I got an email from an organization, saying what my mother got me for Christmas. I guess I should have read it a bit more carefully. I read it, and called my mother. The conversation went something like this:

Me (in an accusatory tone of voice): Mom, did you just buy me A GOAT?

Mom: Yeah, your sister and I though it was pretty funny.

Me: Why did you buy me a goat?

Mom: Well, you're hard to buy for and we wanted something you couldn't return.

Me: What am I going to do with a goat?

Mom: It's really not for you.

Me: Oh, who's my goat for?

Mom: It's for food for the poor.

Me: WHAT, SOMEONE'S GOING TO EAT ME GOAT?

Mom: No, it's for "Food For The Poor"?

Me: To eat?

Mom: No, to milk. The milk is the food.

Me: I'm not milking a goat!

Mom: No, they give it to poor people. They get the goat. They milk it.

Me: So I don't even get my own goat for Christmas?

Mom: No.

(Silence)

Mom: We were thinking of getting your a donkey but it was too expensive.

Me: What?

Mom: They have donkeys, too. But we started thinking about chickens, but we didn't think 20 chickens was as good of a gift.

Me: Real chickens?  (me, re-reading the e-card and clicking to find this:
https://secure3.convio.net/ffp/site/Eco … re_id=5821

Mom: No, for the poor.

Me (looking at website): Mom, you know, for $10 more you could have gotten me The Three Little Pigs.

Mom: I saw that, but you're allergic to pork.

Me: But you said I'm not eating them.

Mom: I know, but we thought about a donkey, but it was too expensive.

====================

Okay, can anyone top that for being bizarre?

Merry Christmas.

No!

Strange gifts I have received:

A suitcase from my mom when I was 8

A pallet of sanitary napkins from the father of my best friend. He said I was being a bitch... All my buddy and I could think of was that he had lost his mind in his pending divorce. I left them in his garage and several years later he and his ex wife were trying again... and he gave the same pallet of pads to his ex... she packed up and moved out that day.

A carton of cigarettes and a bag of pot from my brother. I was 10! (he was 15) He got in a lot of trouble with my parents. He beat me up later that day because he got in trouble!

My brother's father in law gave me a stack of these soft core porn/bikini magazines. He ran a print shop that printed these magazines. My brother told me that his F-I-L was proud of his work and wanted me to have something he did.

I used to help this old lady in our apartment building by visiting and taking her dog to the vet. She was basically a shut in and needed company. One christmas she gave my wife and I a big bag and told us to open in when we got home. We opened it and it was filled with those plastic bags you get at the grocery store. There was about a years worth of grocery bags in there, along with something that I was guessing was a cat turd and about a dollar worth of change. We pretended like we loved it. I don't think she even remembered giving us the "gift" as later that week she apologized a few times for forgetting christmas.

There are a few more, but those were some highlights!

When Jacksonville got the Jaguars NFL team, we got season tickets in the endzone.  The first year, they didn't have nets up and all the balls kicked into the stands were able to be kept.  I wanted a game ball so bad so I asked for one for Christmas.  (dream big or go home).  My dad was a volunteer sheriff officer and would ride from time to time with the regular officers.  One night they got a break-in call at the stadium.  They had to walk around inside after one of the coaches arrived.  As they went to leave, my dad asked for a game ball.  Imagine my surprise when I opened that one.  They can only use the balls for 1 game.  They took the balls and wrote a "K" on them for the kickers to use for practice.  I went to get the kickers autograph and he saw the K.  Had an interesting discussion with him about how I got the game ball.

When I was 17 my mom got me a portable air hockey set?? I was like... Oh yeah, this is great ma. We returned it the next day. But other than that she's always done ridiculously well getting everyone something they love. She's usually like a gift giving genie.

On the other hand, my brother Jamie is NOTORIOUSLY BAD at gift giving, it's like his kryptonite. Once, he gave my mom a $5 giant engagement ring keychain. That was it. Another time, he got her one of those horrible Kmart hygiene baskets, with Dove shampoo and conditioner I got an iTunes gift card for three years until finally I flat out told him I haven't used iTunes to buy music since 2005. So for the bast couple years I've gotten cash or a Walmart giftcard.

Apparently, mom and I hard "super hard to buy for!". Which really means they only buy us stuff from Cracker Barrel (where they work) because they get a crazy high discount, or they get some piece of crap placeholder gift from the Family Dollar/Kmart. This year I made a specific effort with them and said point blank I wanted a Sims 3 EP, so we'll see "how hard" I was to buy for when they were fracking $19.99 at Target this week.

I mean, my god, it's not like I'm asking for the rednecks to invade Pottery Barn or Anthropologie, but can they just class it up a little bit and brave the big bad Target??

I dunno, maybe I'm being ridiculous, but I put a lot of thought into what to get each person, whether it costs $3 or $300. You don't have to spend a lot to make someone happy, but you have to spend the TIME to find the right thing. Hell, I spend VERY LITTLE money on them each year, but not because I get them shitty gifts-- I know how to research and that $40 retail item becomes $15 on the internet really quickly. And little things like knowing my brother likes to wear baseball hats every day AND that he watches Sons of Anarchy. Dingding, sons of anarchy baseball cap! But he and his wife wouldn't have the vaguest clue, not because I don't tell them things, but because they don't care enough to remember what I'vw told them.

Lmao me& my mom were talking about this last night. I'm buying animals for families this year, For the families...

If someone were to buy someone else a gift then tell me that's my present (now that I'd appreciate, but that's ME) bad example..

Its just not something you do! Haha that's rude, it's not buying someone a gift.. If you wanna donate do it for you& the families, don't say it's someone's gift, they had nothing to do with it..

We laugh about this gift even after fifteen years. One year my very old mom gave my cousin who was at least 15 years old a choo choo train that was a toy for a three year old...not a train. She got it from the church thrift store and thought he would like it. We never told her, but laugh about it and ask if he wants a choo choo train many times when gifts come up.

Thinking back:

A Plastic Houseplant.

....then again, i asked for it. i was a strange kid.