Christmas Gift Ideas!

[keysunset]

I like to hear ideas about Christmas gifts - either others you plan to give or ones you've been given (even if you gave them to yourself! ;D)

One of the gifts I gave to myself is a Braun 7-cup electric water kettle. I use it almost every day, sometimes more than once! It's great for quick hot drinks as well as getting water started for making rice or spaghetti. It's quick and easy. Turns itself off when the water is boiling (so no forgotten pots on the stove!) I love love love it!

Something I plan to give this year is the striped shirt that Rockbeast found at Overstock.com. I bought one for Mr. Keysunset. I think he will look really sharp. Plus we have a family tradition of giving clothes at Christmas and then wear a "new" outfit on New Year's Day!

What are some of your ideas?!

[teakay]

My little tradition is buying Mr. Teakay a cute pair of boxers every year. He loves them. So far he's got Joe Boxer, Sponge Bob, Cat in the Hat, Foghorn Leghorn and some other Looney Tunes ones.

[Tooks]

My mom and I always have theme every year - one year it was action figures so we got an action figure to fit the personality/likes of every member of our family. This year the extended family gets "Mom's favorite things"...so they're all going to get things that my mom likes and she thinks they'll like to.

We also have personal themes - one year my theme was Metallica so I got my mom all the Metallica stuff she didn't have yet and this year my mom's theme is music so I'm gettin' all the Lovehammers things I don't have as well as an mp3 player and some other CDs and stuff I don't have yet.

[julianah]

We have an interesting tradition in my extended family. I think it came from my great-great-great grandmother who was from Germany. Anyway, we get prezzies and a stocking from Santa on Christmas, but we get a second stocking when we get up on New Year's Day. This stocking isn't filled by Santa, it's filled by our parents.

Of course all my cousins and I loved this tradition when were kids. When I found out that my friends only got ONE stocking, I felt sorry for them. It works out really well for the parents too. It makes leaving the kids with babysitters on New Year's Eve very easy. There is never any whining and crying -- all the kids are good as gold and go to bed early because they can't wait to get the New Year's stocking.

Another tradition in my family is opening one gift on Christmas Eve. It's always PJs or a bathrobe from mum (so that everyone will look nice in the Christmas morning photos).

Edited to add: My mother is really into genealogy. She spent years tracing her family history and gathered piles of photos/tin types and recorded conversations from elderly relatives. I borrowed her collection a few years ago and transcribed the tapes. I'm a graphic designer/writer and I took a class in bookbinding when I was in art school, so I compiled all the photos and stories into a hand-bound book for mum. It was her favourite Christmas gift. She treasures it. (Some of her friends saw it and I ended up getting more than a dozen orders for other family histories. This was when I was freelancing full-time. They're fun projects and pay really well.)

Anyway, I've gotten requests to do one for my dad's side of the family (all of my aunts want one). I've been too busy to do it this year, but I'm going to try to get it done for Christmas 2006.

Book-binding is quite easy and a lot of fun. The results are definitely worth the effort. It's an excellent skill to have and can lead to so many gift ideas. I've written and illustrated personalized stories for each of my nieces and nephew each year for their birthdays. I also made a leather-bound collection of a friend's poetry for his birthday one year and have bound some of my writer friends' short stories for them as gifts. My ex was a musician so one year I made a beautiful edition of a concerto he had composed. I also made him a really nice notebook with sheets of blank manuscript paper.

[brightside]

Along the book line, I got some of the small photo booklets made from www.mypublisher.com ($9.95 each) and they came out well. Good quality, prompt shipping, etc. If you know Photoshop or another graphic program as many of you obviously do, you can put interesting backgrounds and borders on the pics. They also have bigger and more elaborate ones for a higher price.

[rockbeast]

I need L'Strange my address is:

...

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[julianah]

brightside said:

Along the book line, I got some of the small photo booklets made from www.mypublisher.com ($9.95 each) and they came out well. Good quality, prompt shipping, etc. If you know Photoshop or another graphic program as many of you obviously do, you can put interesting backgrounds and borders on the pics. They also have bigger and more elaborate ones for a higher price.

I'll have to check out that site. I'm always looking for short-cuts.

