My favorite gift was a surprise - dh and I went to Ireland a few months ago. While there, I bought several pieces of pottery on the second day we were there, as well as woolen goods and a beautiful painting, plus some things for our kids. The pottery and painting were shipped home by the stores, but our extra suitcase was full of the sweaters, etc. So on one of our last days there, the B&B we were staying in had these gorgeous, unique teapots. When I mentioned them to the B&B owner, he told me they were from a pottery shop in town. We stopped there, and not only were they expensive, but I didn't have room to bring home with us and shipping wasn't worth it to me for the one thing. After we got home, I told dh I regretted not buying it b/c it was truly a unique and interesting piece of pottery (plus I drink a lot of tea!). At some point, dh called the shop owner and ordered one for me for Christmas! We only had one thing that was a dud of sorts. I'm pretty strict about electronics with my kids - seems that most of their friends own expensive electronics from an early age. Dd was 12 before she got an iPod Touch (whereas my younger sons' friends were getting them as early as age 7). So that was kinda the benchmark for my younger kids. So my next oldest was getting one this year for Christmas (he turns 12 next week). To keep this story relatively short, after much contemplation, we decided to give our 10 y/o one too, mainly b/c he had many personal obstacles this year (and always seems to) that my other kids have never had to deal with. As it turned out, my adult neighbor had one that she was no longer using and asked if we wanted it for free. She wiped everything off it, still had all the original packaging, etc. He wouldn't really know the difference. So he got it, was all excited, I had charged it ahead, etc. Well, I go to download some game apps that he picked out and nearly all of them wouldn't download and I was getting some sort of pop up about the software. So after googling it, I determined that the iPod was one of the earlier "generations" and that the software had been upgraded so much that most of the game apps will not run on the older ones! So I had to pretend something was wrong with it and told him we'd go out the next day and replace it. Fortunately, he had no clue what the deal was, but I felt like an idiot! So much for trying to save $200! THe old one will download some apps and can still be used for other things, but the most important thing, the games, was the one thing that he really wanted it for!

At an annual family gathering with my wife's family we often play a game that they call "Celebrity", which goes as follows: Divide into two teams, each person gets four (or five or six) small pieces of paper on which they write a name or object or short phrase. All of the pieces of paper are folded and placed in a basket. Each person takes a timed, one-minute-long turn with that person selecting papers from the basket and the rest of their team guessing. In the first round, the rules are similar to catch phrase, the clue giver cannot say any part of the answer. So if the answer was "Abraham Lincoln" the clue giver might say "He's a President, He freed the slaves, He's on the Five Dollar Bill" When someone on his team guesses correctly the clue giver draws another and continues until the minute runs out, and the number of clues correctly guessed is tallied. Then the next player from the other team goes, and give clues for a minute, alternating like this until all of the clues are gone. If a answer hasn't been guessed when the time runs out, it is returned to the basket. Then ALL of the answers are re-folded and returned to the basket for the second round, which starts with the player after the one who ended the first round. The second round is charades, with all the usual rules of charades, but since the clues are one that you've just heard in the previous round it tends to go faster than normal charades, and even if you cannot think of what to do for a given answer, there's at least a chance one of your teammates will remember a particularly tough answer from the first round and shout it out (perhaps they even wrote it) Again each clue giver gets one minute, and the total number that are correctly guessed are added to the tally. Round two continues until all of the answers have been guessed, and again the slips of paper are re-folded and returned to the basket. In the third round, play proceeds as in the first two rounds, but the clue giver is only allowed to say a single word. They can say the word slow or fast or say it multiple times, but they can only say one word. Again given that the players have all heard the answers in the first two rounds, the play in the third round can proceed surprisingly quickly. In the end the team that guessed the most answers correctly wins. You have to establish house rules about whether a clue giver is allowed to pass if they don't know the answer they drew, and some sort of guidelines for what are "acceptable answers" and how close the guess has to be to the written answer to be correct.

Left Center Right. Great, simple, fun game. You can have as many play as you want. It comes with chips, but if you have more people just use pennies or whatever. Everyone who has ever played it with us really liked it. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Trademark-Poker-Left-Center-Right-Dice-Game-Green/21854735?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227015951959&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=t&wl3=40837941032&wl4=aud-310687322322:pla-78651594872&wl5=9006621&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=21854735&wl13=&veh=sem Also Catch Phrase. We have the electronic one. So fun!! Like this... https://www.google.com/search?q=catchPhrase&start=24&client=tablet-android-verizon&sa=N&biw=1280&bih=800&tbs=vw:g,ss:44&tbm=shop&prmd=sivn&srpd=5069071472218613385&prds=num:1,of:1,epd:5069071472218613385,paur:ClkAsKraX4FnvIqa5JsAuBvcyQ83RPzsrmHIGzAIGIgEkTl9yPJwJUoUkAYczqwFa7n0WhpWSL8jowl-OtFdyU1n7-rQQKclXXw7pPvKOLvvMOXqY-5-bCP3NhIZAFPVH70sTqNIaUjzQS493QLyciOO0MOu1g&ved=0ahUKEwiK-ara2M7XAhXhQt8KHWk9DCo4GBCCNgjFBA

We love Dirty Santa, which has other names too. We set a limit on price and the gifts are usually fun and practical but something you wouldn't buy for yourself. One year I received microwave heat warmer ankle booties. Loved it! I'd never buy something like that for myself. We've laughed so much during the exchange, especially when two people fight over a gift. :)