BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas

Subject: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 01:44 PM

BIG SIGH!
No four calling birds or three french hens (NO - I do not want any birds!). Instead I received the worst collection of crap imaginable. How many of you received a Nun Bowling Set? or a large furry penguin that sings, dances and includes its offspring still in the egg in its performance? Or a penguin with an umbrella stuck on its head that runs around singing, bobbing etc while the umbrella goes suggestively up and down. Or...and this one was so bad that the donor didn't have the nerve to give it to me but hid it for me to find...how do I begin? It is a music box with a large angel, two bare-assed cherubs, an ass, a lion, a lamb, a fountain, all tastelessly placed under two turtledoves (I did get birds) encrusted with roses. No explanation as to how red and occasional yellow roses all grow on the same bush. Turn it on and it plays music (something worshipful) AND the water flows out of the cherub's urn into a basin which overflows into the well. It weighs no less than 10 pounds. It seems to be a stone composit of some sort. A murder weapon if I ever saw one.
Then there was the "Ale Mary" napkins from Nancy King, a saccharine sweet pussy pillow from Moira of CMR,and...
Mind you, Micca came with champagne, single malt and chocolate. Charmion and Edmund brought wine. Tami and Jason cooked a ham. My Secret Santa sent a beautiful cutting board with ULU and salad tongs. Jacqui did supply my fasvorite fruit gels and gummies which almost make up for the Foul Fountain of Fecal Formation.
So what did Santa bring you?
The best gift of all was a knife sharpener which I intend to use...frequently.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 01:49 PM

Sins, I wanted your SS to send you the moose that craps, literally ( I think you lift its tail), but it wasn't going to come from her no matter how appropriate I told her it would be! So count yourself lucky not to have received that one! **bg**

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 02:06 PM

Hey! I gave you a nice scarf!

Mary, your biggest problem is karma.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 02:09 PM

She needs to breathe deeply and be karma I think.
Who put the thread up about kitsch nativities?

G

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: MMario
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 02:11 PM

I got a stuffed falcon with a velcro wrist band for wearing on your wrist (it screams when you squeeze its belly)

and a frog that dances and sings 'Deck the Halls' while ringing a bell.


Mary - the red/yellow roses on the same bush can occur naturally and is really easy to accomplish with grafting. There's an old variety called "York and Lancaster' that has Red; White; and red and white striped roses all on the same bush.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 02:16 PM

My favourite rose
G

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 02:16 PM

>I wanted your SS to send you the moose that craps

All together now, one.. two... three...:

GOOD, THOUGH!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 02:23 PM

"No four calling birds"

I might easily be wrong, but I'm sure I've seen that they are actually 'Colley-birds'. Am I right, or just more senile than I thought?

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: mg
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 02:26 PM

pass them on to someone who didn't get any presents at all and/or if they are worth any money sell them and give the money to charity..well, that is what I would do anyway. To each his own. mg

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 02:29 PM

Aawww!!
I want a Nun Bowling set........

Quack!
Geoff.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 02:30 PM

Sins, ya gotta own up to your own responsibility in this affair, too. You have made it clear for years that the kind of things you wanted to deal in were Crappe Thinges, the hokier and less useful the better. So, now that the Universe starts delivering the goods, you decide it's all too much? Ay, ti, ti....you have any idea how l;ong it takes to re-set a major wish like that?

Have you looked into "Rent-A-Dumpster" rates?



A

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: MMario
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 02:34 PM

depends on where you see the lyrics Backwoodsman; four colly -birds (ie: blackbirds) or four "calling" birds - which is probably a mondegreen that has been perpetuated.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 03:44 PM

Freddie the Cat brings me colly and calling birds all the time.
Amos - that is only feigned despair. I love my crap!. Most of it anyway. I still can't get used to the Angel in the Pepsi Bottle.

Classic moment: Edmund is looking on in horror as I discover the Fountain from Hell. Only he thinks (as did we all) that it was only a music box. When I found the instructtions underneath describing how to fill it with water, firat he showed shock then disbelief then he took it from me thinking I was putting him on. Priceless moment when he finally accepted that it was a fountain too.

jacqui paid all of $.50 for that thing. The original owner has to have paid between $30 and 50. Wonder what they were thinking. It is truly hideous and has NO redeeming feature. Even the lamb is not quite right - a little daft I think. This one rates a Mudcat picture.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 04:02 PM

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

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 04:04 PM

Aye, that it is...fortunately, our family has gotten over the Obsessive Opulence habit and is quite comfortable with a few happy gifts with some heart to 'em.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 04:21 PM

Four colicky birds?

