What's the best Christmas / Holiday gift that you GAVE (or heard of someone giving) this year? What made it the best?

THE PERFECT GIFT Under the tree yesterday morning was an updated family photo of my children standing in front of that tree. The last group photo I have is when they were 4, 6, and 9 so yeah it was long past time. I have had these three kids, (young adults really), solo since 2000 and it’s been a tough haul let me tell you.

While the 19-year-old put up the tree a few days ago, I grumbled on the inside I thought to myself, let him be. The tree helped this picture become so very important and kinda melted my cynical heart, when I realized the photo was the reason he put up the tree. I was not here when the photo was taken, so it really was quite the surprise.

The photo was taken by a friend with a digital camera, taken to Walmart and printed off. The frame is nice but I know it was not much because it was bought there. It did not set them back much at all, but man it made me bawl like a baby and it is priceless.

What a wonderful Christmas Present. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and yeah I believe the Christmas present I received from my children is the ‘perfect gift’. I had told my children 17, 19 and 23, not to get me anything for Christmas this year.

I also asked family and friends not to buy me anything. I know giving and receiving go hand in hand and I had no money in the budget for presents after I paid the bills this year. My ‘baby’ turns 18 on January 8, and the 19 year old has a birthday on January 23 and my daughter’ birthday was last week.

They know there will be no presents, but time together as a family works for them. I am so thankful. There have not been many Christmas or birthday presents since we’ve been on our own.

I am so proud of all of them; we’ve been thru so much its unreal together as a family. Yeah we have been there done that, had our up and downs etc, but ya know what I am close to all three. I am still recovering finically from the heart attacks and well have 18,000 dollars out of pocket expenses for the stay.

Whatever money I have left after paying bills and buying groceries goes to the hospital. I am on my second try for the med card, but I was turned down the first time so I am trying again. Anyways, the money is gone and there would be no presents bought so I asked for none in return.

I was going to have an old-fashioned Christmas with my children. With no presents, I just wanted to sit and watch movies, hang around and have a normal day. I am glad they went against my wishes and created this photo.

I gave my disabled grandparents the money to pay their property taxes. They finally paid off their house but my grandma has been in and out of the hospital lately and they couldn't get the money together for taxes. I used all the money I had been saving to buy a new guitar I've been wanting for the last year, but the look on their faces was totally worth it.

Just north of Nashville, TN, the community of Fort Campbell KY was blessed to welcome home over 250 of our soldiers from duty in the Middle East. They arrived Christmas Eve on mid-day and evening flights. It might not be considered a "gift" as it was a scheduled rotation, but the flight times were adjusted a bit to allow them to beat Santa to town.

Whoever made the timing decision was definately making gift for so many families!

Yes my friend got the best christmas gift this year. Her boss who let her go six months ago rehired her. She said it is best christmas gift ever.

She works for Sprint . sprint.com/index.html.

Everyone I must share this with other writers who will understand! Although I liked everything I got from family and pals, I have to admit that my favorite "giver" was my son-in-law Michael. We had drawn names, and he got mine and I got his.

He is way too generous and doesn't listen to the "rules" of what to spend. He gave me a handful of gift cards that I will really enjoy, but the "topper" was a large purple album that he had printed on the front, "Publications by Jackie"! He had been taking a real interest in my article writing.

He took the half dozen articles I'd taken there at Thanksgiving as a representative sample to show my family a variety of what type articles I've been writing, and he put one in each plastic insert. There are tabs, but he wants me to put on them what I want to (the name of the various websites) and then put in the "best" of my articles for each. (I certainly can't put all in as I've written at least 300 articles this past year!) I told him that I have no desire to write a book and thus have a book published like a lot of writer pals want to do -- but with that album I now have a "published book" of my own!

How nice, and I really appreciate it. I feel it is a perfect and unusual gift.Jackie.

The best Christmas gift ever is the gift of togetherness. :) My boyfriend's family is used to spending Christmas away from each other. S mom is working miles away from them as a nurse, his brother is based on LA, which is again, miles away from them.

But this Christmas, they spent it together. :) s mom went home couple of weeks ago from Seattle and his brother with his wife and cute little kid went home too. ^^ For how many years of being away from each other, this Christmas, they are together once more!

I can feel how happy he is actually. :) And as his girlfriend, I'm so happy for him. For me, that's the best Christmas gift ever!

My grown children have been having a hard time making it because of the economy. My son because he was in an accident and was disabled for awhile and my daughter has 5 children. So to lighten their load some I bought them some several boxes of food from Angel Food Ministries.

They loved it and even though it was 2 weeks ago they said it felt like Christmas morning. :).

I read this article about "paying it forward" on Christmas Eve. The plan is to go to your favorite drive thru coffee window on Christmas Eve. When you pay for your order, you also pay for the car behind you and add a "Merry Christmas".

Everyone needs a pleasant surprise during the holidays. What a fun thing to do! It felt good and my coffee tasted better than ever!

I got my mom a necklace. Thats all I could afford on my weekly allowance. I also gave her a very emotional and meaningful hug.

I think thats the best present a mom could ask for.

A hug to my father ;-) fallowed by an "I love you dad" give out as many of those as you can ;-) time moves fast....

