Loot List 2021 - what you get or give?

Everything else
1

I always enjoy hearing what everyone got or about a present you enjoyed giving someone else!

Received:
Oculus Quest 2

Socks
(which is a big deal because everyone always steals mine)

Music Box of Somewhere Over the Rainbow
(My father passed away young so my 4 children never met him. He always used to sing the song so I always sang it to them over the years. This was a thoughtful gift)

Lego Star Wars X Wings

Gave:
I purchased the Night of the Ninja Board game for my third son. We played it today - what a great game!

2

Aw, I posted in the other thread. Too soon!

Also got a nice new running hoodie, and my Secret Santa loot, and a couple of books: one about the printing of books (very meta) and the satirical “1066 and all that” (from 1930).

4

I got a Kindle Oasis, which was great. (So I bought this for myself a month or so ago but my GF wanted to give it to me so she paid me for it and rewrapped it, but still – I got a Kindle Oasis!)

I also got a few sweaters/sweatshirts. I’ve reached the age of feeling perpetually chilly so I can wear a sweater about seven months out of the year. Socks. A Jamie Oliver cookbook where every recipe is only five ingredients, so I’m very interested in trying some out. A few other small things.

I gifted this to myself because I would never get it otherwise. The giftcard I put it on it said it was from Dark Santa:

I figured I may as well be prepared if this is where I end up.

Tomorrow is Christmas with my adult kids so I will have a thing or two more, though to be fair no one has any idea what to give me. They know I like books and games, but those are hard to buy for people.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

5

Our biggest gift was an air purifier from my in-laws. I’m very confused.

6

Would you mind sharing a photo of the aboriginal art, Kroc?

7

Got: 7-disc World of Wong Kar Wai blu-ray box set. Excited af, as the kids say!

Gave: got my kid a new Logitech driving wheel with pedals. He loves driving games.

8

Forgot to post what I gave! I found https://givingmultiplier.org/ through the Mindscape podcast and used it to make a donation in the name of my family. They matched an extra 50% so the money goes a little further for the charities!

And some additional cash for my teenage nieces, because I remember what I wanted most when I was that age…agency to pick my own stuff.

9

The big money gift was an iWatch. On the cool side my brother got me a Cameo from James Urbaniak (the voice of Rusty Venture) to wish me a Merry Xmas that was very nice and James does a great job with these, he even started the video dancing a Rusty action figure around to my old band’s music.

11

I love this thread! I wanted to participate but we had one final holiday party to get to (my Mom’s) and now I can post my loot.

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My wife got me a Bob Ross bobble-head and socks, as well as a book on Oil Painting and an awesome Trust a Bro (from Hawkeye) hoodie (not pictured), as well as a powerful and expensive Magic card I had on my Amazon wishlist she snagged (also not pictured; it’s in a deck). :)

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From my Mom I got this cool D&D themed Magic Playmat, as well as a book series I’d never heard of (I had asked for the 5-book set of The Black Company but I gave her a completely wrong link somehow, so I got a huge surprise in something called The Chronicles of Prydain). She got me Panthor (my brother and I get a He-man themed gift every year), and Ratchet and Clank for the PS5!

Mom also got me the “Fuck Off, I’m Painting” mug which I intend to use for painting, not drinking, to clean my brushes and such.

My son got me a Star Wars book, he recognized the name Thrawn and remembered me telling him about the series I read years ago when I was in high school so picked this up for me, only realizing later it was the third book in a trilogy, lol.

My cousin had mailed me a care package, containing my copy of Demon’s Souls for the PS5 (he returned) as well as his copy of Tales of Arise to borrow, a sick pack of really cool black playing cards, and a ton of paint and art supplies he had bought years ago for his wife but she was not using and said I could have. Not a bad haul there, for sure!

My father-in-law, whom I pushed around for a day at the Auschwitz Museum over the summer, gave me a check for a lot of money, which he gave to all the kids and grandkids as shopping isn’t his forte, so I ordered a 34" ultrawide 34GP950G-B 1440p monitor (supplementing the difference in what he gave me with my own funds from donating plasma for the last year).

I also got this amazing fleece blanket from my wife:

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It’s huge and super comfy! I swear every Magic card possible was an option (this one is Demonic Tutor in the Japanese version, a $110 card or I’d have a copy myself) and she had gotten one for my son as well, but he took it home so I can’t get a pic of it.

