This tradition started, oh, maybe ten years ago or so, when Mr. Ambrya and I were still setting up housekeeping. Neither one of us are particularly big on celebrating Christmas and tend to lapse into a slack-jawed state of drooling catatonia when attempting to brainstorm gift ideas for other people.
To spare ourselves this ordeal (at least in regards to having to choose presents for one another) we evolved a system of pooling our gift money from various relatives, pitching in the money we would have spent on each other, and buying a fairly big-ticket item that everyone can enjoy. For instance, the first time we did this, we got a 6-speaker home theater stereo system so we could enjoy our surround sound movies properly. We call it the "family" gift.
Of course, now it's a bit harder to do it this way with Tristan, but we still find ourselves leaning in that direction, and just adding on a couple fun "token" gifts we can put under the tree for Tristan to unwrap. Honestly (this year at least) I don't feel compelled to shower him with gift--particularly toys--because he almost never plays with the toys he has. He gets more mileage out of pretending to cook with my rice cooker and crock pot than any other toy he owns. He hasn't bonded with any stuffed animals or dolls, if his blocks make an appearance, it's usually in the role of food to get added to the crock pot or rice cooker game, he'll build with his train set for a short while but quickly gets bored, isn't all that interested in coloring, rarely touches his puzzles. So I don't see any reason to add more stuff he's not going to play with to the stack. Therefore I'll probably get him a few books and maybe a toy vacuum cleaner, since playing with mine is his OTHER favorite game.
This year, Tristan discovered Disney/Pixar movies. I don't have a problem with it because he very rarely actually sits and watches them; he just likes to have them on in the background while he runs around doing other things. Every once in a while he'll sit and watch for maybe 5-10 minutes, then he's off to the next thing, and he's perfectly happy to go outside or read a book or do anything else when a better offer comes along. Since he's in absolutely no imminent danger of becoming a couch potato, I'm okay with letting him have them running. At least he had the good taste to choose movies that don't make me completely crazy to watch again and again.
But I digress. Back to the family present. The first movie Tristan discovered was Finding Nemo, and since I've had an ambition to have a saltwater aquarium for many years now, we decided to take the plunge and finally got one today. Due to budget constraints, we had to keep it small, but we got it. It's now set up with the saltwater and some live sand, and in a few weeks when the nitrate/nitrite cycle is complete and the biological filter established, we'll add some live rock for structure and a few fish. Of course we can't have many because it's only a 15.5 gallon tank.
In honor of his fondness for Finding Nemo, I'm sure we'll have a clownfish and a blue tang, but my personal desire, and by all that is holy I WILL have one of these, this a Mandarin goby. Oh, they're beautiful. We saw one at one of the stores we visited today while pricing equipment and I can only describe its coloration as being tapestry-like. It will definitely be a conversation piece, but I have to wait until the system is well established before I can get one.
Anyway, as to the subject line. Does anyone else do this sort of thing, getting a large "family" gift? If so, what sort of items do you get?