I'm given to wearing wool plaid shirts (as I have occasionally said, Red Green is my role model). But a nasty habit I picked up early on was stuffing the left-hand breast pocket of whatever shirt I have on with pens and pencils and a small notebook. Without a pocketful of pens and pencils and a notebook, I feel like John Wayne without his six-shooter. Kinda nekkid. What if I have an idea and I don't have anything to write it down with!?? Though I do tend to suspect that having a small notebook and a quiver of pens and pencils stuffed into one's left-hand shirt pocket has the effect of repelling ideas. Nonetheless. . . .

One of the problems with this (apart from my tendency to carry my left shoulder somewhat lower than my right) is that the pencil points in particular (Pentel "Quicker-Clicker," .05 mm. leads) tend to poke through the bottom of the pocket, which is not good for the shirt, and sooner or later the bottom of the pocket gets kinda tatterer, and things start sliding out the bottom and heading for the floor.

The solution to this, of course, is to use a pocket protector (the dreaded Mark of the Nerd!). I used to wear them when I worked at Boeing, but then, that was part of the uniform for draftsmen, illustrators, and engineering aides. I was giving serious consideration to buying one (and simply ignoring muggles and other insensitive people when they point and giggle) when Christmas rolled around.

My sister and her husband dropped by with a few gifts. One gift my sister gave me is a Quartex Multi-Function Pen. It has a slightly chubby barrel which contains three ball-point pens (black, blue, and red) and a pencil (.07 mm.). Which pen or pencil point you get depends on the position you hold the pen in when you press the clicker. And when you retract the points, they all reside inside the barrel. No sharp points.

Great! Thank you, Pat! This greatly reduces the weight in my shirt pocket, and I no longer have to go around dragging the knuckles of my left hand on the floor!

Don Firth

P. S. We have a distressing amount of crap in our apartment and are perpetually in "clean out" mode, so rather than add to it, we tend to give each other consumables of one sort or another.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 04:33 PM

Good LORD(!), SINSULL...!

That is about the tackiest, kitschiest, most cloyingly tasteless lot of presents I think I've ever heard of. What on Earth have you done to give people who know you an impression of you that would result in their giving you such crap?????

Have you been annoying your friends and relatives severely in the past year?

You clearly need to work hard to eradicate whatever accumulated bad karma has landed you in the sorry spot you are in. I suggest that you engage in social service of the most intense sort. Go to some godforsaken impoverished place and tend to the sick, the halt, and the lame for a year or two. Wash away your sins.

There is still time to set things right. ;-)

***************

I can't even remember what I got, so it must not have been anything very spectacular...but then, I already have anything material that I ever really wanted. There's a point when more things just wouldn't make any difference, and I think I reached that point quite some time ago.

***********

The Nun Bowling Set...now THAT's a significant item! It's the absolute quintessence of Kitsch! I should think you might fetch a tidy sum for it on Ebay, because someone out there who hates religion will buy it just so they can knock the nuns over and cast aspersions on the Catholic Church.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: hilda fish
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 04:41 PM

I attended a Xmas party down south that had a Santa, a Christmas tree - and everything. The presents were generously handed out by Santa to the party attendees who are a community of people who see each other pretty well every day. We were the ringins. As each one opened their pressie there were shrieks of delight as they remembered when they had last received that present. There was a picture that had been recycled for 15 years now. Perhaps your Xmas pressies could be the start of the same thing. They sound really good for this. Have a party with presents piled under the tree. Whatever you get, the following year you carefully wrap it and put it under the tree for someone else. The excitement would be when you would receive that exact present again. With ringings, there would be an occasional new offering but one present could go on to infinity. What do you reckon?

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 04:46 PM

LOL! Yeah, I can see the Nun Bowling Set being recycled that way for decades.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 04:55 PM

The real Christmas present wasn't the "crap" you were given Christmas morning. The better way to look at it is that there are people you know who love you and care about you enough to go out shopping with you in mind. They spend their hard earned money on you - and then they spend their valuable time to take it home and wrap it. Then put it under the tree so that you'll have crap to open Christmas morning.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: jacqui.c
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 05:04 PM

Kendall and I are the recipients of quite a few Mary presents, including various supposedly ornamental turkeys, a fake feathered cock (don't go there Spaw!), a moose wine bottle holder - the list goes on.

