The most regifted Christmas presents

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Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Snorting his way across the USA
I'll start. It has been said that the last new ones in the entire world were produced on November 26, 1902, and all stocks of since have been repackaged, resold, and regifted. Well maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but there are almost certainly ones from that era still in circulation.

#1. Fruitcake
 
BBQ sets for the win.


BTW...I like a good fruitcake. If you speak to those closest to me they would say that fact lends credence to the old saying that you are what you eat.
 
robin ardoin said:
BBQ sets for the win.


BTW...I like a good fruitcake. If you speak to those closest to me they would say that fact lends credence to the old saying that you are what you eat.
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I have actually not regifted any BBQ sets personally (I have several, but I really, really like BBQ) but I can see how that could be. I'm probably guilty of setting multiple cased grilling implement sets into regifting circulation.

The thing about fruitcake is that the makers have discovered how to achieve the same dried texture and appearance in thirty minutes that it took the ancient Egyptians five thousand years to match with their mummies. There is a closely guarded secret here.
 
I love fruitcake, Claxtons is pretty dang good!
 
Daleandee said:
According to these folks fruitcake is # 6 on the list but they give wine @ # 5 so they can't be trusted either ... :dunno:

https://www.thestreet.com/markets/10-christmas-gifts-guaranteed-to-be-regifted-12968172
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I wouldn't necessarily disagree that wine shouldn't be on that list (like the triple negative?) But their argument is wrong. You can never 'have too much.' I'm only passing it on if I don't like it. But it it's good wine, then why did I get it in the first place.

Speaking of which, I just got a text Friday from our admin at work that a box of wine arrived for me. It's probably from my financial guy, and he usually hooks me up with some top notch swill. I might go in tomorrow to check it out.
 
I’ve never hated someone enough to regift fruitcake. I’d probably shoot them before I did that.
 
robin ardoin said:
BTW...I like a good fruitcake. If you speak to those closest to me they would say that fact lends credence to the old saying that you are what you eat.
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Dense, sticky, and soaked in booze. Yup, still valid.

Nauga,
and the rule of threes
 
Any fruitcake our family received would remain in the tin and was placed on top of the fridge. I checked it out after 6 mos. and it still had not molded. How long does a fruitcake remain edible? Can it be regifted the following Christmas?
 
Assuming we're describing those Panettone things, they make pretty credible boozy french toast.
 
There are some, not many, very good fruitcakes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of very bad fruitcakes.
 
Dana said:
There are some, not many, very good fruitcakes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of very bad fruitcakes.
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My mom used to make one that was delicious. I've had other homemade ones that were quite good. The bought ones, not so much.
 
My mom makes a good one....no booze in it. I like it. Keep it sliced in the freezer. It doesn't get super hard and I eat it frozen.
Publix bakery makes one that's close to hers
I find the Claxon store bought ones similar but not quite as good. Still I'd eat those if I can't have mom's....and if i wasn't on this carnivore diet. I like them too.

I find those store bought italian style panettone things...at least the store bought ones I've had... to be a little bland and dry. They were probably last years' models. I scratch made one once and it was passable.
 
I gave a guy at work a bottle of malort. I got most of it back the next year.

Malort, tonight's the night you fight your dad.

(Ask someone from Chicago....or Google malort commercial)
 
Racerx said:
I gave a guy at work a bottle of malort. I got most of it back the next year.

Malort, tonight's the night you fight your dad.

(Ask someone from Chicago....or Google malort commercial)
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I have turned a bunch of people onto Malort. I should get some type of salesman's position there.
 
I'll write in defense of fruitcake.
Real fruitcake, not the crap you buy in the store or order on line, is one of the most energy dense fuels on the planet.
It's the go to food for mountaineers, and many, if not most of the real high altitude climbers rely on it to keep their energy levels up.
I have been making fruitcakes for 50+ years. I used to get 45 or more orders a year from people who like my fruitcake.
Oh, yeah. You need to be 21 years old or older to eat it. Booze, lots of booze. There is so much brandy, rum and sherry in it it never goes bad.
The fruitcakes I'm making right now (the fruit is soaking in booze the last 4 days) won't be eaten until next year.
After baking, each cake gets unwrapped and has booze poured on it every month.
I cut way back on making them because the fruit is crazy expensive and getting harder to find, the booze is expensive, and it's very labor intensive.
These days I make 15 a year, strictly for family and a couple of close friends. I'll actually start baking this afternoon.
 
