Skip to main content

Game On

I don't really know how it caught on but I know how it started.  It was wrapped in shiny aluminum foil and was still warm. Jill gave me cinnamon toast for Christmas. The next year, my ego stinging from being tossed aside so casually by the guy who proposed, when I said, "not now," he proposed to his next conquest before having the courtesy of dumping me. Ouch.
  
Jill gave me pigeons to sneak into his car and leave to do their duties (pun intended) all night.
  
And so it began.
  
One year I gave her a stack of gift cards with no more than 18 cents on each.
  
She gave me matching toothbrushes for my whole family.
  
I gave her slippers made from maxi pads.
  
She countered with a large box of no less than 80 unmatchable socks.
  
I offered a box for her food storage, complete with different sizes of cans of food without the labels.
  
She gave me bouquet of weeds tied up in a pretty bow and a fabric snowman stuffed with lint from her dryer.
  
And here lies my quandary. I got nothin'.

Christmas is coming and I can't think of a thing. I need a creative gift to give to the woman who packaged up my own surprise party. She even included instructions to hold the envelope above my head, tear it in half and, as the confetti falls around me, yell, "Surprise!" There was even a cake mix with frosting. And a banner.

Last year I was going to give her one ski but she one-upped me by giving me 80 spare socks.

I appreciate any and all input. I need a Christmas miracle.

Comments

  1. Gag gifts and gotcha gifts are hard to come up with if you don't know the person well.

    It is also hard if you come from a family like ours that tends to lean to the blue side for gag gifts.

    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am no good at all at gag gifts. You're on your own here. Sorry.

    Visiting from Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fake lottery tickets.....lol those are always a good gag!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I wish I had some input, those are all so great!

    ReplyDelete
  5. How 'bout a "My Family" photo album filled with pictures of strangers?

    At first blush, she'll think you conspired with her family to get touching pictures of her loved ones.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh gosh. Have you Googled gag gifts?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hmmm... You could give her the largest pair of granny panties and smallets bra you can find...

    Kinda lame, sorry I can't think of anything more clever.

    Visiting from Mamma kat's!

    ReplyDelete
  8. My husband once gave an enema. Classic.

    ReplyDelete
  9. http://familycrafts.about.com/od/makinggaggifts/a/12dayschristmas.htm


    That is a link I found. It has 12 Days of Christmas Gag Gifts..I know there is less them 12 but maybe one will work? You could always give her some Shoes that the kids have out grown. I don't know I am not good at this stuff wither! But I did get a laugh at what you 2 are doing!! Have fun!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Last year we gave my little brother 12 pairs of boxers, one for each month. :). I say box up some warm McDonalds, a used tire, a dozen mismatched glasses, 12 bras in different sizes, her own getting old kit including depends, wart kit, corn medicine, toilet paper kleenex, vapor rub, elixers, hair dye.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I like some of the ideas on here! Once my parents gave me a card with a cut out car, like from an ad, inside. I thought that meant they'd bought me a car. Then they gave me a paper key for the paper car. :-( lol

    ReplyDelete
  12. Similar to June's idea... I worked in an office where every morning someone would come in to find a very large framed 1970's family portrait of an unknown family. This portrait made the secret rounds from desk to desk for the better part of a year. Perhaps you can find a horrifying family portrait to present to her with a heartfelt letter letting her know you have located her birth family of origin. (Works best if said family is of a different race.)

    Or

    Gingerbread Crack House

    ReplyDelete
  13. A bag of mini marshmallows and tell her they are snowman poop

    or take a pipe cleaner and put a pom pom on the end and tell her its a belly button duster

    put dried beans in a baggie and attach a note that says natures bubble bath...cook and eat one hour before taking a bath LOL

    ReplyDelete
  14. She can have my maternity clothes! I can't believe you two keep this up every year!

    ReplyDelete
  15. What a fun tradition! I wish I had some good ideas to give you, but I am too busy LMBO at the ideas already given.

    70's family portrait! Classic!

