Most would agree that gifts aren’t the most important part of the holidays. Even so, people from every walk of life share the emotional roller coaster that is opening gifts — some cause gasps, other groans. Some are exactly right, and others exactly wrong.
This year, the team at Pembina Valley Online (PVOL) reminisced about surprise trips, deodorant, horse-drawn sleigh rides, terrifying dolls, and generic Christmas mugs to determine what makes the best and worst gifts.
It’s important research for the holiday season.
The gifts that create Christmas magic
1. That special toy from childhood
Of course, there’s nothing quite like waking up on Christmas morning as a child and opening a gift that fills one’s heart with wonder.
Robyn Wiebe (reporter and radio host on The Eagle 93.5) says that although she appreciates words more than gifts, there is still a gift from her childhood that fills this role.
“My favourite gift that I can still remember that I still have, that I value, especially now that I'm a grandma, is my Fisher Price castle that I received when I was three years old in the 70s,” she says. “It was the classic castle with the dragon and the people and all of the little places where they could go hide.”
Wiebe recalls spending many hours with the castle, and its significance to her hasn’t waned over the decades.
“All the times that I have moved from place to place, that castle has come with me. It has been a valuable part of my collection . . . of toys because I'm still a kid at heart in so many ways and still appreciate toys, games, and fun with family.”
The toys we desire in childhood sometimes coincide with the trends of the time. This was the case for a gift that Shelley Graham, operations manager, remembers fondly from her childhood.
Her mother went to the distance to add a bit of extra magic.
"I don't even know how old I was exactly, but it was the Cabbage Patch Kid craze. I wanted a blonde-haired girl with freckles,” she says. “I got that, but later I found out that it was almost impossible to find, so my mom actually drew on the freckles. She stood in the store, took the pattern down, and then when she brought the doll home, she put the brown freckles on.”
Graham still has the lovingly personalized Cabbage Patch Kid doll today.
2. Experiences with family
Beyond the tangible gifts of childhood, the PVOL team also agrees that moments so special that they etch themselves into our memories make the very best gifts. The grandfather of Gloria Hoeppner, who works in administration, created a moment like this that will last a lifetime.
“My favourite Christmas present was an experience that my grandfather got for us as a family,” she says. “He paid to have one of the neighbours hitch up heavy sleigh horses and they pulled us through the woods near Brandon–Carberry area, and it ended with a campfire. It was the most magical experience of my life.”
Family trips are another source of ephemeral moments that become core memories. For Ty Hildebrand (account manager and host of the Country 88 morning show) and Zack Driedger (content creator), two special trips sit at the top of the list.
“My partner and I got us and the kids a trip to Mexico,” says Hildebrand. “It was just incredible to spend an entire week away from cell phones and alarm clocks and real life. That was a lot of fun.”
Driedger’s trip was also tropical, but it was to Florida, under special circumstances.
“Dad would work seven months, seven days a week, and then we always went away in winter. One year, we all got a piece of luggage for Christmas and [my parents] made sure we all got it at the same time,” he says. “We each opened the luggage case, and then in each one, there was a Ziploc bag full of puzzle pieces.”
Driedger says that once they assembled the puzzle, somewhat bewildered throughout the process, they found an image of Mickey Mouse.
“That's when they said, ‘Flip it over,’ and [it had the words,] ‘We’re going to Disney World,’” he says. “It was like a Hallmark movie.”
According to Driedger, his parents’ “corny” antics were forgiven because, quite simply, “it’s Disney World."
Candace Derksen (news reporter and anchor) was also surprised with a trip to Disney World in first year of her marriage.
“At the end [of opening presents], I got a gift bag,” she recalls. “It had a stuffed Mickey Mouse in it, and then the travel agent that my husband had worked with to make this all happen had printed off [all the information]. It was rolled up like a scroll.”
Thanks . . . I think: The worst gifts
Most gifts are as wonderful as the examples above. When it comes to the rest — well, we have all received something that gives us the opportunity to consciously choose gratitude.
Most of the PVOL team was too polite to mention the bad gifts they’ve received, at first. After some encouragement, however, the truth began to come out.
1. Anything from the “White Elephant” game
White Elephant is a controversial game. One either hates it or loves it. In most versions of the holiday favourite, people sit in a circle take turns opening unmarked gifts. The catch is that one can choose to steal another’s gift or to open their own.
For Adam Loewen, customer success manager, although his family consistently exceeds gift-giving expectations otherwise, White Elephant is another beast entirely.
“The least appreciated gifts I'd say are those big family gathering gifts where . . . you pick a theme and it's like, ‘Everybody's going to buy a Christmas mug, and we're all just going to wrap them [and] toss them in the middle [and] play the stealing game,’” he says, adding that even those who come out on top aren’t really winning.
