I’m a regifter.
Yep.
Please reserve your judgement. This is about to get interesting.
See… I’ve been given all sorts of gifts this year. From two blogger conferences, I’ve amassed enough kitchen supplies to equip a small army of chefs.
The good news is that I want to share all of this loot with you. It’s not that I don’t love these things, it’s just that I love regifting more. It’s like the most fun recycling… ever. That’s where you come in.
I’ve got silly whisks. I’ve got gorgeous cookbooks. I’ve got coffee and milk frothers. I’ve got choppers and tenderizers. Cuisinart, people. I’ve got fancy sporks and way cool forks… all sorts of little gems.
I’m regifting four little bundles of kitchen goodies to four of you. Keep the goodies as a gift to yourself or regift them this holiday season. I won’t tell a soul!
To enter this (both humble and perhaps ethically questionable) giveaway, just leave a comment in this post sharing the best holiday gift you’ve ever received. Comments are accepted until Sunday at noon.
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One year I went to Uganda to do research for my master’s thesis in counseling and when I got back I was in a lot of culture shock and having a hard time adjusting back home. For Christmas that year, my cousin secretly collected all my pictures and blog entries about my time there and put them into an adorable little scrap book to help me remember what I learned there and all the people I met, but also to remember why I needed to come home and finish what I had started. It was such a surprise that she would do something so creative and so meaningful to me at the time! I still have that book and look at it quite frequently when I am homesick for Africa and my friends there.
Best holiday gift every year is continued good health, happiness, and friendship!
My favorite Christmas gift isn’t a specific item – it’s the fulfillment of a tradition my mother began for me over fifty years ago. Every Christmas I get a new book to enjoy. I have a library degree and work in a bookstore; my to-be-read pile is more than a full bookcase; but the one year that Santa forget to gift me with a new book for Christmas, I was crushed and pouted my way through the day. Now that my parents have passed on, a dear friend has taken up the tradition.
Last year, my mother put together a handwritten cookbook for me of all our family’s favorite recipes. She along with both of my grandmothers each wrote in their own favorites, then she photocopied both of my deceased great grandmothers’ famous recipes to include as well. On every page she added pictures of me in the kitchen at various times with all these wonderful women. Just to have these family recipes all in one place is so handy, but having them all in these five women’s own handwriting makes it so much more special. Best gift ever, by far!!!
I still remember large and cute panda-bear-toy. I was 5 and hospitalized for the first time (during Christmas Holiday)
My engagement ring that I received 20 years ago!
Here’s where I get all shmoopy. I have a difficult relationship with my mom. About five years ago she bought me a heart-shaped, ceramic trinket box. The cover of the box reads, “You are my daughter.” On the inside it reads, “I am so lucky.” That small gift trumps every holiday gift I’ve ever received.
I like to think of my new boy-bot as an early Christmukkah present.
I like gifts that are very practical. I have a particular friend who is very good at this and one Christmas she got me a French press. Definitely the best gift I’ve got and I use it several times a week. :)
every christmas my aunt gives me needhams and italian wedding cookies, my favorites! i look forward to it every year. i love them! can’t wait until christmas. homemade treats trump almost all other holiday gifts i’ve received!
Best gift ever: A bike! So I could work off all those extra cinnamon bun induced calories…..
My favorite gift was a little doll made by my then six year old.
I think my favourite Christmas gift has been from my parents. For the past few years they have given each of my sisters and I two place-settings of holiday red transferware. Each piece has a different picture and part of the story “Twas the night before Christmas” entwined in the delicate design. My sisters and I look forward to pulling those dishes out and setting the table at Mom and Dads house for Christmas morning breakfast every year.
martha stewart cookie book! and other cookbooks i just love them!
My best gift was a bus ticket to Colorado to see one of my best friends. See, I’d just started college far away from everyone I’d known so it was a bit of a lonely semester since I’m just not the most outgoing of people. I was able to visit my family for Christmas and that was great, but they could tell I was missing having good friends around so they sacrificed a little family time to me just so I could a high school friend.
