The loot pile!

[Lance]

By the way, where can you actually BUY plexiglass? ;o
Last I checked, it wasn't in stock at Home Depot or Canadian Tire.

Good question. My dad just had some pieces of it laying around his shop from God-knows-where. I was originally planning on constructing two boxes: one for the present and another with a hacksaw inside. That way, after he had stared at his present for a few minutes, I would have offered to bring him a hacksaw so he could get the box open. You know what would have happened next. Unfortunately, we only had enough Plexiglass to make one box, and it was too short-notice for me to go out and find some more.

I have no idea what the fuck you guys are going to do to top the Plexiglass thing.

I have ideas for the next three years. I can only hope that he can keep up with me.

[Ryogo]

From the girlfriend...

A sweater
Both 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell
Batman Nutcracker
A wax seal kit (Like for the old fashion envelopes. Random, but pure awesome)
A box of nerds, because you are what you eat, as she said

And under the tree from my parents and brother, I got...

Couple pairs of jeans
Lupe Fiasco's "The Cool"
Alice Cooper's "Along Came a Spider"
An Atari T-Shirt
A buncha Movie theatre money and coupons
50 bucks for the liquor store
A leather bound bible in a wooden case. Given to me by my late grandparents, who had them bought in their will for all the grandkids
A toque
Small Camera
A flask (With the USSR red star on it. Also pure awesome)
Multitool
A beard trimmer (Which I desperately needed)

And a Vox VT30 guitar amp. Which is pure awesome.

Also, my other grandparents showed me the awesomeness of not knowing what something is. My parent's told them that I was a fan of anime. Christmas, I open up a package with two volumes of a manga called "+Anima". The last two volumes to be precise, because they assumed being a fan, I would have all the others. Now I have to go out and buy the rest of them because I'm OCD like that.

I still can't stop laughing everytime I think about that though

[Strago]

My family exchanges fewer and fewer gifts each year, which is quite nice, because the first things that go are trinkets that I don't want and would never use. This year I got a lovely assortment of things.

Received

A Lion Among Men - Gregory Maguire's third book in the series that started with Wicked, really entertaining and so much more interesting than the bubblegum bullshit that is the Broadway musical they spawned.
The Best American Nonrequired Reading of 2008 - Awesome anthology that I've received for the past three years, now.
Library of America's Novels of Philip K. Dick, Vol. I - Yes. So very yes.
A new sweater
Two new t-shirts
Two pairs of amazing wool socks
A delightfully soft black fleece pullover
Persona 4 (Yay! Don't know when I'll find the time to play it, but yay.)
Shadow of the Colossus (Also yay! Been meaning to play this since it came out.)
And, last but not least: from my mother, cash amounting to 2/3 of the cost of headshots. Booyaka.

Givethed: The Best Part of this Dang Holiday

To my dad, a CD of the Berlin Symphony playing several of Mozart's piano concerti.
To my mother, an NRSV Green Bible. It's pretty cool: made entirely from recycled materials, and every passage referring to the earth and nature is in green text.
To my (thirteen-year-old) sister, a new hat and scarf. Miraculously, she seemed to like them a great deal.
To my (eighteen-year-old) brother, the recent Achewood book, The Great Outdoor Fight. Signed and sketched in by the author when he did a book-signing event in Brooklyn a couple months back. Also I stole his external hard drive, put translation-patched Mother 3 on it, and wrapped the hard drive up for him. He was amused.
To my step-dad, nothing. He accepts gifts only in the form of charity done to others. So I bought a copy of A Game of Thrones and donated it to a book drive at Borders.
To my housemates from last year at college, I adapted The Night Before Christmas to be full of house in-jokes and e-mailed it to all of them on Christmas Eve at midnight.
Aaaaand to my girlfriend, I made her a notebook full of poems/texts/images I knew she loved, as well as a few pictures of us. It came out pretty nicely, and it made her cry. So, big points.

Not a bad year, where this holiday is concerned.

[Veryslightlymad]

A toque

Someone gave you a Chef's hat for Christmas?!

[DjinnAndTonic]

A Lion Among Men - Gregory Maguire's third book in the series that started with Wicked, really entertaining and so much more interesting than the bubblegum bullshit that is the Broadway musical they spawned.

The musical was pretty good for a musical, but yeah, it really has nothing to do with the novel thematically.

Also: New Gregory Maquire book = must read for Djinn. I didn't know that the third book of the "Wicked series" had already been released... or had even been planned... This is awesome news.

Now all I have to do is find a way to get English books in this country... Amazon.com, I suppose?