We have a very active Freecycle group and its great to be part of it. I wasn't part of this little act but I did hear about it through the emails we receive. A family had just moved into an area close to us, but their house burnt down due to I don't know what, I didn't ask or hear.

The Freecycle group got together and sifted through the mail, sent out requests and before you know it they had heaps of stuff delivered to their door. The thank you mail was really touching and most of everything was done anonymously. A world wide NG organisation that works at a local level, all for free, all to help without any benefit to you.

You cannot ask for money for the things you give.... :) I love it!

My daughter and our entire family got the best Christmas present ever, from a Muslim. Our Indonesian son-in-law kidnapped their son when he was 2 months old and took him to Indonesia. There were no legal channels to get him back.

We have had little contact with him. My daughter, despite harsh criticism from other family members, has cooperated with the father for 12 years now in signing passport renewals, etc. Somehow, our grandson formed a desire to come to the US and live with his mother. And his father let him come.

My daughter flew to Jakarta on December 15 and returned with her son. Despite language difficulties, they bonded on the long flight home. He is off to a great start with his brothers and step-father and will begin school in January.

I can't imagine a better Christmas present.

OK, this requires a bit of setup. Tyler Hansbrough's in the NBA now, but when he went to UNC, he was pretty much the most famous athlete around. I'm talking at Michael Jordan proportions.

Winning the NCAA championship certainly didn't hurt matters.

She bought the rights to a photo and sent it to the cardboard-cutout maker (I assume they exist) and put it in a closet. On Christmas, she told her to get her some sugar and then filmed the whole thing. Perhaps it's not the same as actually getting to see him, but it's certainly memorable!

. It is small, but life time, must have great accessorie! :).

The best Christmas gift I heard someone gave was an Amazon's Kindle. Merry Christmas! -quote- "It doesn't have that musty book smell -- but it can hold thousands of books, all available for wires-free downloading with the touch of a button, as well as newspapers, blogs, and magazines." -end of quote.

For Christmas, My husband gave me many nice things. We have only been married for only 7 months and it is the second time around for both of us. The gift that he gave me that I will cherish the most was a toast he made to me and my children.

He said that he loved each and every one of us and that this was the best Christmas he ever had. This year was skimpy for us financially but it was a new beginning for our family. S toast was touching and sincere and I cried for 15 min.

The best Gift I gave was this christmas. I gave a flying kite to my girlfriend and an origami kite I made myself with a poem written on it. I remembered her saying she liked paper kites so I gave them both.

Well, my spouse brought home a 30" -def monitor couple weeks back. Then "Santa" brought the latest Mac Mini, brand new, and actually capable of supporting the resolution of the display! THENNN, Santa's Little helper discovered that the Mini actually needed a special converter box to access the optimum display res.So, I got a monitor, not for Christmas.

Then loving hubby tracked down this smokin' mini and it kicks serious butt! The the little helper (my 18-year-old) goes to the Apple store and gets the converter, and bingo! I'm in business!

All in all, that's a pretty amazing combo to create my bestest Christmas prezzy!

Finding a gift that is really thoughtful requires that gift-giver to put themselves in the shoes of the receiver. A gift should be something the receiver either can't or won't buy for themselves AND something that will bring about joy and good feelings to the receiver. After much contemplation on what to give a very big person we know, I came up with an interesting idea.

I remember I had an obese relative and the one thing that relative never was satisfied with were bath towels. She never could find one big enough to wrap around her completely with room to spare and I knew this always made her FEEL big. Well, the last thing an obese person wants is to feel as big as they are.

So, for this heavy friend of ours, we decided to search for the biggest fluffiest bath towel we could find. When he opened the gift, at first he was wondering why we would buy him a single bath towel. Then, he unfolded it and he was absolutely delighted.

He couldn't believe how big it was and "tried it on" for size. Now, when he gets out of the shower, he can wrap it around him and feel better about himself, instead of trying to dry off with seemingly something the size of a hand towel.It was the perfect gift and all it took was sitting down and putting ourselves in his shoes.

I saw on a work at home site that I visit that this mother has a little boy who is three years old, he wanted to get his mom a gift so he went with his grandma to bed bath & beyond and he said something lavender because it makes momma relax, and he wanted to pay for it, so this boy pulled out 3 dollars from his little wallet he has and gave it to his grandma to pay for it, the mother had tears in her eyes, it was such a touching story.

My mother in law gave my husband who is a chef these awesome "viking salts". He's very Norwegian/German and as Odinists we are also very into Norwegian culture and mythology. They came with this cool little story about how during sea voyages the viking wives would wipe the sweat from their husband's brows and turn it into salt hence it being called "viking salt".

It's this wonderfully powerful smoky salt. For a chef and a viking.. it was by far the coolest gift ever.

Everyone knows That! Vikings live in the Far Far North and they have huge, big weird looking row boats with interesting sails. They also put their women on the front of these boats as navigators, to tell which road to paddle in the ocean.

The rowers sweat a lot and there are other women standing around collecting the sweat in little bowls. When the sweat dries, there is salt left over and that is how you get Viking Salt! End Quote--------------- http://www.cyberbilly.com/meathenge/archives/000204.html My viking jesus gave them two thumbs up?

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.