The Greyhound bus ride, itself, was long and strange… As they usually are. Hot, strangers falling asleep on your shoulder, and the landscape outside somehow more desolate than it should be… It was even weird on the other end where my friend was waiting. The bus was late and no one there seemed to know what was going on. Worse, another bus from my area showed up… But I didn’t get off of it. They were getting kind of concerned!
Anyway, we had a blast and that, combined with my family visit, really recharged me for the next year!
Best holiday gift – that would be a whole stack of beautiful cookbooks with illustrations and full colour photography and all.
If it didn’t have to be a “holiday” gift, I’d definitely say, my dog :) A month old Maltese puppy, which was cooing like a pigeon and looking like a smiling daisy flower. That was fifteen and a half years ago; she died this summer after a very full life…
Probably one of the best gifts was from my father. He has the (wonderful) idea that, even though his boys are all grown up, they should still get a toy every year for christmas. A few years ago, that meant that my brother and I, both in our twenties, got model rockets. My brother, my father, and myself then proceeded to spend boxing day afternoon launching them, and giggling like small children. Gifts (or moments, or conversations, or memories, or whatever) that remind us how to laugh and see the world with wonder are the best sort.
I am up but not awake yet. He greats me with a grin and wants me to sit down in my favorite chair. He presents me with his guitar case. “Open it”, he says. I do and hidden in every pocket is a gift for me. I honestly don’t remember what I got–it was more than 10 years ago and many Holiday’s together. I do remember how excited he was at giving. You could tell he had planned this for months, and his joy lasted past that day. That moment remains with me and the many more my husband has shared with me. The joy of giving is a precious moment.
Let’s see, the best Holiday gift…
Well, it wasn’t really a holiday, but I have to say my bed. I used to have a horrible mattress that hurt my back and creaked all the time, and them my parents gave me a nice IKEA mattress and a bigger bed! Sooo comfortable…
I received a sewing machine from my mother-in-law, and can’t count the times it has come in handy. I love it!
Ahhh regifting, its like anything else those who can, do it well. Then there are those who cant and give you the re-gifted item, with bits of original wrapping paper and tape on it…..I will not use names to protect the innocent.
a beautiful victorian style dollhouse when i was 11. i loved decorating it!
The best holiday gift ever has been watching my kids unwrap their presents. Of course I like to get presents, too–cooking gadgets are tops–but it’s watching other people express their joy that really makes it feel like Christmas to me.
Best holiday gift… how about a TASER from my dad? Yes, it keeps me safer, but it was also so fun to tell people what I got for Christmas and see the looks on their faces! Gotta love my family :)
When our children, of course, we would fill their stockings with little toys and candy from Santa. Somewhere along the way, our daughter realized that our stockings, hanging next to theirs, were never filled. So, when she began to have money of her own, she would fill our stockings with our favorite candy and a few other little treats.
She was married this year, and I know that when she returns home, she will secretly take our stockings down, fill them with goodies and hang them for us to find on Christmas morning.
It has never mattered what was in the stocking, just knowing that she filled them with love was all that I needed. I look forward to it every year!
A few years ago, I was headed to Australia for Christmas with some friends. I also have a really tiny apartment and no room for gifts! My stepmom sent me a small box for Christmas. It contained: a scarf for a friend of mine who was traveling to Australia with me, a check, a perfect wooden spatula from Iceland (that I use almost daily!), and Ambien for the plane. Perfect!
The best holiday gift, is getting to be with my family.
How in the you know what are you going to possibly read all 1752 replies?!?! ;)
You must enlist your family and split it up!!
Merry Christmas!
Last year my sister-in-law got me about 20 different perfume samples and wrote me notecards about each one. I liked trying all of the different perfumes!
The best gift I ever received has been the cookbooks by mom has gotten me through the years. Every year, for about the past 5 years, my mom has bought me a cookbook for Christmas. If it wasn’t for her doing this, I never would have discovered King Arthur Flour Cookie Cookbook, which is AMAZING.
