The best gift I’ve received comes every year for me. My Grandma buys our family a St. Louis Zoo pass for Christmas every year. It’s so much better than toys. Even when we are broke, we can still have something to do as a family. The zoo is free, but my son is a train freak and cannot fathom going to the zoo without a train ride. Now we ride as much as we want, and go to the zoo every other week during the warm weather. And as another plus, I think of Grandma every time we go and call to thank her. It is a gift that lasts us all year long. Definitely my best gift ever.

When she was nine years old my stepdaughter bought me a gift at a neighborhood garage sale. She used her own money and wrapped it herself. She hid it in her room and saved it for my birthday.
It is a sparking, teal and hot pink figurine of a mommy pegasus snuggling her baby in a field of jewlels. It may be the most tacky, over-decorated knick-knack I have ever seen. My daughter jumped up and down as I opened it and said, “I know you will love it!!!”
I do love it.
As we enter the teen years with all their drama, I keep it on the mantle as a reminder of simpler times.

The best gift I ever received was once upon a time in high school from my wonderful and loving mother! My boyfriend moved to California with his family just a month before our senior prom. I was crushed. My mom planned behind my back and flew him out here for the weekend! She bought prom tickets, set up a hair appointment and even bought 5 dresses for me to pick from and took the others back later. I was at work on a Friday night when then showed up and surprised me! My mom had even talked to my boss and requested off for me for the rest of the weekend! I’d like to add that my mother pulled all of this off on a very meager single mom income. What an amazing mother and magical present!! I’ll never forget it!

The best gift that I have received is my son. In the past, I had major trouble having children because of an ectopic pregnancy. Due to the issue, I was only left with one fallopian tube, and I fought to keep it healthy. My prayers were answered when I was able to carry my baby for nine months and give birth to a healthy 8 lb son. Unfortunately, a year and a half later, I did indeed lose my other tube, but I am so blessed and thankful for the one child that I do have. He is now 11 years old, is in middle school, and is a great football and basketball player who just got selected to be on the 7th grade team (he is a 6th grader). What a great gift to me!

The best gift that I have given is a 25th anniversary basket that I gave to my parents. It consisted of a CD that I made with songs that were hits during the year they were married. It also included different items that were popular over the next 25 years, one item for each year. I also added a list of major events that occurred over the same time span. They loved it and it brought tears to their eyes.

This is kind of two-fold a few yrs ago My husband and I were invited to his fathers house on Xmas Eve my husbandS family is somewhat esrtanged from one another, his mother and father had a very messy divorce and bad feelings ran deep. His mother and I are very close and she has always said one of her greatest regrets durring the divorce was leaving all her belonging behind when she left his father over 25 yr ago.

Now back to the gift,my husbands father had invited my husband and I and his two brothers and their wives over to claim what belonged to them, that his father still possesed this included family photos of the boys! Their baby pics, school work all the things mothers charish. So long story short I was able to return to my my sweet mother-in-law her childrens keepsakes on Xmas morning. It was one of the most powerfull moments of my life!

The best present I ever gave was to my sister. She’s always thinking of others and telling us that we do not need to give her presents. So, one year, I took the money that I would have spent on a present for her, and I took a name off of the giving tree at work. I bought the child clothes and toys. On Christmas when my family exchanged presents, I handed my sister a card telling her that I took the money for her present and bought a child some Christmas gifts instead. She teared up and gave me the biggest hug. That was definately the best gift I ever gave. And, it was much easier than trying to find a gift for the sister who already has everything.

I was 13 years old and in eighth grade. There was this 200 pound sixteen year old gorilla in my science class that sat behind me. A few months before Christmas, we were sitting in class watching a movie about mitosis or something. A few minutes into the movie I felt a short tug on the back of my head, followed by a snipping sound. I turned around to see him holding a piece of hair with one hand and some scissors in the other, with a huge grin on his face. My exclamation of surprise caught the attention of the teacher, who sent him to the principle’s office, but not before he issued an ominous warning tp me as he walked out of the door: “You’re dead.”

Six weeks went by where all I did was avoid him like the plague. I made sure I was never anwhere he was without a teacher or a group of students around. Every day was a day of terror, wondering if I would randomly meet him walking down a hall between classes and get the tar beat out of me.

The day before Christmas holidays it came to pass. I was walking back from the nurse’s office and he came from the other side of the hall. I saw him looking at me and I kept walking towards him. In my mind I was wondering exactly how much cowardice running away constituted, and as my brain went through the calculations, he as upon me. Numb, I watched as his hand mutated into a fist and pulled back behind his head. I was sure of only one thing: this was going to hurt.

“Hey, Merry Christmas, man. Can’t hold a grudge forever!” He chuckled as the fist thumped me lightly on the shoulder and he shook my hand. Well, he tried to. My body was shaking so badly I am not sure how much his movement was able to accomplish. “Uh, yeah” I responded weakly, relief flooding me with such intensity that I might have compared it to the joint I would smoke some five years later, but fortunately I did not have that frame of reference at that time. “Merry Christmas to you too. Merry Christmas. Oh man, merry merry Christmas.” His responding grin did much to rid his visage of that fearsome cast it usually held. I smiled in response, thanking whatever God was above us for that moment.

Easily the best gift I ever received.

The best gift I ever received was my twin daughters (Gina & Holly) born January 28, 1995. They weren’t due til the end of Feb, but we scheduled a c-section for the 30th. They decided the morning of the 28th to started making their arrivial. What’s so unusual about this, it’s because every year I always seemed to win the superbowl pool at work, that year I got the girls instead. They got baptisted during the game that sunday. Their lst birthday fell on Superbowl sunday-and we had Pittsburgh on one side of the cake and Dallas on the other. And yes, we won the pool that year. Ever since they could talk, I would read them the teams and they’d tell me what they wanted. Once they could read/mark/rank them themselves, it made a lot of the guys in the pool mad, because they were getting beat by Gina. I just realized as I wrote this, that this is the reason they are good at it. It all started with that early arrival.