All I do is to repay the kindnesses that my good buddy has shown over the years.......................


Heheheheheheh

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: ranger1
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 05:12 PM

Well, as the giver of the nun bowling set, I kind of thought it might have therapeutic value. Not to mention that it was staring me in the face when I was at the check-out line at the bookstore. I saw it as a sign that Sinsull must have it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: RangerSteve
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 05:52 PM

I got the crapping moose that's mentioned above. It's actually a candy dispenser. You lift the tail and the candy comes out where the mooses sphincter would be. I don't eat much candy, so I don't know how much use it'll get, but I'm keeping it anyway.

A particularly ugly State of Maine commemorative whiskey bottle that I recieved 2 years ago is still in my posession. I meant to send it on to my Secret Santee this year, but I forgot, probably because it's underneath my living room couch and I tend to forget I have it. Maybe next year.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 05:56 PM

I must remember to bribe Liz the Squeak !

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 06:05 PM

Like I say, ranger1, she's somehow been giving people the wrong impression! At least...I hope so. ;-)

Here's another take on Wesley's look at Christmas:

The better way to look at it is that there are people you know and are related to who feel obliged to obey a set of social customs that they don't really understand, but which they have received from 100 previous generations, and they feel obliged to participate in, because if they didn't then people might think there was something wrong with them or that they were not very nice people and that they didn't love you and care about you enough to go out shopping with you in mind. Due to these very weighty psychological and social pressures (which an uncharitable person might even term 'brainwashing'), they run around in a tizzy from store to store and plaza to plaza, getting frustrated, harassed, nervous, crabby, and even desperate, they drive dangerously in atrocious weather, and they spend their hard earned money on you for the benefit of the Greater Mass Marketing $y$$tem - and then they spend more of their valuable time to take it all home and wrap it in fancy paper and stuff that they also buy. Then they put it under an expensive tree (real or artificial?) so that you'll have more crap to open on Christmas morning.

If they don't do it, they're BAD!!!!! If you don't do it back, you're BAD!!!!!!!!

So everybody does it, because no one wants to be seen as a BAD person.

This used to be true with Christmas cards too, but I think that a quite rebellion has been building where those are concerned, and far fewer people are sending out hundreds of the things than was the case in the past.

Anyway, the Post Office is now utterly overwhelmed with Ebay packages and other Internet-connected shipping of that sort, so it's probably a good thing that the Christmas cards are dwindling... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 06:14 PM

I'm on it already, like flies on moosepoop.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 06:42 PM

Sins, some of that crap you got is known, in the business, as Jesus Junk. I didn't get any Jesus Junk-- not even from parishioners, hooray!-- but I did get a very nice laminator that I wanted, to make pages for my aquatic binder, and the perfume I like, both from Hardi.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 06:50 PM

No tinfoil to line your hat Susan?
G

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 06:52 PM

What for?

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 06:54 PM

Sins... ever heard of Karma?

Sometimes Karma blows... big time.

And if I find that you were in any way responsible for the oinking piggie carol singer that I received this Christmas.... there will be words!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 06:56 PM

me? I got a fancy computer keyboard,,,the kind that's split in the center and curved, with lots of clever buttons.

and...BEER...much beer...special beer. Like Raison D'Etre
and Chimay Ale

and...and...Orval Trappist Ale YUM!!!!

so, SINSULL, it's all in what you get a reputation for appreciating...*grin*

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: MaineDog
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 07:09 PM

I let it be known that I liked good beer and ale, so THEY sent me lots of this winter, flavored CRAP that's totally undrinkable.

Since I lost my link to the family, they sent me very little crap, which they always used to do, Mainely to show mom that they were properly trained--

SINS, if you would like some authentic genuine CRAP for Christmas next year, I'll leave Dex with you for a few days while I go dancing :)
MD

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 07:13 PM

Well, you don't have my gift yet, Sins. Nothing to do with nuns, RC horribilia, or moose.

You'll just have to wait...

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: skipy
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 07:15 PM

A hedgeing & ditching 2 day course! A gift from my dear wife!
However this means I will have to get up early on a Sat & a Sun to drive miles to work on somebody elses bleedin hedges & ditches, probably in the freezing cold & probably pissing down with rain.
She paid for this, they get the work done! I get wet & cold & probably injured! Not just me, Oh! no! she bought a course for our eldest son as well!
I will keep to informed, even on Youtube!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: peregrina
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 07:19 PM

make sure not to eat any specked eels that you find there, they will be strong poison!