-Djinn

[Ryogo]

A toque

Someone gave you a Chef's hat for Christmas?!

A toque (Or tuque, it's spelled either way up here) is a winter hat.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuque

But it's also a chef hat apparently. I never knew that. Hurrah for Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toque_(French)

Also, because I realized I didn't post it.

What I gave! Our families decided it was best not to exchange gifts amongst each others (Like to cousins, aunts, etc) so my list is much smaller than it normally is.

To my Mom: Chicken Soup for the Mother and Son Soul
To my Dad: Screwdriver bits, since he lost all his
To my brother: The Marvel Vault. Contains a bunch of old Marvel collectibles and a history of the Marvel comics
To my friend Greg: The Battlefield 2 Complete Collection
To my friend Catherine: Okami

And to the Girlyfriend: A phone in the shape of a Sprite can, a copy of Guild Wars: Platinum, and a set of watercolour paints with brushes to go with it.  She was quite happy, which made me happy

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Well, starting today, I'm bringing back the fedora. I have to say it looks damn good on me.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

I got...

A copy of Metal Gear Solid 4 I can't play without a PS3...
Robert Hamburger's "Real Ultimate Power: The Ninja Book"
A laptop cooling stand/USB hub
Castlevania: Judgement
A Chik-Fil-A Pez Dispenser
A copy of Valkyria Chronicles I can't play without a PS3... hmm...
A wire fox terrier magnet
A set of pearls and ring from my ancestors
A new button-down long-sleeve shirt
And a PS3

So, overall, awesome.   I figured on getting the PS3 after the second exclusive game, since the protests of "oh, we thought it was for the Wii" sounded rather feeble from a couple of gamers.

I gave...

A Chik-Fil-A Pez Dispenser; no, a different one, bought in secret at the same mall on the same day
A Hello Kitty cup holder
A Hello Kitty magnet
A Hello Kitty notebook
A pair of humorous signs
A pack of Salon-Pas muscle and joint pain patches
Six puzzles
A good luck cat statue
A (not-so-good-luck? It wasn't specified) cat statue
A glass rooster statue
A Denver Nuggets long-sleeve knit shirt
Connie Willis's "To Say Nothing of the Dog"
A squirrel nut bowl
A pair of thermal pajamas

[Ultradude]

Now that I have Christmas money and a Gamestop gift card from a future step sister....

Persona 4

and lots of used games

MGS2 (lol)
Ratchet and Clank
Jak and Daxter

In bigger and better news, I got a really nice new suit from my dad and future step mom, along with a shirt and ties to match. New running shoes too! Yay.

[Hunter Sopko]

Sister's presents arrived.

Sega Genesis Collection (PSP)
Upright Citizen's Brigade Season 2!!
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Eureka Season 2

Also got a $20 giftcard to Gamestop from my Aunt.

Yep. Always hilarity with my sister (two years ago she gave me a copy of SO3 with two disc 2's). She and my Mom musta gotten some wires crossed, and ended up buying two of the same presents. UCB S2 is awesomesauce though.

Want an extra copy of Eureka Season 2, Shale?<G>

[DomaDragoon]

Got a finalized list now:

-$25 EB Games gift certificate
-Scratch lottery ticket (I lost)
-$30 Chapters gift card
-$50 Mark's Work Warehouse gift card
-bag of socks
-box of Slowpokes (the Turtles clone, not the Pokemon)
-$160

[NotMiki]

Gave:

To the girlfriend: Perfume, Necklace and matching earrings, Scarf, 2 other pairs of earrings, bendable cutting board,
scented candle, a sweater, chocolate, Top Chef cookbook.
To her brother: a Gamestop gift certificate
To her dad: A lot of fudge
To her mom: a Sephora gift certificate
To my bud Eric: used copies of the Elric paperbacks from the seventies.
To my bro: Apocalypse How, a useful guidebook for the coming armageddon.  Also a t-shirt.
To my sis: a dvd full of mp3s, Ode to Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka, Amphigorey Again by Edward Gorey, a really nice handmade plate, and a necklace.  Also a t-shirt.
To my parents: handmade teacups with birds on them, same guy as did my sister's plate.
To my dad: Best American Mystery writing of 2008, if the book title is to be believed.  And a t-shirt.  Also a book on birding in Maine, if being handed a book by my dad and wrapping and labeling it for him counts.
To my mom: Soap.  Really awesome soap, I'll have you know.  A pair or three of earrings.
To my aunt Jan: a winter hat, earrings, and a graphic novel titled Klezmer that looked funny.
To my aunt Lin: More soap, earrings.
To my aunt Deb: Necklace and earrings.  Detecting a theme here?
To my uncle Dick: A jar of hot, smoked pickled okra.  Also a t-shirt.

