What was your 2014 Christmas or Hanukkah Gift? (1 Viewer)

We no longer give presents to each other in our house. We have outgrown
that and decided that the custom would continue just for our young Nephew/Grandson.

However...

I spent money on myself this year and bought some nifty Christmas gifts...

* A Sony PS4 Game Console
* PS4 Gold Wireless Headset
* PS4 Dual Charger
* Logitech Keyboard to use with PS4
* Games: Wolfenstein, TombRaider, The Last of Us, Destiny

Come Join Me Online: NJRonbo

Well, besides the gift cards I gave out to my family and my staff at work, I did indulge myself a bit this holiday gift buying season. I now have plasma displays at all three of my HT setups in my home with the ability to watch region free and 3-D BD on all three setups.

[*]Samsung PN60F8500 Plasma
[*]Samsung BD F7500 BD Player
[*]LG BP530 Region Free BD Player
[*]Numerous Region B, Regions Free and 3-D Blu-rays
[/list]

Merry Christmas!My wife was watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last month, and caught a bit with Sting performing. He's got a Broadway show, "The Last Ship", and is performing live over New Years. I've been listening to Sting since college, but have never seen him perform.She booked a NYC weekend for us over New Years Eve and Day, with great seats at The Last Ship. I cashed in all my hotel reward points and got a free room for the stay; and we're taking the Mega Bus for cheap travel. So that's my unexpectedly fantastic gift for this year.

Dave,

What a FANTASTIC gift! You have a great New Years on tap!

Robert,

So happy you are enjoying that Samsung plasma.

Ron, haven't picked up the PS4 yet, but just from the PS3 version, you are going to love TombRaider , me and the wife are pretty much in the same frame of mind, but have planed our gift for summer, new fence and shed for our garden

and to all the members of the forum

Merry Christmas Happy Hanukah Happy Kwanzaa


and for those of us with small ones in the house with items that need batteries, .........


Peace to you all

Merry Christmas to all at HTF!!We don't have children so Christmas isn't a big deal in our home. That also means no getting up early on Christmas morning... well for her anyway. I have to get up at 3AM every morning for work so I have trouble sleeping past 4:00 on my days off. My wife and I don't exchange gifts, we usually just go shopping in November and get a few things we want for ourselves and call it Christmas. (I still usually surprise my wife with something on Christmas which she isn't expecting. She's a huge Elvis fan so this Saturday I'm surprising her with a trip to Graceland.) My gift to myself this year was a solid state drive for my MacBook Pro and some iTunes music downloads. My wife went nuts clothes and boot shopping. My parents got my wife an iPad mini retina which she loves.

Ronald Epstein said:

We no longer give presents to each other in our house. We have outgrown
that and decided that the custom would continue just for our young Nephew/Grandson.

Click to expand...

Yeah, because generosity and goodwill toward our fellow man are just SO immature...I mean, what are we, Buddy the Elf?

Usually I end up giving better presents than I get--Had to buy presents for extended family, and didn't realize that a GC to our local artists-supply store, a big jar of peach salsa, and my own batch of dark-chocolate chip cookies (which are so Mrs. Fields-ish that if you added pecans, her mall shops can kiss my hinder) would go over so perfectly.
Not that I didn't have a little bit of self-indulgence: For some odd reason, they're huge Polar Express fans but didn't have the Blu-ray, so I bought the Blu3D version and watched for myself before wrapping the regular version up for them.

The downside is that nobody knows me well enough to give me good presents (as noted, I'm the only Blu/PS3 fan in the house).
Still, give me a Hickory Farms box and a hefty Amazon GC, and I call it a year.

So far...

The wife will be getting me a bike trailer to tow the little one around, once I figure out which model to get.

I knew I was getting a few games for the PS4 from one of my sisters. My other sister gave me a stuffed "Foghorn Leghorn" and a gift certificate for home-made chicken soup. I am going to enjoy that when I get home. I haven't had decent chicken soup since my mother passed away. I'll enjoy the games too.

I gave one of my sisters a GC for horse supplies. I bought a GC for a "spa treatment" for my other sister. We didn't go too big this year. I'm out of town, so I couldn't give them to them. We were going to do it on Ukranian Christmas, but it turns out I'll be working through that too.

I got a new 512 GB Crucial SSD for my computer, since my old 128 GB SSD was close to maxed out. I opted to install Windows fresh instead of restoring from a disk image, and I've been really happy with the performance improvement.

Ejanss said:

Yeah, because generosity and goodwill toward our fellow man are just SO immature...I mean, what are we, Buddy the Elf?

Click to expand...

Generosity and goodwill take many forms, and not just the kind that gets wrapped up and put under a tree.

Cousins and I don't exchange anything. We all purchase for nieces/nephews(most of our elders are gone. For me, I only have 1 uncle left).I never wrap anything, but I hardly ever give anything new.My fav niece, gave her some 60s era Mission speakers to go with her Nikko gear of the same era(she bought the Nikko herself). In college, essence of a swinging 60s flower girl. She'd have a great time with Willie and Tommy.My GF daughter(junior in HS), we gave her a Mustang II(like my niece, has a thing for decades ago) that had a still functioning 8-track. She's been driving it for months. We gave her a box with another radio for it...which included the title for the car and a big enough check to cover a year of insurance.

This was our best gift, by far -- our new grand niece, Brooklyn.

Oh, how darling! What a beautiful girl!

Congrats, Scott!

We celebrated Christmas morning on the 26th. My wife is a neonatal nurse practitioner who works 24-hour shifts, and she was on for the entire 25th. I guess working on major holidays is how you know you have a truly indispensable job: Doctors, nurses, firefighters, police officers, movie theater ticket rippers.

Christmas morning can get a little crazy with five kids in the house, but tons of fun. This was our first Christmas with our youngest, a boy we adopted in May, so there was something a little extra magical about that. Overall, a relaxing day playing with new goodies, watching movies, and making memories.

My wife shocked me with a Marantz AV7701. I've been dreaming of a new pre/pro for several years now, and was definitely not expecting it this year. She didn't know to get XLR cables to run to the amps, so I ordered those yesterday. Looking forward to getting it set up in the next few days. Finally time to retire the 17 year old Lexicon DC-1. It's crazy to think that the Bryston amps are the same age, but they're still under warranty!

My wife knows me so well. She gave me a bunch of scores that I have wanted (Desplat's Unbroken, The Equalizer, Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies special edition, and the Star Trek: Enterprise box set that La La Land records recently released.) She also gave me Elliot Goldenthal's Othello Symphony, and I now final own Little Big Man on Blu-Ray (which I love but haven't seen in over 20 years.)Oh, and I can't wait to wear the Star Trek socks she gave me to work

I got a $15 gift card to Subway, and a new 2015 Peanuts desk calendar.

Here's what that Peanuts desk calendar looks like, box and all:

My son surprised me with a pair of Audio-Technica M50 headphones. They sound great!!! I've been listing to music for 2 days. I even watched a concert on my laptop just so I could use the headphones.

My family surprised me with a popcorn machine. Very thoughtful and fun, I also got the Amish made windchimes I wanted =)

I got a cat leash/harness, some cat pillows, a new leatherman Squirt PS4 multitool... A few gift cards, a new Oral-B electric toothbrush... and a bike cover for my workplace bike commute...

Jay