas as a married woman without her husband and booked a flight home. It was a comedy of errs trying to get her home in a snow storm with delayed flights and the like, but she eventually made it and we had a very nice evening together. We have never been apart for Christmas since.

Otherwise it would be the Atari 2600 I got as a kid from my parents. They had fully convinced me it was not going to happen and that I was getting more practical stuff instead. After opening all the practical gifts, saying my thank yous, and believing Christmas was over; I went to the basement to find the game console all hooked up to our old TV with a bow on it. I think I was perhaps 9 years old.

 

[LadyLocust]

Ah Sentry, this doesn't compare to an Atari, but you might like the little story. When I was about 8 years old, of course my folks started asking what I was going to ask Santa for. I said I couldn't think of anything and there were lots of kids who didn't get anything so maybe he could give one of them my present. (Yep, I was that kid.) Christmas morning, I was surprised to see a manicure set complete with nail polish. I have always loved doing my nails, not sure why - grew up on a ranch. Anyways, I loved that set.
By the way, my kids are now grown, but my daughter would probably still have a list of wants a mile long. My son is more like me. One year took him to see Santa. He asked for a screwdriver. Santa said "What?" Son said "A screwdriver, you know like for fixing things." (Geesh Santa - don't even know what a screwdriver is?) Santa got a chuckle out of that one.

 

[Sparky_D]

Had to dust off the cobwebs to find a memory of a specific gift that stood out...

I was 15 and my sister had just turned 13. We were finished with the wrapped gifts under the tree, but my mom said there was still a gift for each of us ON the tree. We each found small cards with our names on them.
Inside the card was a phone number. We both had the same number.
My mom said "Why don't you call it?"
We grabbed the kitchen phone and dialed the number.

It took us both a second to realize there were phones ringing IN OUR BEDROOMS!

Mom and Dad got us our own phone line! To be fair, my sister was on the phone A LOT more than I was, but we had a little bit of independance that Christmas.

The kicker was Mom had the lines installed while we were at school and they sat there for a week before Christmas. She later told me that she and Dad plugged the phones in while we were sleeping Christmas Eve.
My sister and I woke up with the phones on our nightstands and didn't even notice them when we woke up, lol.

 

[Bacpacker]

My most memorable Christmas was when I was 12. Mom and Dad got me a set of Craftsman tools. Complete with roll around cabinet and top box. I still use a good amount of them to this day.

 

[Cnsper]

My most memorable was one we gave our grandmother.

It drove her crazy not being able to figure what the present was before hand. She asked me for hints, I told her she had half of one. She said, then I will have a whole one? I said no, you will have one and a half.

She would pick up the box and shake it. I warned her that it was fragile so she quit.

When she opened it Christmas Eve it was a four slice toaster that she had wanted. We got a good laugh at the look on her face. She said that she would have never guessed.

 

[WVDragonlady]

My husband made me a flag holder for my father's flag that was on his coffin.
That to me is better than anything that could be bought
I plan on handing it down with my father's purple heart medal and his discharge papers from the Army

 

[ClemKadiddlehopper]

The first time I ever saw Santa Claus.

We were less than dirt poor living in a clapboard house in an off grid time warp. We rarely received prezzies which went along the line of a pair of socks for the boys and a pair if undies for the girls and trust me, those were cherished.

One year, it was incredibly cold; -50F. We were piled under blankets on one mattress along with the dogs and Dad's last two bottles of beer; only way to keep it from freezing.

Any hooo....we heard bells outside. There was a loud banging on the door and Santa in a moose hide coat came barreling inside. He gave each and every one of us an orange, also something we had never seen before. Dad gave Santa a beer and we watched him drive off in his sleigh pulled by two genuine reindeer. In later years we discovered they were horses with deer antlers strapped to their heads

BEST CHRISTMAS EVER and those oranges were the best presents, in my mind, to this day.

 

[Amish Heart]

I got a blue scooter when I was little. Rode that thing everywhere.
Orange in my stocking, too, and a candy bar.

 

[Sentry18]

These are great! But I am betting more than 8 people on this forum have received a memorable Christmas present. Keep 'em coming!

My wife just old me that the best Christmas present she ever got was a little blonde girl born just a couple days before the celebrated birth of baby Jesus. Then she gave me that look again when I told her what I wrote up in post #1. I told her that was my story and I am sticking to it.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

One of the best Christmas presents I have ever received was 2 .5 years ago.
When I opened a present in a present.
1st present was miniature Military Police Badge with my shield number on it.
2nd present was a miniature Army Uniform complete with rank, name.
3 rd was miniature Jump Boots complete with spit shine.
4th was Miniature Military Police helmet.
5th was miniature baton.
But taped to the bottom of the 6th and final box was the announcement "Baby ******* would be making appearance 4 July 2017.
She made her appearance 29 June 2017.
And I still have all the gifts in a shadow box that was made specially for those gifts.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

As a child a plentiful gift would have been an orange,book(Trixie Belden or Nancy Drew),new robe, pj's.

 

[backlash]

First Christmas after I got married, my wife bought me a fly fishing reel. She had saved for months to buy it. We couldn't afford it but she wanted to get me a present. 49 Christmases later I still have it. I still get a little choked up thinking about it. I have no idea what I got her that year but I can guarantee it wasn't much. $189 a month didn't go very far and that's all the Navy paid me at the time.

 

[Patchouli]

It was an experience not a present I received. Maybe I have mentioned this before. There was an alignment of planets in the eastern sky one Christmas Eve. I was probably 10 or 11 and had read about it in the newspaper as a celestial event to look for. On Christmas Eve we kids would usually stay up til 11 and get back up at 2 a.m. I don't really remember what time it was.
This time my mom got up too, she went outside with me and we marveled over it together. It made me feel like God was real and He really did have a Son who was born those many years ago who would grow up and be the Savior of the world. I think as little kids we know God is real but then as I aged, I wondered how I could know, was it still true...and I know it is today.
Some of our Christmases we have been blessed when others surprised us with anonymous gifts, money and food. Unexpected, so much appreciated.
Once you know how awesome that is, it makes you want to do it for others. Pay it forward. Spread the love.