We do have something in my family that gets re-gifted every year.
It's a little ceramic penguin, wearing a green and white polka dot dress, holding an umbrella.
It is scary ugly, with an absolutely evil expression.
Young kids have cried, just looking at it.
So of course, it gets creatively wrapped, and put in as a gift for one of the games we play at our big family get together at Christmas.
Whoever "wins" it has to prominently display it in their home for the year. Then they get to camouflage it and put it in to the prize bag the next year.
We put the prize bag in a closed room so no one can see it being placed in the bag, hence no warning. heh heh heh.
It's been making the rounds for nearly 30 years.
I know I have pictures of it, but I can't seem to find one. When I do, I will post it.

We also have what is one of the ugliest ties ever made in the drug hazed late 1960s. It will make your eyes bleed.
Any guy in the family who gets engaged has to wear it to every family function, until the next guy gets engaged.
My cousins husband got stuck with it for 24 years until one of his sons got engaged. He only had to wear it for 2 years, when his twin brother got engaged.
Tom may be stuck with it for awhile. The next oldest victim is only 18.
 
My wife attempted the " re-gift joke " a couple years ago. She regifted an ugly sweater back to the person she got it from...needless to say the joke was not funny ! Tears were involved....So...just wanted to add I love fruitcake...have a bit of a Claxton still in the fridge. My grandmother made wonderful fruit cakes...they resembled a carrot cake and were full of all kinds of fruit preserves...very tasty .
 
I never did get why people hated fruitcake so much -- or at all -- because the fruitcake I grew up with was absolutely amazing. Mom made simply wonderful fruitcake, every year, like clockwork, and we all loved it (despite the near total absence of booze; she just used a little wine on it. Mom wasn't a teetotaler, but was not a drinker at all.)

Last night we ate fruitcake. My wife made it, with a hybrid of my Mom's old recipe and another one she found on line. Our son asked for it for his birthday (he's 32 now). It's good, very nearly as good as I remember Mom's being back in the 60s and 70s when she was at her fruitcake peak. She started too late, and we weren't able to find candied fruit peel locally, so there was a certain degree of improvisation. Also, with neither of us having done it before ourselves, I was unsure just how much brandy we could use before it got soggy. Lesson learned: More. Plenty more. But it was still awesome, and consumable by the younger kids too.

I've had plenty of store-bought fruitcake, and it by and large explained and justified people's disdain for it. Most was obviously "value engineered", made to minimize the cost of ingredients. You just can't do that. It is, however, like eating a frozen TV "steak" dinner and deciding you don't like prime rib based on that experience. Like riding in a clapped-out yellow Prius nearing the end of its New York taxi service, and deciding that you'd rather walk than take that trip in a Maybach limo because taxis suck.

A few days back we watched an episode of "Inside the Factory", a great BBC show. This episode was inside a factory that makes "Christmas cakes" in the UK. The bake these suckers early in the year and they go into storage for a minimum of six months before finishing, so the entire cake has consistent moisture and the flavors marry. Then they inject 60cc of brandy, which is a pretty impressive amount to soak a cake.

We'll do fruitcake again next year. We'll start much earlier -- weeks or months in advance. We'll have all the proper ingredients. We'll use more booze. It will be epic.

I love a good fruitcake. If you hate fruitcake, then you've never had a proper good one.
 
DaleB said:
I love a good fruitcake. If you hate fruitcake, then you've never had a proper good one.
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Sounds like we need to have a fruitcake flyin next December!
 
I have a familial (look it up) connection to Claxton, Georgia, the Fruitcake Capitol Of The World and I can say with much prejudice that it is the OKest fruit cake in history.
 
Racerx said:
I gave a guy at work a bottle of malort.
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This required some research, and now my sides hurt, my face is wet with tears, and I've lost my morning.

"[it tastes like] pure unbridled hatred."
"Research shows that 8 out of 10000 people prefer Malört."


Nauga,
no-fisted
 
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