If you want to save money, binding your own book is really simple. I use the hand stitching method. There are lots of instructions on line if you Google book binding. I usually buy acid-free paper from an art supply store. I also have a number of friends from art school who are into paper-making so they give me paper to work with. One of my friends gave me a pile of paper she made from corn husks and cotton. It's beautiful. I used it as the outside surface for some of my hard-covered books. I have another friend who makes paper from dryer lint. It makes a really strong, pretty paper.

Here's one of my other money-saving, gift-giving ideas. I started doing this about 4 years ago. I taught myself to knit because I needed to keep my hands busy while trying to quit smoking. I started designing my own sweaters and hats. When my friends saw them they started putting in requests. I like working with natural fibres like silk and linen, but they're really expensive at the yarn store. So, I started going to second-hand shops and buying sweaters that were knit from really good-quality yarn. I wash them when I get home and then unravel the yarn. Then I use them to knit my own designs. Because I like to design things that use a loose stitch so the fabric drapes, I can usually get two new sweaters out of one old one (at a cost of about $2 each). Here are some pics of things I've made. The lilac baby sweater was inspired by a Debbie Bliss design. I have lots of munchkins in my life so I'm constantly knitting baby sweaters. The multi-coloured hat was my first attempt at crochet. It's made from scraps of ribbon tied together. It's been very popular with my friends. It's light enough to be worn all year-round; we call it the "bad-hair-day hat". I accidentally dyed my hair peach last year and it was the perfect thing to wear to the beauty supply store to buy some ColorFix.




P.S. For those of you who saw my "dressing while drunk" photo; the white sweater in the first pic is the one I was wearing.

[teakay]

julianah said:

brightside said:

Along the book line, I got some of the small photo booklets made from www.mypublisher.com ($9.95 each) and they came out well. Good quality, prompt shipping, etc. If you know Photoshop or another graphic program as many of you obviously do, you can put interesting backgrounds and borders on the pics. They also have bigger and more elaborate ones for a higher price.

I'll have to check out that site. I'm always looking for short-cuts.

If you want to save money, binding your own book is really simple. I use the hand stitching method. There are lots of instructions on line if you Google book binding. I usually buy acid-free paper from an art supply store. I also have a number of friends from art school who are into paper-making so they give me paper to work with. One of my friends gave me a pile of paper she made from corn husks and cotton. It's beautiful. I used it as the outside surface for some of my hard-covered books. I have another friend who makes paper from dryer lint. It makes a really strong, pretty paper.

Here's one of my other money-saving, gift-giving ideas. I started doing this about 4 years ago. I taught myself to knit because I needed to keep my hands busy while trying to quit smoking. I started designing my own sweaters and hats. When my friends saw them they started putting in requests. I like working with natural fibres like silk and linen, but they're really expensive at the yarn store. So, I started going to second-hand shops and buying sweaters that were knit from really good-quality yarn. I wash them when I get home and then unravel the yarn. Then I use them to knit my own designs. Because I like to design things that use a loose stitch so the fabric drapes, I can usually get two new sweaters out of one old one (at a cost of about $2 each). Here are some pics of things I've made. The lilac baby sweater was inspired by a Debbie Bliss design. I have lots of munchkins in my life so I'm constantly knitting baby sweaters. The multi-coloured hat was my first attempt at crochet. It's made from scraps of ribbon tied together. It's been very popular with my friends. It's light enough to be worn all year-round; we call it the "bad-hair-day hat". I accidentally dyed my hair peach last year and it was the perfect thing to wear to the beauty supply store to buy some ColorFix.




P.S. For those of you who saw my "dressing while drunk" photo; the white sweater in the first pic is the one I was wearing.

Do you take orders?

[julianah]

teakay said:

Do you take orders?

I used to. I would again if I could figure out how to clone myself or get by on less than 2 hours sleep per night. I just had to ask a client for an extension on a freelance graphic design project. I had everything in balance before I developed this Marty/LH obsession. There just aren't enough hours in the day. It's a good thing I don't have kids or they'd probably be toddling around my messy flat in yesterday's filthy clothes, eating peanut butter out of the jar and wondering why mommy never puts down her laptop. My cat's lucky I'm still remembering to feed him twice a day.