Got:

Kingdom Hearts: Re:CoM
Mario Kart (for the Wii)
DDR:X
A lovely scarf
A set of pretty napkins
the Early American Cookbook (just like it sounds. Pork Fruit Cake - A Plantation Holiday Special, General Horatio Gates' Best Rice Popovers.  Good stuff.)
The Pocket Guide to Mischief (there's a great section on how negative Philadelphia fans are and how they boo everyone, Santa included.  The book absolves them, noting that the also booed Kobe Bryant)
Roasted Peppers
Pepper Relish
Spam (don't ask me, I have no idea why)
The Best of Pogo
Asterix and the Cauldron
Assorted Bloom County collections
A boxed set of all the Tintin books.  Indescribably cool.
Masters of American Comics (this looks really awesome, comics fans take note)
A flashlight
Green Pekoe, Yunnan Noir, and a few samples (from adagio.com, really the best source of tea I know of)
A Turkish shirt
2 pairs of pants
some nice dress shirts
A nice new coat (my mother was somewhat scandalized to see me wearing my standard thin corduroy jacket plus sweater combo I usually sport in the winter, I think)
A slew of classical music, lent from my sister, currently being ripped.
CD of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane together at Carnegie Hall.  So cool.
Get Smart season 1! (there's a 'got smart' joke in here somewhere, I just know it...)
A book on the history of the structural underbelly of NYC.  Old abandoned subway stations, drainage pipes, etc.  Neat stuff.
And last but certainly not least (hell, probably not last.  I'm sure I'm forgetting something) A Wild Ride through the Night by Walter Moers, a novel inspired by 21 woodcuts by Gustave Dore, the eminent 19th century illustrator.  Dore's wood engravings are absolutely outstanding, so there's a damn good bet this will be a good book.

Here's one of Dore's more iconic illustrations to Paradise Lost:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Paradise_Lost_12.jpg

and here are the t-shirts I mentioned (this guy has a lot of fantastic stuff, so check it out! the fifth one was last year, but anyway)
http://content.perspicuity.com/?q=node/246
http://content.perspicuity.com/?q=node/252
http://content.perspicuity.com/?q=node/396
http://content.perspicuity.com/?q=node/211
http://content.perspicuity.com/?q=node/336

[Sierra]

A book on the history of the structural underbelly of NYC.  Old abandoned subway stations, drainage pipes, etc.  Neat stuff.

Title/author? Always thought stuff like this was pretty cool.

[NotMiki]

A book on the history of the structural underbelly of NYC.  Old abandoned subway stations, drainage pipes, etc.  Neat stuff.

Title/author? Always thought stuff like this was pretty cool.

New York Underground
 by Julia Solis

[OblivionKnight]

Nothing.

...everyone's just waiting for my birthday, since I have been so damn busy, and the two are so damn close.

What I gave:

Something like $500 in gift cards to a large number of people.  I like the practical stuff.
A potato (which I dressed up and made look like a person; a cheap man's Mr. Potato Head), Oreo Cakesters, Wheat Thins, Triscuits, and a Claddagh Ring for my girlfriend.  She also got some gift certificates too.
My secret santa at work got...some cool stuff.  Well, I just felt like being a bastard, so for the newly-wed she is, I got her a pair of edible panties, edible boxers, some chocolate, and a homemade risque card for the two of them to look at and enjoy.  Creativity is awesome. 

Not too much else, really. 

[Veryslightlymad]

A book on the history of the structural underbelly of NYC.  Old abandoned subway stations, drainage pipes, etc.  Neat stuff.

Title/author? Always thought stuff like this was pretty cool.

New York Underground
 by Julia Solis

There's a series on the History channel that is nothing BUT dealing with the underbelly of various locations. If I remember what it's called, I'll post it here.

[Dunefar]

Underground cities?

EDIT: Cities of the Underworld. Awesome show.

[Ryogo]

Underground cities?

EDIT: Cities of the Underworld. Awesome show.

The name just screams awesome. I'll have to give it a watch sometime, it sounds really interesting.

[Veryslightlymad]

Yeah, I've only seen it once, since my Gambling-addict dad TiVo's everything that has "Las Vegas" in it, but it was remarkably interesting.

[Sierra]

Underground cities?

EDIT: Cities of the Underworld. Awesome show.

The Cid lacks cable TV. Does sound neat, though, will have to see if it's something I can rent.