A brand new 10 speed bike put together the night before Christmas by my big brother. It was sitting under the tree when I woke up. It was beautiful!?
Merry Christmas, Joy. :)
My engagement ring in 2004!
mine would have to be a teflon pan. seriously? yeah, my crepe-loving family was most happy giving it to me with some (rational) anticipations.
hands down SPACE:1999 Eagle Transporter, Circa late 70s, christmas in baltimore.
Wow. The spirit of Christmas! I just wonder whether Mary regifted some of the stuff she was given. I mean, sure she could use the gold; she and Joseph probably ploughed the sale of the gold into building up their burgeoning carpentry business. But the frankincense and myrrh, well…uhm. Frankincense and myrrh, admittedly, was pretty valuable stuff back in the day. It was used for everything from embalming to incense for religious ceremonies, but in the end, both these gifts are just gum resin. She probably didn’t have a lot of uses for it personally. Regift!!!!
My dog! I can remember how excited I was to wake up and see that sweet dog in my kitchen.
In high school my family all pitched in and helped pay for a trip to Europe for me. What a gift!
Last Christmas my aunt gave me a quilt that my late grandmother had completely hand-stitched. Not only was it beautiful on its own, but I am a quilter, so I think it’s totally fair to say I appreciated it in a way that no one else in our family would have.
To slightly cheat, though, I have to say that for my December birthday this year, my two boys gave me (a) a collection of Theodore Roosevelt’s works from the bookshelf in our living room (because they had conspired to ask me whether I liked fiction or non-fiction, and if perhaps my non-fiction interests extended to presidents); (b) a Reese’s peanut butter cup that my oldest saved from his Halloween candy because he knows they’re my favorite; and (c) a blue Hot Wheels car that my youngest sacrificed because he knows that blue is my favorite color. They couldn’t understand why I cried when I was telling my friends on the phone about my fabulous presents.
My engagement ring Christmas of 2007!
I love kitchen gadgets!! Thanks for the giveaway!
I guess I’ve received many nice gifts for Christmas over the years, but the best gifts are the handmade things my boys made when they were young–the little hand prints in plaster casts, the woven pot holders, the painted rocks(!!) You can’t put a price tag on those things!
Merry Christmas!
Wow, loaded question! The last couple of years my parents have given me tickets to a musical I want to see, which I think is great. This year it’s including dinner at our favorite restaurant in the town we used to live in (which is where I’m seeing the musical). However, I’m also really excited about the pearl necklace (which I know nothing about) that I’m getting from my boyfriend this year :-)
The best gift I got when I was 5. On New Year’s Eve (in Russia we celebrate New Year’s instead of Christmas) when “Father Frost” (aka Santa) came to visit us I pulled out what then seemed like the most giant Christmas themed teddy bear. I’m 18 now and she has been with me ever since- she’s been my go to for comfort every time that anything has ever been wrong. The best Christmas gift ever was Nancy! <3
My best gift ever? My husband being cancer free.
After two losses and a long difficult pregnancy-our sweet little miracle baby came two weeks after Christmas :) He is baby #3 and such a joy!
Ohhh how exciting! The best gift I’ve ever received? That my 95 year old grandmother is still spending Christmas with our family.
My best Christmas was last year. I learned I was Cancer Free! :)
A bear from my boyfriend 4 years ago. It reminds me of all our silly memories of goofing off together.
my daughter, Reilly…as they say “the gift that keeps on giving”!
have a happy Christmas and a healthy New Year
Joy!
Every year while we’re traveling, my husband sneaks off and pockets a small stone from wherever we’ve landed. Every Christmas the rocks are in my stocking, engraved with the location and date. It might sound weird, but I love looking at the collection on my bookshelf and being reminded at a glance of all the incredible memories, the great opportunities we’ve had, and that I married the most amazing person I’ve ever met.
Mu husband and kids gave me a certificate last year for a dinner every month that they would cook for me… and do the dishes!!!
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