[rockbeast]

Wow Julianah that is really cool!!! I would totally wear something like that (if it was more masculine of course!!)

Good work!!

[julianah]

rockbeast said:

Wow Julianah that is really cool!!! I would totally wear something like that (if it was more masculine of course!!)

Good work!!

Thanks, Rockbeast. I've offered to knit Marty a pair of buttless chaps for Christmas but I haven't heard back from him yet.

[rockbeast]

julianah said:

rockbeast said:

Wow Julianah that is really cool!!! I would totally wear something like that (if it was more masculine of course!!)

Good work!!

Thanks, Rockbeast. I've offered to knit Marty a pair of buttless chaps for Christmas but I haven't heard back from him yet.

[rockbeast]

oh and I do not have any family except my mother. Any ideas on what to get her? she is over 83!

[julianah]

rockbeast said:

oh and I do not have any family except my mother. Any ideas on what to get her? she is over 83!

I just bought something for my great-aunt that I think she's going to love because she has poor circulation and her feet are always cold (she also has rheumatism). They're soft chenille slippers socks. They have inserts in them (they smell like lavender) that you put in the microwave (like a Magic Bag) and then put them back in the slippers. Then they keep your feet warm for hours. (You can also put them in the freezer to cool off your feet in the summer.)

My mum is 62. Both she and my dad want iPod Shuffles for Christmas. They're both freakishly fit and look like they're in their forties. They want to wear their iPods on their 15K daily walk. I always give my mum some smelly Body Shop stuff too. I'm giving my dad a black & white Cuba Vera shirt I bought on eBay. He has always dressed like a hippy but I started giving him Tony Soprano-esque shirts a couple of years ago and now he's addicted. He looks so cool.

[franny2]

julianah said:

P.S. For those of you who saw my "dressing while drunk" photo; the white sweater in the first pic is the one I was wearing.

Julianah, your work is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!

See, you CAN put your talents to work for good instead of . . . anyway, since you have already nailed down the perfect look for the first sweater, I'd be happy to take the second one off your hands. Based on the suggestions you gave me the other day, I think I know just the thing to wear with it . . . how long is it?

That sweater and the ribbon hat . . . perfect

[julianah]

franny2 said:

Julianah, your work is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!

See, you CAN put your talents to work for good instead of . . . anyway, since you have already nailed down the perfect look for the first sweater, I'd be happy to take the second one off your hands. Based on the suggestions you gave me the other day, I think I know just the thing to wear with it . . . how long is it?

That sweater and the ribbon hat . . . perfect

Well, Franny, you've already seen the EVIL I put that white sweater to.

P.S. That DUI photo has changed since you last saw it -- thanks to JD.

P.P.S. You asked how long the second sweater is -- not long enough. But we wouldn't let that stop us, would we?

[keysunset]

Mr. Keysunset bought me a Sunbeam "Cuddle Up" warming throw. It's like a personal size electric blanket. Machine washable. I've just about worn mine out. Really nice to "cuddle up" in when I'm reading in the chair or watching a movie from the futon. That might be an idea for your mom, Rockbeast.

[Ayesa86]

hmmm...I'm making my mum a "Best of Marty" CD with a really nifty cover I made as well as the Lost Boys Soundtrack...

Probably get my dad some Jimmy Buffett stuff & mayber the Spamalot soundtrack.

That leaves my brother...maybe I'll finally get him a fedora like my black one, help him start his fedora collection^^

[keysunset]

Oh, the Spamalot soundtrack!! I would have LOVED to have seen that. "Sounds" like a good time will be had by all in your household!

My nephews (11 & 13) are really into Legos. This year it is especially Knights Kingdom (cool chess set that apparently won't be available until next year) figures as well as Star Wars Episode III and Harry Potter sets.

[keysunset]

I'm sorry, I seem to be monopolizing this discussion, but here's another idea for the person who has everything:

www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.204586/

I think this will get you to the gift catalog. My mother-in-law, among her chores growing up, was caring for the geese so one year I drew her name I gave a gift of geese through Heifer in her honor. Then my daughters and I cut/pasted/colored a Christmas "card" for her describing the gift and including photos from the "catalog" that I printed out and pictures the girls drew.