Your goofiest Christmas gift?

About ten years ago (I was about to say before the Alzheimer's took effect but maybe I should give that some more consideration) my father-in-law retired to Florida and decided to make us shell art for Christmas. He got purple felt and glued it to a board and then made shells into snowmen with the moveable eyes. My husband's aunt used to give us paint-by-number paintings she had done but would leave the number of the painting unpainted so we could tell which one it was. My husband's 96-year-old uncle (I notice a trend here about which side of the family this is happening on) gives the most eye popping gifts. He used to make really nice woodworking things but the older he got the weirder they got - of course you gotta cut a 96-year-old some slack (even though he is the hottie of the retirement home). We have gotten windmills made out of bleach jugs, a round wooden thing painted red and blue that spinned with three holes and finally found out he wanted us to get three artificial flowers (one red, one white, one blue) and put one in each hole. This year we got a big plastic 5 gallon drum that has holes on three sides with a little wooden perch. It is a birdhouse but it is really interesting that it has "dangerous - hazardous materials" written on it - right by the birdhole. Said he couldn't understand why the guy was throwing these away (he made 16). My friend now is getting interesting gifts from one of her husband's coworkers. Last year she got a brick that was painted black and a snowman painted on it (doorstop maybe? who knows...) and this year she got dried okra painted white with feathers on them. I think they are supposed to be angels or something.

So hit me with it - what's your oddest and goofiest gift?

My wacky little sister (little=29ish, and I was 31ish?) was into decorating with cows at the time. She lived in NC, I lived in TX and had a friend who had a daddy who had some property. Long story short, she got some wrapped up cow patties for the holidays.


Edit: That sounds lousy, but my family used to have a great sense of humor, so that was pretty funny. She got other stuff, too. I Love my sis and family regardless of how different most of my family is now.