For what I gave out, I won’t recant the boring stuff I bought off folks lists where they asked me directly for something and provided links to that thing - my wife and I did plenty of that - but rather the stuff I surprised folks with they didn’t know was coming.

My Dad got a small forest painting I made:

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As well as a really nice Thermus as he’s a big coffee drinker, plus some local blends we got from a shop here in town.

My Mom, who is obsessed with art featuring elephants in trees, got this one that I painted. She absolutely loved it.

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My father-in-law got this one:

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And my wife I had bought a really warm blanket that featured Harry Potter’s four-houses (crests) as well as a nice pen that has her alma mater featured across it.

My son I surprised with a copy of Tiamat for Magic, a 5-color dragon he’s wanted as he has a 5-color dragon deck, but it didn’t arrive in time, so he used a proxy card while we played over the weekend.

It was great having both kids’ home for a night or two there, and my son would have stayed longer but he is splitting his time with his girlfriend’s parents this week as well, but he’ll be back this morning on his way to his apartment (he has to work this afternoon) so I took the day off so I can be here when he arrives, and we can play some more Magic or something.

I hope everyone had a great holiday!

12

I can see why you like it, that’s a heck of a haul you got there.

13

I absolutely love this post and its rich illustration of both your and your family’s shared and individual interests and personalities. Thanks for the excellent writeup.

14

My write-up is sadly necessarily incomplete for now. Modest complications from my recent surgery (nothing life-threatening, but continuously unpleasant) made it impossible to travel back home for The Last Christmas – my parents just closed on a house in Montenegro and will be moving to Europe semi-permanently as soon as Omicron travel restrictions let up, so this was likely our last big Xmas in the old house together for a good long while (in order to eventually achieve citizenship, their time out of Montenegro is carefully tracked each year, so they’re not positive they’ll be able to fly back for holidays if they’re also occasionally taking short trips across Europe, as they very much intend to do in their semi-retirement).

I’ve been given to understand by my girlfriend, who is the Keeper of Wishlists, that they went All The Way The Fuck Out™ this year, so I anticipate a very absurd haul.

However, I’ve been absurdly lucky in the wonderful people I’ve amassed in my life outside of family, so, there’s still quite a bit of good to report.

My wonderful Qt3 Secret Santa @RichVR got me an awesome assortment of cooking-themed gifts, including a great sourdough starter, some very fancy high-quality fresh vanilla beans, a package of very difficult to find Calabrian sausage, and an awesome book on the science of Indian cooking, my favorite cuisine.

Although not Christmas-specific, I’d be remiss not to mention some absurd community generosity. An Anonymous* (I bet I could guess, but won’t) group of Qt3ers from the (unofficial) Discord server pooled together to send my partner and I an incredibly thoughtful gift card for delivery food, since my surgery has made it so that I can’t really cook for the moment. Especially early on, when I could barely move and was on an extremely restricted diet, this was enormous to my peace of mind, especially because it meant I knew my gf, who generally would forget to feed herself if I didn’t fix up big meals everyday, would not starve to death.

Speaking of Arika, she got me a very good new all metal colander with holes small enough that I can finally safely drain rice when using the “pasta method” of cooking it, a new tripod for my fancy camera for the videos I record, a great lapel mic for the same, a book on back exercises recommended, IIRC, by @Dave_Perkins quite some time ago, an amazing electric knife sharpener with all sorts of gee-whiz features to it, a really snazzy roll-up bar tool holder bag I can use to bring all my cocktail crafting gear to the parties I frequently serve drinks at, and a classic Hamilton Beach drink mixer that is absolutely fundamental to making a ton of classic Tiki cocktails as accurately as possible (plus it’s great for old-school soda jerk style creations like egg creams and the like). Finally, she also got me a really cool looking documentary about the 2010s Golden State Warriors NBA dynasty team that made me fall in love with basketball that’s got all sorts of cool footage and interviews. Since I got HER into basketball via watching The Last Dance together, it’s a neat little bit of gift poetry there.

Some local friends quietly got together to bundle up a collection of incredibly sweet get-well-soon/Xmas cards, some TTRPG-related swag (neato dice!), a gorgeous hand-made stitched ornament, and a truly ludicrous quantity of homemade cookies (molasses-spice, Andes Mint chocolate, and peanut butter blossoms).

