Gee, I feel . . . lucky. I've trained my family to give useful, thoughtful gifts that are entirely practical and well-chosen. We've had a few family jokes over the years that tended to die when one party to the joke died. My Dad gave my youngest brother a box of bananas every year (in the same box than a steam iron came in--it was rescued from the wrapping debris every year and set aside).

I spent xmas day at a friend's home in a wealthy Chicago suburb years ago, when 6 to 8 family members got together to open gifts. There was a heap of packages in the room and it literally took a couple of hours to open all of the stuff. Some practical if a bit unusual (one daughter was remodeling a house and her parents gave her an antique fireplace mantle rescued from an old house somewhere). Most of it was just opulent one-upmanship in gift giving. It's an amazing process, holiday gift giving.

SRS