Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Presents!

What were your favorite gifts, both to receive and to give? Are there specific gift-giving traditions among your family or ancestors?

Favorite gifts?  Well, I think it was the ColecoVision we got when I was younger.  We never went to the store for those crazy sales, but there was my dad standing outside Boscov's (I think it was Boscov's...maybe K-Mart...I'll have to see if he remembers) with us kids in tow and maybe 50 other people lined up at the door as well.  The doors opened and he was off!  There was a limited supply and darn it, his kids were getting a Coleco!  Go Dad!

Tearing through the aisles he got to electronics elbowing old ladies on his way (or not, but it sounds more dramatic).  Other parents racing as well, but he trained for this all week...and his training paid off.  He seized the box and went to the checkout line.  As it turns out the mad dash to electronics was unnecessary. There were three boxes left after all was said and done.  It diminished Dad's victory a bit, but we kids didn't care.  WE WERE GETTING A COLECO!!!!  We got Zaxxon, Smurfs and a couple other video games that Christmas.  Smurf was pretty lame, but we enjoyed killing the Smurf in various ways when things got a bit boring!  We also were apparently not the only ones that instead of walking up to Smurfette at the end, would try jumping on her head instead...

YouTubed by InecomCompany

Other Christmas traditions...my parents would put the presents in piles in the living room.  They weren't under the tree, just in the same room as the tree.  I kind of followed this "pile" tradition that my parents set, but the piles are under the tree for the majority of the stuff (excluding any particularly large presents).  We also take turns opening presents and the kids hand presents to someone other than themselves.  I can't remember if we took turns opening them when I was a kid.  I mean, I was a kid.  I remember opening presents!

I also remember that my parents would hide presents on the second floor of our house.  It was empty...my parents hadn't had a tenant (by choice) since the early 1970s.  That was ONE of the hiding spots.  Another was in my parents' closet.  The closet angled down at one end because it was under the second floor's stairs.  They would hide presents back there.  I know I nearly got busted a couple times, but I don't know if they ever figured out that we knew most of the good hiding places.  I'm not sure if my boys have discovered my hiding places or not.

What was your most memorable present?