In terms of giving, well, you can read Tom’s incredibly thoughtful and indepth post in the SS thread. For Arika, I grabbed her a pair of snazzy Jabra Elite bluetooth earbuds in adorable mauve coloration; her very own fancy Blue Yeti microphone for recording (she’s looking into both podcasting and also doing gig-economy voice-acting work in the new year); a copy of Pokemon: Shining Pearl for Switch (she LOVED the oldschool GB/GBC/GBA Pokemon games but lost track of the series after. Watching me play Shield was too big a departure for her, while the recent 3D remake of the 4th Gen DS games is much closer to what she’s nostalgic for); some fancy attachments for our vacuum cleaner she was weirdly enthusiastic about, and a really cool set of very colorful metal drawer organizer containers, as she’s in the process of revamping our kitchen. Also in the process of trying to get her cute Disney-themed PJs, but sizing for her is difficult as she is both very thin and very tall, and women’s clothing has a hard time accommodating both of those at once.

For my parents, we got dad some weirdly complicated sounding high tech running socks he loves, a Montenegrin-English dictionary, and a guidebook to local wildlife he can use while hiking around his new home in Europe. For mom, she got a very complicated power adapter so she can continue using/charging her devices over there, some cozy house slippers in a cute color, and some fancy kind of porch-appropriate hammock for the new balcony she has that has a gorgeous view of the picturesque little village they’re moving to. I’ll be preparing them both meals of their favorite dishes when we’re finally able to gather together next month (hopefully) – a bunch of vegetarian Indian food mom can freeze and live on until they move and a bunch of ragu bolognese and fresh-baked pizzas for dad.

15

That really sucks, I’m sorry to hear it - I know what it’s like to miss the “last Christmas” of an era. I wasn’t able to get down to my grandparents final Christmas party due to other obligations, and then they stopped hosting it and that’s when my Mom started hosting instead. That led to an entirely new era though, so for what it’s worth you could well find next year to be even more interesting and fun, eh?

Sounds like you had a great haul, and like you said about my post, it was a lot of fun to read yours and get a taste of your and your family, good stuff. Happy holidays!

16

Thank you, Scott! We’ll do it as best we can next month, and I think mom is leaving up the tree and her genuinely terrifying collection of 100+ nutcrackers until I’m safely able to travel again, so, it should still feel close to right with the added bonus of not having to go to midnight mass and pretend I’m not a passionate atheist for yet another year, hah.

And hey, maybe in the future, they’ll fly us out to Europe in lieu of gifts and we can celebrate Xmas in Montenegro, which is honestly pretty cool in its own right! Like you said, new era :-)

17

My kids got a lot of Lego sets. No need spell them out, other than when my son and daughter populated their list with over a dozen sets each, I made no effort to stop them.

But this year I finally bit on something I’ve been contemplating for a few years. My wife and I enjoy escape rooms. We also have done plenty of the Unlock and Exit escape room in a box board games. It is a regular thing for us to do with friends.

Anyhow there is this ‘deluxe’ version of that called Hunt A Killer. I’ve seen it floating around for years. It is basically a subscription box for escape rooms with a True Crime theming. They come in either stand alone boxes, or 6 month ‘seasons’. They are fancier than the other games, featuring some custom feelies (like hats, key chains, bottle openers, coasters, etc.) that are part of the puzzle. I’ve hesitated because of the cost in the past, but this year I just went ahead and got it for my wife. So hopefully this is a nice once a month girls night activity for her like I hope. We got the first one before Christmas, but she hasn’t had her girls night yet to play it. More updates coming!

My wife got me a new gas grill. Sort of. I actually found it and bought it because our old one was shot. It just then became my Christmas and birthday gift by wife declaration.

She did also get me Mario 3D World which is utterly delightful to play with the kids in chaotic 4 player. Much laughs are had.

18

Sounds like a good anti-Covid kind of gift

19

I mean maybe they think it’ll help with the APAP I just started using? They didn’t even hint at why they spend $250 on this. I mean does our place smell like cat pee or something?

20

If you have a bunch of cats it may. Other people may smell something you are used to and don’t notice.

They may have just wanted something that might help with allergies and breathing. We have a couple of air purifiers we use now and then to (hopefully) counter some of the allergens that might be in the air.

21

Yeah, we think it’s mostly related to my new APAP usage, at least we hope so. We’re really good about cleaning our litter.

22

My Secret Santa gifts were the only gifts I received this year, which doesn’t bother me, my family put a stop to Christmas excess years ago, but man I got a sweet branding iron! Is my Santa the monster for figuring out that I wanted one, or am I the monster for wanting!?