Anyone Want to Share About Their Best Gift?

Playing in the snow with my kids yesterday. The box from my aunt that had my favorite hand knit wool sweater that my grandma made for me when I was in first grade, a jumper with a white poodle on it that I remember my mom making, and a dish towel with images of handwritten recipes from my grandma, some great aunts, and old family friends. Priceless gifts!

My daughter's reaction to her Chicago Bears shirt was great. Never saw a kid so excited over a tshirt.

Oh how I would love my kids to come wake me up on Christmas morning. I was up, showered, dressed, and eagerly awaiting for my kids for 3 hours! I was so excited, but they were obviously tired. Once they finally woke, we had a fabulous day.

I got several gift cards for new clothes. I can't wait to go shopping since I lost 82 pounds this past year and haven't been able to afford a new wardrobe. I've been making due with the few items I have picked up.

Yesterday was my birthday. My son (36) announced his engagement to a lovely woman who has 2 daughters. My daughter (26) announced her engagement to her boyfriend about 2 weeks ago, he has 3 children. He works on an oil rig in Africa and got up at 3 AM so he could use the facetime feature on his phone to wish me a happy birthday.
His children are coming to visit 12-29, they live in Texas, he will be home 1-10-14, we are doing Christmas when he gets home.
So I gained 5 more grandchildren and 2 more more 'kids' this holiday season. Ahhhhh family I love big families and all the chaos.

Looks like they are both planning their weddings for summer 2014. It will be a busy summer.

My DIL's Mom lived in N. Dakota and her husband told her he was taking her and her son to Wisconsin for Christmas. DIL's mom called a few days ago and asked about her Christmas day plans. Not letting on... just drove in and knocked on the door about 10 yesterday morning. SURPRISE ------ Merry Christmas.

What a great day for our family.

My husband completely surprised me and gave 'us' (the family) a really cool light-up Halloween decoration: a huge black silhouette witch flying on a broomstick before a full moon. The moon light has about 5 settings for how the lights operate inside it. I'd made a comment admiring something similar a neighbor had-- I love the vintage decorations, and he must have remembered. What a guy!

I bought him a bottle of port, which he was really glad to receive, and Kiddo loved riding his new scooter today with his friend. All in all, a great day.

On Friday my niece was picked up by 5 paramedics from our local hospital to the airport and flown to Stanford Hospital, due to a failing liver.

As of Christmas morning we had not hear any news, other than it was stable.

Friday afternoon, I received a message saying her bleeding had stopped and that is what was causing the liver to go bad. They expect her liver to begin to heal itself and she should be home next week.

That was by far the best news ever on Christmas day.

On Friday my niece was picked up by 5 paramedics from our local hospital to the airport and flown to Stanford Hospital, due to a failing liver.

As of Christmas morning we had not hear any news, other than it was stable.

Friday afternoon, I received a message saying her bleeding had stopped and that is what was causing the liver to go bad. They expect her liver to begin to heal itself and she should be home next week.

That was by far the best news ever on Christmas day.

My best gift this year was one more year of the kids tiptoeing into our bedroom and whispering with each other debating which one of us to try to wake up and who was going to do it. This may be one of the last Christmases they do this sort of thing... son is 15 now and daughter is 12. He went to be early last night and didn't wait to hear 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Daughter did, she sat in my lap! :)

But next year, the whispering at 6:00 a.m. will be a welcome sound if it happens. I'm just not sure it will... they might be too old...
It was lovely this morning.... even after less than 5 hours of sleep. :)

Best gift - 3 hour nap. It was awesome!

Best reaction - 3 yr old & his dinosaur rain boots.

I got my daughter this princess car and oh my goodness.She made us go outside and watch her ride in it for hours,

(shes 3.)