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Nancy King
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 07:36 PM

Hilda's re-gifting cycle mentioned above reminds me of a dreadful little marshmallow hot dog (!) that got passed around in my family for many years.

It started out when I (at the age of maybe 12 or 13?) snuck this peculiar cellophane-wrapped confection into the suit pocket of a friend as I bade him goodbye at the airport after a pleasant visit. I thought it was fairly funny at the time (being 12 or 13), but for weeks we never heard any reaction from the friend in question. When asked if he'd found anything in the pocket, he just said, "Oh, I sent that suit to the cleaners." Gulp. We'd pretty much forgotten about it a year or so later when we were opening Christmas presents and found one, beautifully wrapped, with the inscription, "Because you love nice things..." and there was the dreadful little hot dog. From that time on, it was passed around at random on whatever gift-giving occasions arose, sometimes years apart. It was always greeted with hysterical laughter. This went on until the wrapping tore, and the candy inside began to (literally) dissolve.

To this day, any gift with the notation, "Because you love nice things" inspires foreboding in certain circles...

Just think of the re-gifting possibilities, Mary!

I got a swell selection of funny wind-up toys and a backscratcher that makes a weird moo-ing sound and some other oddball items in my stocking, but there was good stuff as well. I got an "AeroGarden" gizmo which is a mini hydroponic set-up that supposedly enables me to grow herbs right in my kitchen -- it forced me to clean all kinds of junk off my countertop to make room for it; we'll see if it actually grows herbs! AND, I got a digital camera! Now I have to figure out how to use it!

Ain't Christmas swell?

Nancy

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 07:47 PM

Digital cameras are so easy to use that they make old-fashioned cameras seem as cumbersome as a 17th century windmill alongside a modern blowdryer. That's my opinion, anyway. I love digital cameras.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 07:51 PM

I should explain - these gifts are carefully chosen for me. I know the time, effort and careful choosing that goes into planning and finding them. They are a sign that people love me, sort of.

Jeri did give me a beautiful scarf in autumn colors that I would have chosen myself. It was of course fashionably tied around the neck of a two foot ceramic penguin with a broken toe and tail. She has failed though - he is actually quite pensive and lovable. Not at all like the green clear resin fiddler with a broken bow and string she got and hid in the eaves of my house.

My family does send on funny gifts. We stopped ewxchanging gifts years ago using the money for the kids and the bills. We have bailed each other out monetarily many times and laughed over and over again at the gold lamee shoulder length gloves which my mother won at a ladies luncheon almost forty years ago.These turn up at odd times for weddings, birthdays, Valentine's Day. A family tradition.

Serious gifts are rare and truly well chosen. This year I got Kendall and Jacqui sessions with a reflexologist - way out of our $.50 price limit but, given the last few months, a sensible gift.

Lighten up, all. I am joking about my complaints. And we do not spend any amount of money Fortunately for me or I would have a 10' inflatable Christmas penguin on my roof until the spring.

SINS
PS The Memorial Maine Monster bottle was free along with about 30 boxes of similar junk given on freecycle.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Nancy King
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 07:56 PM

Yes, LH, I know. I can take pictures just fine (though I still automatically bring the thing right up to my eye before I remember to hold it out and look at the little screen...), but I haven't yet taken the time to sit down and figure out how to deal with the camera vis-a-vis the computer. 'Twill come in time, I'm sure.

Nancy

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 08:43 PM

Oh, that's pretty easy too. You have to connect a little cable from the camera to one of the appropriate ports on the back of the computer (there should be at least two such ports available). Then you switch the camera on and turn it to the setting that displays the pictures in its memory. The computer wakes up, realizes the camera is there, and immediately puts a menu on the screen with several options. You pick the option that downloads the pictures from the camera into "My Pictures". It downloads them all very quickly onto your hard disk. Then you can disconnect the camera from the computer, turn the camera off (to save on the batteries), and go and look at the pictures on your computer in My Pictures, and do various stuff to edit them and catalog them, and so on.

Very, very easy.

Get someone to show you if you get hung up on any of that.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 09:17 PM

You still should use the viewfinder to set up your photo. Using the screen on the back eats up batteries faster than anything else you can do, except using the flash.

