What presents worked and didn't work for you at Christmas?

Seacliff I think yours is a very good idea. In fact I think next year I am going to suggest to my friends that we go out and spend say £20 on ourselves for something we really want then get together for a reasonably priced nice meal to show them off. Well-done seacliff for planting the seed.

I have had some lovely gifts; earrings from my DS1, several CD's from DS2, flowers from my DD (she asked me what i wanted) and necklace from my DH. My worst gift will be the new knickers that will be two sizes two small that I will receive from my MiL in a couple of days time. She does this every single year and some years I also get a jumper two sizes two small as well. I just smile sweetly and give them to my sister who they will fit and she is always very pleased with them and we call them her bonus knickers.

Every year from 3 people I get food! I need food as a gift like a hole in the head. One was a box of chocolates, another 6 jars of home made marmalade (I like that) and the last a selection of cheese with odd flavours such as cranberries, chilli jam and chilli flavoured peanuts as well as chutney which I hate.

This year, rather than buy each other Christmas Pressies that we really do not need, my partner and I pooled our resources and bought a bench.
The bench though was not for the garden, it is sited on the Promenade of our favourite seaside haunt. We have had such wonderful days there, met some lovely friendly folk so when the chance to buy the bench came up, we jumped at it. We love the fact that we can give something back to a place and the community that we have grown to love.

I'm not easy to buy for as I can never think of anything I need. One of my DDs 'twinned' my toilet with a new latrine in Bangladesh in my name . Splendid idea.

Best presents ever this year (however we do ask for ideas), new black blind for kitchen & fuschia one for bedroom, I only moved last year & am now adding my own touches to decor.

Garden Gift Voucher from DM - I can find lots to spend that on.

DD - money for new clothes, new DGC in May, & she needs Maternity Clothes

DM chose a Solar Light for Garden, at 87 she's hard to buy for

Boxes and more boxes of chocolates. I don't eat sweets or chocolates. Enough hand cream to last me the rest of my life. But I did have one good present. A Carlucci box of different pastas and jars of sauces.

I just love whatever I am given because someone lovingly chose it for me and I love the fact that the people, including the children, to whom I give gifts love them too because I lovingly chose them for them.

I wasn't sure about the yoga mat for absent granddaughter2 but she is thrilled to have somewhere a little bit softer for her round-ups and handy stands [sic]. Little Wee Man hasn't stopped wheeling his trolley full of bricks around the house and in and out of the garden. Big Wee Man has endlessly played his Minions game with his older bother and so on and so on. Maybe not the best and certainly not the most expensive gifts in the world, but loved and treasured because someone they love and value gave them.

As for the delightful, surprising and special gifts I was given – well, I am thrilled, touched and keeping them.

Older bother? Well, there's an element of truth in that, but I did mean older brother.

What worked? The 'My First Book of Birds' GS bought me with his pocket money from a new book sale at school (I have been a bird watcher for forty years, but hey, the pictures are lovely!). It was accompanied by a tiny bar of Cadbury's chocolate ?. Also the large bottle of Lush 'Happy Hippy' shower gel from DH. What didn't work: salted caramel chocolates.

The drum kit we bought DGS2, who is nearly 5. He was beside himself with joy and kept walking round saying 'yes! A drum kit!'

DD3 and partner looked rather less so!

kitty.... how long before somebody accidentally ( ahem!) puts their foot through it?
Lots of nice presents this year either decorative or useful ( or edible...yum) so no complaints at all.

I only get presents from my two sons my dh and a cousin do not many every xmas .So i apreciate them all

We got the opposite reaction from his sister for whom me bought Lego. She took one look at it and dropped it over the back of the sofa without comment.

newnanny - if that keeps happening why on earth doesn't your husband tell his mother your correct size?! It's a pity you have to keep giving the presents away, after all they were bought for you!

DGC gave me an RSPB bird food hamper. Just what I wanted, so much so that DD had already given me the same thing two days previously, but she said not a word and the first was already dismantled and packed away so DGC both think that their's was the only bird food I received and they have loved helping me distribute it to the birds and telling me what a good idea their present was, and of course I have agreed with them..