Silly gifts (makes a change from egg-slicers!)

shysal I was very interested to see your link to the deer whistle site.

We live in an area where there are a high. number of accidents involving deer infact a deer ran into my car drivers door.

The only thing that concerns me is the part where it stated that the noise may cause the deer to freeze. (as do car headlights)
This in itself could be a problem if the deer or several deer are already on or crodding the road.
As I say I am very interested but think I will make further enquiries with the the forest commission officers who are called out 24/7 to deer casualties or fatalities.

Apologies for highjacking such an amusing thread

Was in Highways garden centre yesterday. They have all the cards/ crackers displayed and have all the Xmas trees up. Nooooooooo????

sal, I've only just had chance to come back to this thread. I love your egg topper - we use one of those round scissors type ones which aren't half as good looking.

My plea was for a slicer for hard boiled eggs as I wanted to put them on top of a chili! We can't have a chili unless I can source an unbreakable one.

Riveting topic, hey!!

kitty, I was with you all the way with your desire for an egg slicer, until you said you wanted to put slices of hard boiled eggs on chili! That is just wrong

Kitty, l think you should post an inspirational egg topper idea every day. Your egg slicer start up comment was clearly a life changer for Gnetters. There might be a book in this!

And a film, I see Orlando Bloom in the lead part, at a scrubbed pine amusingly distressed shabby chic kitchen table, somewhere in Notting Hill, slicing eggs for a chili salad.His amusingly distressed shabby chic partner, who is a cop/barrister/journalist is twirling her glass of prosecco and gazing moodily out of the window.
It could work, call a good film director.?

My husband comes from a large family and we always meet up over Christmas. Inevitably, presents are given all round, I have tried to put a stop to this but to no avail. It adds so much stress to an already stressful time if you have to shop for umpteen not-too-expensive presents for people about whose tastes you have no idea. Inevitably, the women get decorative candles and the men get bottles of wine all round. For the past few years I have gone to a hardware store and picked out a number of items, along the lines of egg slicers, silicone cupcake forms, fancy kitchen sponge holders, etc., wrapped them up without putting names on them and then had my sisters-in-law, various nieces, girlfriends, etc., take a lucky dip. That way they get something which they might never have bought for themselves but may nevertheless find useful in the long run. They can even swap if they like, they have come to look forwards to these lucky dips and it does help to break the ice if there is a new girlfriend present.

I send my sister funny gifts the last one was a plastic rain hood that ties under the chin we both thought it was hilarious as we remember our mother and auntie wore them

One of the best Christmases we had was a price limit of £5:00. There were some innovative ideas, practical and funny. And those that didnt want/ like their pressie, it was 'recycled' at the charity shop.

I was recently given by DH some solar powered tube lights to stick in flower pots so now the area round the pond looks like fairyland at night. At same time I got a dancing Happy Buddha statue which is also by the pond- which you can see from back windows of house.
All cheap (he loves Ebay!!) & maybe silly but I love looking out at night & seeing them.

PS-makes up for the year before last when I got a new hoover for my birthday- he will never live that one down!
The delivery man said at the time - ' THIS is your birthday present- Oh Man! He is SOOOO dead!'( it came in a box with a picture on it so totally obvious what it was.)
He wasn't far wrong.

My daughter buys me a bookmark wherever she goes. She knows I have more than I could possibly ever use which makes the purchases very silly. She also knows I love them beyond any reason because she bought them for me.

We seem to excel in silly presents in our family. When elder son was 4 Dad gave him some money to buy my mothers day present. Off he went, very pleased with himself. On Mothering Sunday I had breakfast in bed and was presented with a wrapped gift. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I opened it to find an old fashioned scrubbing brush and a packet of pegs! Don't think I have ever been known to scrub a floor on my knees - perhaps he was just hinting that perhaps I should. Pegs and scrubbing brush were useful over the years.
And for Christmas one year my darling husband wrapped and presented me with a dustbin - because we needed one (it did have some non useful prezzies inside).

Flying lesson for my Mum when she was 67....she'd just had a successful triple bi pass which surprised her instructor a wee bit but she loved it.

I fill the family's own novelty crackers with inexpensive gifts along with a small chocolate ( the hat and joke are already included in the sets I buy) so, not only do I have to come up with different appropriate things every year, they have to be small enough too to fit inside! My daughters alternate between doing one for me or buying me a chocolate advent calendar so their task is much easier! Any suggestions would be much appreciated and I do keep my eyes open all year for suitable things.

For my young granddaughters this Christmas I have bought a wind up bath toy ( 15 months) and one of those singing birds which you fill with water and blow ( 6 years). Items I have bought in the past for adults are nail clippers, key ring fobs and colour identification coders, badges, a thing to put in a kettle to prevent limescale build up, novelty biscuit cutters etc.

£2-3 each is usually my maximum spend. If I get desperate, I shove a pair of pants or tights in there but they expect me to more inventive. The men are the most difficult to buy for, of course, but at least one of them loves cooking so I can usually find a small related item for him.

Cherrytree59, I live in the New Forest so often see deer run across the road all through the day. If I see one ahead I always take greater care as very often there will be some stragglers running behind a few seconds later.

I do stockings for all my family and my 90 year old FIL takes great delight in opening his stocking. He has had a kite in a box, mouth organ, stress ball, parachutist, balsa wood aeroplane to name a few and he saves them all. I was reminded two years ago he had been given him the same mouth organ before. I keep telling myself to write down what he has had but never do.

harrysgran we have a lovely if slightly eccentric neighbour who wears a plastic rain hood at the first sign of a black cloud.

It could be me.

I love silly presents, whether I'm giving them or receiving them. I very rarely give to charity on somebody else's behalf, since it can all too easily be seen as a form of virtue-signalling, but occasionally do so for wedding anniversary celebrations, for instance, if people have said explicitly that they don't want presents. In those cases I will often give a wee potted cyclamen or similar, along with the card.

My requirements for a good 'silly' stocking filler are that it should be small, inexpensive, and most importantly should be something that the recipient will enjoy receiving, and not a tease. I wouldn't give someone sugar tongs if I knew they had diabetes, nor an egg cup to someone who I knew didn't like eggs. But I have given crystal growing kits like the ones you can but as gifts in the Science Museum gift shop, paper flowers that will open and 'bloom' in water, a mini Zen garden with sand, miniature rocks and s tiny rake, or a mini Stonehenge to build, or cracker-sized puzzles (15 tiles to fit into a 4x4 square etc). In practice I only give silly presents to people whose tastes I know, because I don't want to risk hurting their feelings. Mind you, that can be hard. I'm much too old now to be offended if I get toiletries, but when I was younger and had less confidence. I used to be afraid that they had been given as a not-do-subtle hint, but now I appreciate them, even if it's only because I don't have to think about where to put them, or about having to display them prominently when the giver comes to visit!

My husband once bought me a pot of ginger marmalade and a poy to put it in for xmas and was surprised by the look on my face

Sorry i meant pot

Before downsizing we lived in an old farmhouse which had a septic tank. This occasionally/frequently got 'clogged' and I would spend ages trying to flush it clean with a pressure hose.. BIG SURPRISE,one Christmas I was given (by DH) drain clearing rods for my personal use! DH never used them in 7years.

My ex-H was hopeless when choosing Xmas presents for me. I had a chip cutter as a main gift, but sadly it was not meant to be a silly gift, he just always chose something useful!