    ReplyDelete
  16. One classy evening at Dairy Queen a friend and I started a food fight. I finally "jammed" his eye shut with a spoonful of strawberry jam... and he retorted MONTHS later by putting a road kill rabbit on my car.. and an entire bottle of ketchup (this was like, last year...) http://www.tewinlove.com/2008/01/frozen-tundra-and-dead-rabbit.html

    Anyway, point being ... you need something good. Real good. LIke, collecting a box of dead cockroaches all year and then mailing them to your brother. Or a years worth of dryer lint and dead spiders. Or a LIVE version of "Who's Scat is THAT?" ... and give her a nice collection of poop. Or perhaps you should give her kids all air horns for Christmas. They had them at the dollar store-I hope Tonia doesn't read this cause her girls all got one. Um... lessee... OH OH OH you could give her BACK the 80 unmatched socks, and add more! Or sew her sweater out of the socks. Or make 80 sock hand puppets. Or give her mismatched earrings. I havce some to donate. Or hahahha give her kids a puppy! Especially if they hate dogs-you can't give away a puppy once you got it.. or sneak into her house and barely, just barely unscrew all the light bulbs and rearrange all her furniture. When she comes home her house will be different but the lights wont come on. Um... you could mail her broken electronics. Or mail her ice cream. Hahaha-but not in dry ice or specially sent.. nothing like a goopy box... but put her return address on it so when the PO is mad they dont' know it was you...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How To Be A Dedicated Neurotic

Going through old files from graduate school, I found an invaluable pamphlet. Be a Dedicated Neurotic Remember the Past. . . and Regret it. Abhor the Present. Dread the Future. 1. Become preoccupied with the body, and make a long list of symptoms. Make them sound very clinical and professional... 2. BLAME your boss, your spouse, your partner, your neighbor, your kid. THEY are responsible for your miseries. 3. Feel trapped. You couldn't possibly declare your own independence without hurting someone's feelings. 4. Overeat. Rationalize and eat! Eat an insulated wall around yourself. Diet for a few days and say it doesn't work for you. 5. Self-pity. No matter what, feel sorry for yourself. Agonize over things about which no one cares. 6. Don't ever try. That way nobody can really accuse you of failure. You can always say, "But I could have done it." 7. Stress how shy you are. Insist that the world must come to you. You're special. 8. Your agg...

Pioneer Trek

Utah was founded by the Mormon pioneers in 1847 after enduring unimaginable losses and seeking a place of peace. July 24th marks the anniversary that the first wagon trains arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. Their numbers were greatly diminished by crossing the country in wagons and handcarts, dying of scurvy, tuberculous, malaria, starvation, unidentified fevers, and freezing to death. This, they found preferable to facing the extermination order put forth by Governor Boggs of Missouri. I believe this is the most courageous act of faith - to leave all they had that was familiar and travel the rough terrain in the unknown in search of a place where they could worship in peace. My daughters left this morning for a small re-creation of what the pioneers experienced. I don't love the idea since I know so many of the pioneers died but it is a way for many of the youth to connect to their ancestors and understand what many of the early members endured for their faith. The youth were asked...

Public Notice

Dear friends, neighbors, enemies, and people I don't know: Understand that it all started out very innocently. I planned my garden carefully. Everything had a place and plenty of room. Within my planning, I included three spaghetti squash plants, two yellow squash and two zucchini. Out of the 7 plants, two came up and they weren't my beloved spaghetti squash. This year we have added two grow boxes to the south side of the house. One of which we brought in a garden mix of soil and I planted neat little rows of seeds. The other was left untouched. All I saw was dirt. So I started pushing squash seeds into it. I don't even know what kind they are. When they came up, I transplanted them so they would have room to grow. I also noticed I had two squash plants (pumpkins, perhaps?) growing in the main garden that I hadn't planted. Apparently, I had also dropped a seed in the dirt outside the grow boxes and it's coming up as a squash plant, too. Last count, I hav...