My adult son came to visit me from out of state for Saturday to Thursday night.

my favorite gift was from my SIL, snow cone maker. i wanted it to bad but didn't dare buy it because i have filled my house with stuff like this, rice maker, bread maker, juicer etc.
best reaction was my 9 year old opening her laptop. i had told her no period, no discussion nada. hahaha she looked at me and just jumped on my face.
my other 9 year old was thrilled to get 2 japanese pullip dolls. those suckers are so expensive, so i got her one and santa got her one. i had also told her she is crazy to think i would buy a doll that expensive. so she couldn't believe her eyes.
best moment? when i tucked in my 9 year old in her bed way past her bedtime and we started kissing each other so that we could be the last to give the kiss. i haven't laughed that hard in years. it was awesome.

the ol' man gave me a mac mini, which i need desperately as this one has been dying slowly for the last year. so that was cool.
but i think i got the most excited about a gorgeous pair of mismatched knitted socks from santa, and the elizabeth vandiver lectures on homer on dvd that my excellent sons gave me.
i'm almost finished with the 'year of firsts', so was thinking this christmas, the first without little mumsie, would kinda suck. i got overwhelmingly sad sometimes during the preparations, but overall it was surprisingly sweet and enjoyable. and certainly way better than last year, with its hospice and suffering.
having the boys come home is always wonderful. i know it won't go on forever, so i really appreciate this phase. they live elsewhere, but this is still 'home.'
khairete
S.

I didn't get much, but I really enjoyed seeing my kids get so excited over thing. My oldest even danced around over socks!

Best reaction, which was also the best gift: 3 year old jumping up and down shouting "It's what I always wanted!"

My best gift I was given? underwear. Seriously. My underwear was/is holey and I can't even remember the last time I bought any.
My best gift I gave? Um, we got my eldest a new iphone...well, it hasn't been DELIVERED YET, but that's what he got and he was very excited about that. We also got my middle son an ipod (my husband's old one that we just reset) and he hasn't put that thing down since he opened it.
L.

A really wonderful card from my daughter. It said all the things a mother wants to hear.

Isn'tthisfun When I was living at my moms while going to college I was still tiptoeing into my moms room to wake her up. You might have some more years of it!

I was very excited over the baby food bullet I received from my mom. And a picture frame from my husband. We have NO pictures up in our house so to finally hang a frame made me very happy.

Best reaction...kind of hard. I was taking pictures of the kids and husband and they all had a lot of happy and bright surprised faces. I guess for my son would have to be the power rangers suit and sword he got. He played with those all day after we were done opening gifts

My best gift I rec'd was from the 3 yr old I babysit for! It was a painted square canvas with our last name painted in the middle. He helped me hang it out on our screened in porch and is probably still smiling from ear to ear over how much I loved it :) I think I like that a little more then the tissue butterfly magnet we made over the summer!

My best gift came from my husband (and we don't usually do gifts for each other, other than 1 new ornament.) It is a Roomba--yay for robots!

I got him a Groupon gift for an 8 lap Nascar driving experience at the Joliet (Chicagoland) Speedway. Because he actually had to read the details of it to understand it, his reaction was underwhelming ;-)

We bought our 2 kids each a 2ds. It's what they "really" wanted so they pretty much knew they were getting them. So my son opens his first, he's so excited. Of course, my daughter knew she was getting one too but hadn't opened it yet, she had a different gift in her hands (we go around the room and open one gift at a time). So I turned to her and told her 2ds hadn't been delivered yet, but it was on it's way and I was sorry she had to wait a few more days for it. I saw she was a "little" disappointed but she said it was ok, she was glad she was getting one. Well, she opened the gift then on the next time around, she picked up the one that had the 2ds in it. She had in her mind that she wasn't going to be getting it so imagine her surprise when indeed she DID get one, and when she opened it, her response was PRICELESS! She was SO excited and happy that she actually DID get it! I loved it!

And my husband is all crazy this year about Finding Bigfoot so I got him a "Bigfoot Rescue" which included a little Bigfoot stuffed animal and a book. He got a big kick out of them, among some other Bigfoot items I got him.

I got nice jewelry, 2 pairs of fuzzy boots and 2 pairs of fuzzy slippers, so I was happy my husband took me seriously when I told him I felt like my feet were freezing and I wanted "warm" shoes. lol Those of us who live in AZ "freeze" when it get's below 75 here. =0)

I got a new wedding band! I was so happy! I have had the same band since we got married 12 years ago, and this one is beautiful.
After all the stuff we gave my 3 yo, her most favorite thing was a stuffed Rudolph. Her eyes got huge and she screamed "RUDOLPH!". He goes everywhere with her now. I could have just saved my money on the other stuff! lol