I’m 65-year-old grandmother, a semi-invalid with a husband, five living children (we lost one almost three years ago), and a Ph.D. Last year I got mainly gift certificates for book stores for Christmas.

This is what I always get for Christmas, because everybody knows that I read all the time. Besides an indeterminate number of paper books–it used to be 4000 but I think it’s down to about a thousand, both because I now live within two blocks of a library and because I have been slowly replacing paper books with electronic books.

I have three ebook readers–the original Rocket, which in some ways is still the best; the eBookwise, which was the first acceptable copycat of the Rocket and will do some things the Rocket won’t; and the Kindle, which is awkward in the way its buttons work and is not backlit, but it has the most available books of any commercial site, and provides instantaneous electronic download. Read More »

I am a 30-year-old female with 3 children. Last year for Christmas I was given a special edition of the board game Scrabble. I love that gift, just wish I could get someone to play it with me now.

My husband gave me a new set of pots and pans – not very romantic, but badly needed. He also gave me a power drill so I would stop asking his dad if I could borrow his.

Again, not very romantic, but I was thrilled it was for me since he can’t be trusted with a tool at all! My mother gave me a blanket wrap – it’s the softest and coziest fabric I’ve ever had near my skin!

She also gave me a gift card to JCPenny so I could finally get some nice curtains for my living room. I used the gift card to buy gifts for my sister-in-law’s wedding gift.

I’m running out of excuses why I haven’t bought my curtains yet when my mom asks about it! My mother also bought me a cheap coffee maker so she and my father could have coffee when they come over for Christmas breakfast! Read More »

I am a 74 year old grandmother of seven and mother of four. Naturally, I receive a great many gifts throughout the year but especially at Christmas time. Last year I received over 20 different gifts, but there was one in particular that I cherished the most.

It was from my 4 year old granddaughter Kae. What was so important about this gift? Was it expensive? Was it something I needed? Was it something exquisite and delicate? No, none of those would describe this particular present.

As I said before, it came from my youngest granddaughter, who just turned four this month. I looked at the big mountain of packages that had my name scribbled on the tiny cards attached, and this little envelope just caught my attention.

When I picked it out from among the various boxes and bags, my granddaughter recognized it immediately and starting clapping her fat little hands saying “grandma, that’s mine”. Of course, we all laughed and I carefully proceeded to unwrap my very special envelope. Read More »

I am a 36 year old woman who is happily married to a wonderful man and last year my husband gave me beautiful Kitchen-Aid stand mixer for Christmas.

I have wanted one for many years but they are very expensive so I could only hope to get one someday. We are on a very strict budget so I had no hope of getting one last year.

After eating a lovely pancake breakfast we sat down to open our gifts. I was thrilled with my new scissors and stocking full of odds and ends from the Dollar Store, a family tradition is going to the dollar store and filling the stocking till it bursts for under $15.

When we were first married we had a $10 Christmas where we each spent $10 at the dollar store on each other because that was all the money we had. After I cleaned up from breakfast, my hubby placed an enormous box in front of me, wrapped in 6 layers of wrapping paper, covered in dozens of bows and tied with about a mile of ribbon. Read More »

I am 36 years old, mother of three and married to my best friend. He got me an IPOD last year for Christmas and also the Bose iPod dock station which he knows I love Bose!

It has been a wonderful gift! I use it in the kitchen and works great. It doesn’t take up a ton of space which is nice and it sounds like a full size stereo system.

Its been nice owning an iPod as it has given him a reason at every occasion to add the accessories to my collection of iPod gadgets.
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