I can't help thinking there are a lot of story ideas in themselves on here.

My mother is the best at Christmas presents. A few years ago she was so pleased that she'd found my dad a GPS sat nav thingy for only £50, but when opened turned out to be a GPS plastic holder. As far as I know he is still waiting for the actual GPS.

She also got him a "trendy" (her words not mine) khaki jacket that made my 75 year old father look like a reject from a chain gang and me a huge pair of fur slippers that looked like Yetti feet.

Her most memorable gift though was to my brother. At 25 he still hadn't flown the nest and he desperately wanted a computer (this is back in the days when the Commodore 64 was hi-tech). He came down Christmas morning, unwrapped his present to reveal a big suitcase which she proudly announced was in the sale at Debenhams for half price.

We have an eccentric aunt who fulfils all our needs at 'interesting' Christmas presents (if she remembers to send them). She once gave my brother, nine at the time, I recall, a hammer. And one of my sisters was nine months old when she gave them an adult necklace.

I had a picture framing kit in my teens. It was made of horrible brown plastic and consisted of a long length of framing, which you needed to chop up into the right lengths to fix together with the corner pieces. I never got round to chopping it up, but I did find that when I put one of the corner pieces in, it was really useful for fishing things out when they fell down the back of book cases, etc. I lost it somewhere and still miss it to this day.

But I think my absolute favourite was when she sent me an orange, some chocolate and a recipe for something that used orange, chocolate and potatoes. She promised she would send the potatoes when she had grown them but I'm still waiting.

S

PS Think I've mis-spelled a bit in this post, but have spelling blindness at the moment. Not so much that I can't comment on JB's

'polar neck'

jumper though. Is that like a polo neck but fluffier?

Hee, Hee. I'm beginning to think i've got off lightly over the years.

But isn't it just the worst, opening something and having to feign enthusiasm?

Casey

My sister's parents-in-law used to take her aside and say 'We've bought this for our son, what do you think?' and it was always awful, and completely wrong for him - a tartan waistcoat when he never wears anything but black tee shirts and jeans, and so on - and she never knew what to say.

Emma

Hey, it was polar in the fact that it left me cold to look at it!!!

JB

Hey, it was polar in the fact that it left me cold to look at it!!!

JB

My grandmother once gave my mother (her daughter-in-law) some handcream and a tea cosy. All very nice. But when we'd stopped laughing about the idea of my mother with a tea cosy (she doesn't own a teapot) she revealed two key words on the handcream: Pour Hommes.