My on-backorder convection oven (the glass bowl type like I had but that finally died last year) is set up in my kitchen and I have a potato baking. Mmmmm! We make lists, but there are always a few surprises.

Bill D, I like beer but hadn't explored it much, though my ex sometimes gives me a high-end six pack at xmas. Ten years ago I worked for a while at a German restaurant and watched them serve all of these opulent beers, but never got around to trying them until recently. I pick up the individual pints at the local liquor store or the high-end grocery store and try them with various sorts of food. It's a pleasant hobby, but a fattening one if I don't pace myself.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 09:43 PM

SRS...I never knew beer could BE good..(grew up in Kansas, where Coors was considered premium stuff!)..until I moved East (1977), and accidently bought some German doppelbock. Then the Renaissance of American beers began with micro-brews and I was hooked. Since I HATE being drunk, and am poor...*grin*...I drink 'em slowly and explore carefully! But I LOVE the variety of beer available now...and it seems I usually get some for B-days and Xmas.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: john f weldon
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 09:52 PM

I got something cool; a Vinyl turntable (remember those)... ...which plugs into the USB port of my computer so I can digitize the 500+ old vinyl records I have.   Including that Frank Hamilton Folkways record... ...uh... ...oops, I guess I won't need to buy the CD version after all... ...sorry, Frank.

(Starting now, I'll get them all into iTunes by 2037...)

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 10:58 PM

Nancy, if you can't figure out how to connect your camera to your computer, i.e. the plug-ins LH talks about don't fit for some reason, you can buy a special "port" that allows you to insert different sized memory cards from cameras. The port plugs into your hard-drive and downloads the photos much as LH said. We bought a new camera which plug in thingie didn't match up with our computer, so we bought a Sandisk. reader or adaptor. I can't remember which it is called, but it is really easy to use.

I am ready for a newer one, now. Mine is over three years old and seems like a dinosaur compared to some of the new ones available!

Sins, don't you dare let them put in giant inflatable anything on your roof!

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Janie
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 11:17 PM

One year I carefully unwrapped a present to find an egg carton containing a dozen dried 'road apples' from the pile of composted manure behind the horse barn.

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: john f weldon
Date: 02 Jan 08 - 11:31 PM

Now that I've reached a certain age, I can buy stuff for myself and wrap it up, and on Xmas morn, I'm still surprised!

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: JennyO
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 12:30 AM

A few years ago, our choir had a post-Christmas party, where each person brought along the worst, most inappropriate present they had received that year, and they were all placed, beautifully wrapped, in a pile as a lucky dip.

On that particular year, a friend of mine, a fellow pagan, had given me, for some unfathomable reason, a ghastly ceramic painted nativity scene. It wasn't a joke either. So I took that along to the party, and in return received the worst CD I have ever heard. Even the picture on the front is depressing.

This year at Hornsby Folk Club we had a 'competition' and the winners got to pick a CD from a box. We were warned that some of them were better than others. When I picked mine, Barry said "oh, you got that one. Better have another pick.". So I got TWO awful CDs this year. They do have a use though. If you hang them near your plants they are good at scaring birds away. Waste not want not :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 07:00 AM

So what were they, JennyO? (Or don't you want to say?)

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 07:21 AM

A friend just could not resist getting for her 10 year old daughter, one of those chocolate pellet crapping penguins... a big hit ... "Ugghh! Grooosss!" and a big smile - she's into penguins...

Subject: RE: BS: The Crap I Got For Christmas
From: Anne Lister
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 07:27 AM

I still remember the school assembly when I was leaving one particular school, where I was given my leaving gift in front of all the children. It was a curiously flat package, oddly cold to touch but beautifully wrapped. I left the school hall and made my way to the staff room, where I just had to unwrap the present out of irresistible curiosity.   The present appeared to be a vacuum packed smoked mackerel. I was sitting with it, wondering what on earth I had done to merit this and feeling (I admit) somewhat hurt, as the price on the package was less than a pound, when the door burst open and in rushed one of my colleagues, shouting "Don't open it!"
It turned out no one had as yet bought my leaving present, knowing that we had a couple more days in the school minus children packing stuff for a move, but they felt I should have a presentation in front of the kids, so they had looked around the staffroom to find something they could wrap and someone had found the fish in the fridge and thought it would be suitable.
The actual present, when it arrived, was far less memorable.

Anne