Listling Without Commentary: Responses From AS Writers to “What Was Your Best X-Mas Gift Ever?”

Yesterday we had a brilliant idea to construct a Christmas Nostalgia Post detailing some of the best Christmas/Hannukah gifts we’ve ever received in the history of our lives.

The responses garnered from our Contributing Editors in a reply-all email were not, exactly, what we had in mind, nor did they conform to our specific instructions.

These are those responses:

1. Keurig Coffee Maker

2. “The Lion King”

3. Easy Bake Oven

4. Batteries

5. Used, tag-less shopping bag from the ’80s wrapped in an empty used candy box wrapped in trash

6. Bulk box of eight bars of wholesale lavendar soap

7. A single pencil

8. 23 pounds of paper

9. Neon orange slide

10. Half-eaten candy cane

11. Snoopy Sno-Cone maker

12. Necklace bearing a giant sticker reading: “WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. WASH HANDS AFTER HANDLING”

13. Freezer mold to make my own liquor luge

14. Sweat-band

15. Popples (“that was a pretty good year”)

16. Birthday card with a cat on it

17. Box of cereal (“unironically”)

18. Plastic food w/plastic refrigerator

19. Miniature Spanish-English Dictionary

20. Hee-Haw Themed overalls (brother received a matching pair)

21. Cactus

22. “Baby Talk” doll

23. A handful of unwrapped toe socks

24. “Strawberry Shortcake Very Happy Home”

25. Life-sized doll constructed to look exactly like me (my height, hair color, eyes etc)

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Laneia

Laneia has written 310 articles for us.

63 Comments

    • I remember one of my personal arguments I used to use to deny my lesbianism was that I enjoyed Polly Pockets too much to be a lesbian because ‘lesbians don’t like dolls’. Oh, sweet ignorant youth.

      • I did the exact same thing. Except sometimes, my Polly Pockets would have kinky sex with each other. But that didn’t mean I was gay!

  1. I don’t know if you all are aware of this but popples are the key to saving the world. VIVA LE POPPLES!

  2. I got an epic bag of tools, with both the “basics” and some stuff specific to my hobby/work of building/fixing computers from my Dad one year. Made this dyke super happy.

    • I got a swiss army knife. 25 tools in one. Beautiful. With that, some duck tape, that 30-foot rope bracelet you get at thinkgeek, and my edible plant guide, I could survive ANYTHING.

  3. “25. Life-sized doll constructed to look exactly like me (my height, hair color, eyes etc)”

    Woah. This person was/is so lucky. All I ever got was a mirror…

    • Sounds like a My Twin doll. My sister had one. IT WAS CREEPY. It even had the same freckle patterns as her.

      • I get My Twin catalogues 2 or 3 times a year thanks to whoever lived at my house before me (pretty sure an old woman). I’m totally interested in getting ones for my roommates that resemble them.

    • it wasn’t My Twin doll, my aunt made it herself, like with a needle and thread and yarn and stuffing and etc. it was as big as me! it didn’t actually look like me, it looked like a ragdoll version of me, kinda. bcw has seen it, she knows

  4. When I was little it was Pokemon Red for gameboy. I Still have. I still play it. I still wanna be the very best, like no one ever was.

    This year it was a trio of gift cards to Target, Trader Joes and Amazon. Which means I can clothe myself, feed myself, and buy those head phones/books on story structure/face cleansing masks I’ve been wanting for awhile.

  5. Nothing really comes to mind from Christmasses past, so I guess I’ll do this year.

    An orange moose “from a Swedish Ikea” and recycled fabric owl wallet/purse from my wonderful Dutch friend. I think the sweet little notes dispersed throughout the packaging was what made it for me, to be honest. :)

  6. For me, it was a Nintendo 64. That was my Red Rider BB Gun. And my parents insisted I wasn’t getting one, they couldn’t afford it. But there was one box under the tree that was the right size and sufficiently heavy enough to be it. And lo and behold, it was! I was super excited.

    Then I realized I suck at video games.

  7. I got tickets to two hockey games (I’m Canadian, it’s an exciting thing) and am getting my next tattoo paid for. I didn’t actually get to open any presents, yet it’s probably the best haul I’ve every had.

  8. I got to go to Disney Land for Christmas/My best friends birthday last year. It was the best to go now that I’m old enough for the rides (I think I was 7 last time I went).

    • To be honest I wasn’t so much impressed as disturbed. I mean somebody gave you mold from their freezer for the holidays and you made a liquor luge out of it. It really is unsettling on every level.

    • I had to Google what a liquor luge was and I’m still not entirely sure, but it definitely sounds impressive.

    • Now that I actually know what a liquor luge is, I am JEALOUS! IT SOUNDS AWESOME. Seriously. I cannot wait to make my own. I’VE GOT DIRECTIONS. THANK YOU, GOOGLE.

  9. Barbie Fold N’ Fun House!! haha! What can I say? I ended up in Architecture School… My barbies had a Jeep and roller-blades… they were cool! I tried giving them cool short haircuts, but that didn’t end up well.

    • I got the Barbie Fold N’Fun House. Apparently, my three-year-old self though that everything involving Barbie has to be an alliteration using the letter B. I opened the present and screamed, “I GOT THE BARBIE BOLD AND BUN HOUSE!!!”

  10. I once got a massive box full of all 150+ back issues of a comic book I had been wanting to read. That was pretty fucking awesome!

  11. This year I got a fleece-lined flannel shirt, two new pocketknives, and a 7/16 wrench. I seriously don’t know how many more hints I have to drop before someone in my extended family goes “oh…she’s GAY!”

  12. Top three? Ehm…Big Trak, Metroplex, Mega Drive. Nothing has come close since, although I still get a bit excited over really well presented DVD boxsets!

  13. Mine was the used ’80s bag wrapped in trash (and the bulk lavender soap)! Best gifts ever, ooooobviously. I feel pretty awesome that it made it into the article excerpt.

  14. My older sister got me an apple corer and a cheese grater that also does citrus zest. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. (I am excited about silly things. I am also excited about how she remembered I won’t eat apples unless they’re sliced.)

  15. I’m not sure about best, but I think the Star Trek: The Animated Series box set my sister-in-law gave me this year has got to be top 10 at least.

  16. This year my mom got me a novelization of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band movie from 1978 starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees. It was even cheesier than the movie and it’s possibly the best gift I’ve ever been given. (Also, my birthday was three days before Christmas, and she baked me an axolotl cake and gave me a Vin Diesel movie. My mom is the actual best mom.)

  17. Best christmas present ever was this years. I got New Rock boots (big knee high goth boots, which a) look ausome and b) are atchually VERY comfy).
    Best present ever was my mum paying for my first tattoo for my 18th (still need to atchually get it done though).
    :D

  18. One year our family Christmas gift was a DVD player when they were still fairly new and that was pretty excellent.

  19. When I was eight, my More-Nana (i.e., maternal great-grandmother; that was what Mom had called her great-grandmother growing up) got me the Little House on the Prairie / Laura Ingalls Wilder boxed set of books. I was so so so happy and excited – I had read all the books my school had multiple times, and had seen the boxed set at the bookstore before, but it was like $70.00 (which was even more money 12 years ago). I pretty much spent all of the rest of that break reading.

  20. my best gift this year was a digital blood pressure machine.
    ive taken my blood pressure 4 times tonight already…..

  21. A got a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle vehicle and TMNT Sewer House when I was about 10. Best. Gifts. Ever. I still have the Sewer House and all of my action figures. I still also play with them. NO SHAME Y’ALL, NO SHAME.

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