Oh, I just remembered.
One big extended family holiday gift-giving party, when I was, let's say, 12. I received from three different relatives, three pink sweaters. I hated pink at the time.
Another one, about age 20?, from an older cousin that had given me strange gifts in the past, like the candle you had to burn to get to the money ($1),
I got the strangest large woven beehive-like thing.
I still to this day have no idea what it was, why, or what for....
Thankfully, she only sends me a card now.
This thread is hillarious...
Reminds me of the one with odd clothes from your childhood.
That was cracking me up, too...
But to answer the question.
My sister (who is slightly mentally handicapped) got me an ashtray (I don't smoke) and a pair of flip-flops (hate those things) for my birthday.
My husband got a pair of used oven gloves and some ancient snack bowls the christmas before last (my mother was mortified)!
A dress, size 18.....I was a size 6 at the time.
somebody gave you Bm ??
thats not funny
but it is strange.
I got a can of dog food one christmas.
Caribou, I hope it wasn't a Martin Puryear... that'd be worth serious money now.. (he has a current show at MOMA).
Then there was the christmas gift back when I was young and stupider than even now... a boy I had a crush on - we both worked after school at a hospital, were sixteen... gave me a small teddy bear. I was so stupid, slaps own head: I thought he took one of his younger brothers' toys. Didn't know what to make of it. Just blinked and said 'thank you very much'.
Urrrrg. Even if he did, I should have figured that he'd thought I'd treasure it.
That fellow got me back, in a way..
well, subsequent to the thudless teddy bear debacle on my part, I sort of caught on and asked him to my junior prom. Pizza at my house (well, hey, we were living at my aunt's) with another 'couple', followed by a dad taking us to the prom. This was back when having a car at sixteen was not usual, at least in my neck of the woods - that was in the late fifties.
Nothing horrible happened but it wasn't Maureen Daly's Seventeenth Summer book either. Let's just say he got over me.
One day in the late eighties, I saw his name in the LA Times, some rave for this excellent graphic design extravaganza. Called him up, long time no see.. Said I'd asked him to my junior prom. He said, "Oh!! did your name used to be Susan???" with complete glee.
Er, no, it didn't.....
I gave my inland sister a wicker lobster pot one Christmas. She turned it into a lighting fixture for her dining room.
A friend gave me a yellow-colored plastic camel as a wedding gift. It was beautifully wrapped though. She isn't poor but she is not famous for her good taste either.
Some one else (no name on the gift. The giver understandably preferred to be anonymous) gave us a large paperweight. The paperwight was full of some liquid in which was a ganesha wearing swim trunks and floating among bikini-clad girls...And again it was cheap, colorful plastic.
I think we have a winner.
Osso, It was more like this...
v.....e.....r.....y interesting!
I want that paperweight! :-D
GreenWitch or someone may be able to comment more authoritatively, but that beehive thingie looks sort of like a frog/toad house to me. Put them in the yard, attract amphibians.
That present was a loooooong time ago. I'm surprised I remembered it. I think I was so shocked by the thing, I'm not sure if she told me what it was for or if I asked.
It's all sorta a blank.
Anyways, a quick search produced that photo I posted. I think that photo was a woven beehive.
My thing... I don't know... I'm wondering now if it was an extra large bird roost or something along those lines. I just don't know. I'm not even sure how I got rid of it. I know I didn't have a backyard or anything at the time.
Shock and bewilderment, I'm telling ya. That's what I unwrapped. Shock. And that's about all I can remember....
Strange how the gift-giving mind works. and what it can do to the recipient's mind
Chai,
a can of dog food?
Is there any more to that story?
I haven't figured it out yet. My parents gave it to me.
The strangest present I got was from my grandmother. Before I go much further I should say that, yes she is in an assisted living home now.
I received a pair of blue, adult sized baby booties (I was 13) and a chalk board that chalk would not write on. Seriously, the chalk would just not show up, I have no idea what that was about.
I got off better than my brother, though. He opened his box to find a pair of pink adult sized baby booties and a particle board cube that was broken and put back together with duct tape. We have no idea.
The next year I got a 14K gold chain with a solid, gold nugget pendant that has two diamonds set into it. I'm sure not complaining.
caribou wrote:Osso, It was more like this...
That is called a "bee skep."
I don't think it's really meant to be used for beekeeping. (I could be wrong, though.) It's just an upscale, decorative garden accessory. They were in all the catalogs a few years ago.