“Even if the mug that you get looks good, we've got too many mugs in our cupboard as it is,” he says.
Fortunately for him (and perhaps unfortunately for his family), Loewen has a solution for his mug surfeit.
“Maybe I shouldn't be saying this now, but we've still got the ones that we got last year . . . downstairs so we can regift them,” he says, in a hushed tone.
2. Those gifts from grandma (bless her heart)
Another type of present that makes our worst-gift list is likely relatable to most. For many of us, receiving something slightly mystifying from grandma is a Christmas tradition as timeless as eggnog.
Alexander Peters (news anchor) says that as a teenager, he was less than pleased to receive a present from his grandmother that did not exactly befit a young man.
“I have been blessed with so many good Christmas gifts over the years, but my grandma kind of . . . thinks that I'm still a child sometimes, so during my middle teenage years, I would consistently be gifted Winnie-the-Pooh colouring books,” he says. “At that time, when your ego is in that stage, it’s kind of insulting.”
Peters concedes that though the gift wasn’t ideal then, he’s grown up since then.
“Now, I would probably be pretty stoked for that,” he says.
Hoeppner also received a gift from her grandma as a pre-teen that was practical, but also begged at least one question.
"[I] got just a bunch of toiletries,” she says. “I think it was deodorant — it was very demoralizing.”
For Jayme Giesbrecht, host of the Eagle 93.5 morning show and content collector, her gift from her grandmother was age-appropriate and without implications, but “really creepy and terrifying.”
It was a baby doll that laughed or cried (that it was difficult to ascertain which illustrates its unsettling quality), and it did precisely what one does not want strange dolls to do — it made loud noises in the middle of the night.
Related stories:
- Four fun and tasty holiday recipes from the Pembina Valley
- From 'The Christmas Raccoons' to Alvin: A nostalgic look at holiday vinyl with Trent Medynski
Bonus: The best worst gift. Or is it the worst best gift?
The gifts above are clear-cut cases, but that’s not always how it turns out. For Reporter Betty Sawatzky, a gift that could be considered a 10-year-old's dream turned out to be a bit of a nightmare, too.
It all began with a giant box beside the Christmas tree.
“My sister and I . . . unwrapped this massive box and what we found inside was a saddle and a halter. Where there's a saddle, there's a horse somewhere,” she says. “Sure enough, we went out into the barn and there was our new horse. She was a Shetland Pony, and her name was Blitz.”
Soon after feeling overjoyed at the gift, it became clear that Blitz was true to her name.
“She was rather ornery, and you couldn't turn your back on her because she would bite you,” says Sawatzky, adding that the pair learned they would have to be especially vigilant with their new “friend.”
“We had to always keep our eyes and ears open for when she was going to pull a silly prank. That meant running into a ditch, getting stuck in the snow, or when she would suddenly bolt and run through the village,” she says. “She was just nasty, but the big one was she loved to roll.”
Sawatzky says that over time, she learned to understand exactly when Blitz would roll and became adept at responding. This knowledge, as laborious as it was to gather, helped her later in life.
About a decade later when she was riding a friend’s horse named Stardust, the difficult lessons over the years paid off.
"The horse whipped around [and] . . . bolted through the ditch on the road and then cut through the front yard, and here in front of the entire family, this horse ran straight for a tree with a very low hanging branch,” she says. “The horse ducked its head, and I swung myself off the saddle with all my weight on the left foot stirrup. My other leg was over the saddle, and I was hanging on to the horn of the saddle for absolute dear life.”
The onlookers asked Sawatzky where she could have possibly learned those skills, and of course, it was from the crash course with her Christmas pony.
“Needless to say, Blitz was one of the worst Christmas presents, but in the end, it was actually a very good gift,” she says.
It’s still always the thought that counts
Over our journey of the best and worst gifts, in the end, it’s easy to be touched by a good gift and a bad one alike. Even though very few teenage boys would choose to spend their time colouring Winnie-the-Pooh and one can only have so many mugs before they become receptacles for dust rather than coffee, the thread that ties gift-receiving together is the loved ones who think of us year after year.
For everyone on the team, it is here that the true spirit of the season lives. Bob Miller, the general manager in Winkler, appreciates this part of the season most. For him, it's endearing to spend time with the loved ones who give the presents that make us smile and cringe.
“Enjoy the time you have with your family,” he says. “As we go into the holiday season, just take some time, recharge the batteries and enjoy your friends and your family. That's what I look most forward to.”
To read more of the good, the bad, cats drinking coffee, and a German child star, keep an eye on Pembina Valley Online for more holiday memories from the other half of the team tomorrow.