What is THE most amazing present you have ever been given ?

One Christmas I was very very depressed an TH bought me an eternity ring and it was exactly the right size and the perfect Sapphire half hoop. I love it.

DH aka my husband

These are wonderful ?

Chestnut

Sparklefizz

Chestnut

It must be my 13th birthday when I got a record player. Heaven! And also the first two Beatles LPs to play 24 hours a day and drive everyone nuts.

Then a couple of years later a tape recorder so we could record pop music really badly from the TV or radio. And record ourselves singing too! Such innocent days.

Chestnut I had a red Dansette exactly the same as yours!

Before anyone accuses me of lying I have to admit I got the picture from the internet, but it was exactly the same as mine (and yours)!

And mine, too!

I had coveted a particular handbag for years. DH always said ‘get one, if you want one’ but I felt it too expensive and downright frivolous. Many of you will know that he died a few days before my 70th birthday, so I was completely overwhelmed when my DDs presented me with the handbag of my dreams - very sad though that DH wasn’t around to witness my delight.

Over 40 years ago I was expecting my first baby. It was OH’s birthday and we were having dinner with my sister (whose birthday was the day before) and her fiancé, whose birthday was the day before that. There was much exchanging of gifts. I needed the loo and when I got back there was a parcel on my plate. OH had bought me a beautiful silver charm in the shape of a cot. We were all moved!

My ex and I were talking about TV programmes we liked as children.
I said that I was never a big fan of Sooty, but I loved Sweep, and always wished I could go on the programme and win one.
I was far too timid, and my mum would never have allowed it, anyway.

I came in one day to a little parcel, and inside it was an original, old Sweep puppet.

I also spent all of the day after he had gone home finding little hand made cards, all numbered in the right order, each time I did my usual things.
On the toilet, on the kettle, in the fridge, in the bread bin.
All beautifully written with clever little poems. I found them right up until I pulled the cover back to climb into bed.

I forgot the ring dh gave me right after the birth of dd2, a lovely emerald and diamond. I’d never had an engagement ring. I’d have rather liked one but there were only 6 months between proposal and doing the deed, and he was working abroad for nearly all of them, besides which I know he thought that ‘getting engaged’ was seriously uncool. ?

The most exciting present I ever had as a child, was 2 goldfish in a bowl from my cousins - my first ever pets! and I soon bought them a small tank instead of the bowl.

Daughter gave us Christmas in Paris in a smart hotel over 5 days for our 40th wedding anniversary.

That was divine.

The most amazing present for me was being allowed to choose my own tortoise from a box in the local market for my 5th birthday. The price was 2/6d.

She is still with me nearly 60 years later!!

A “pearl” necklace that Queen Titania, herself left for me for my 5th birthday! (One if my much older cousins sorted it out) - it was more than magical!

For my 60th birthday DH took ten of us to a hotel in the Lakes for the weekend. DD designed a necklace and had it made for me so it was unique.

Chestnut thank you for posting the record player photo. It brought back lovely memories of my own identical one. I had no idea my lovely Dad was paying into a savings club at work and withdrew the cash when he had saved enough to go to the local electrical shop and buy it for me. I was 13 and in my first year at secondary school.

So many lovely stories of thoughtfulness and generosity. My best present was from DH for my 50th birthday. I observed that I had never had a birthday party so we took over a small country house hotel for the night with a black tie dinner for fifty followed by dancing to an excellent group courtesy of DS who occasionally played for the singer. It was the most wonderful weekend in the company of friends and relations including a number of young and I will never forget it. For my 60th birthday he bought me a red MGB, another dream fulfilled.

Yes, those presents from the 1950s and early 1960s were precious things which required some saving up for. A record player was a big purchase and you really felt honoured to receive it!

On my 60th birthday my sons had a party for me and on the table was a cloth covering something quite large. When I uncovered it, it was a computer. The monitor etc, all the bits needed. I'd had some minimal use of one in an office, as they were just becoming more widespread then, but it was mostly all new to me.
I've been online ever since. Not on that clunky old desktop though. A lovely modern slimline laptop now. How they have changed over the years.

Trisha57

The most amazing present for me was being allowed to choose my own tortoise from a box in the local market for my 5th birthday. The price was 2/6d.

She is still with me nearly 60 years later!!

Mine was 4/6d! I’d so often stopped and looked longingly at the baby tortoises in a pet shop window that we passed every Saturday while doing the big food shop.

But since I was aware from a very early age that money was invariably very tight, I never asked. But one amazing day, my father said, ‘Do you really want a tortoise?’

Poor little Timmy was put in a brown paper bag!!
Just as well the mass import of little tortoises has now been banned.

Alas, after only maybe 4 years he died during hibernation, in the very cold winter of 1963, IIRC. I was heartbroken.

Chestnut, yes things in the 50s and 60s had to be saved for.
I worked from about 13 and saved up fir ages eventually buying my own Dansette record player when I was about 15. Yes it took that long. Wish I still had it.

My elder sister had a red Dansette that she’d saved up for. And I still remember one of her first LPs - the comic songs of Tom Lehrer. On the back it said, ‘To clean record, use a fairly dry Martini.’
The height of wit to me then!

I bought a rather less attractive 2nd hand record player for £4 IIRC, with birthday money when I was probably 14.

For my 50th , my son and my brother dug me out a wildlife pond in my garden . It took a weekend with lots of beer ! I emptied the water butt into it a couple of times and then my daughter provided the plants . Twenty two years later it’s still there and I enjoy it everyday , no frogs sadly but many newts and other bug life . Now my grandchildren love pond dipping and I have many bird visitors. I still love it .

When my 65th was looming I told the family I didn't want gifts ,well I do that every year and now and agian they listen.

That year they did something that was very special ,they all got together round my daughters kitchen table and painted small self portraits plus a question mark one for the expected new GC and one of each of my cats .
They were all mounted together in a frame and given to me on my birthday .
I cried .It was the best thing I have ever got and showed me that my family are the close family I always believed we are.That they are happy to spend time together and unlike my mother I wont need to worry they'll drift apart when I die .
That was my mums biggest fear .My family portrait frame lives on my kitchen wall and it makes me smile every day

Awwwww fantastic posts... treasured memories ❤

Our house has a very grand and famous namesake. For my birthday some years ago our youngest child hand-made a beautiful ceramic house sign with the grander house outlined in relief. It’s often commented on by visitors and is one of the few things I own that is ‘treasured’.

Two really, both on the same occasion. In 1949, when I was 9, I was very, very ill in hospital with mastoiditis. When I was slowly convalescing at home, our family doctor gave me a beautiful illustrated edition of Peter Pan. This was postwar, and lovely books were not easy to come by. I was so surprised to be given a present by the doctor!

At the same time my grandfather, an undemonstrative Yorkshireman of few words and certainly not given to extravagance, gave me a magnificent toy farm complete with buildings, pigs, horses, cows, ducks, hens, the lot. There was even a milkmaid with her milking stool and buckets. I don’t expect girls of nine, almost ten, play with toy farms much now, but I loved it and kept it for years.

I have had grander presents since, but those two meant the world to me, not least because of their unexpected sources.
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Oh my, I'm going to have to up my gifting game..real food for thought here. Thank you posters.