What to buy for Christmas for..

[Crammond]

...the brother of my girlfriend?

(Please please bear with me and take those 5 minutes of your time to read this as your help will be appriciated).

I also, in advance, apologize for the errors in my writing. I did learn English for about 8 years of my life in school but I use it rarely (especially writing is rare, we do joke around with friends talking english a lot).


It's been some time since I wrote something on this board and since I usually wrote about sad things (the last time I was writing about the same girlfriend I'm still with whom the situation is still the same, but I just don't care anymore and I'm trying to get the most out of our relationship, the positive things. But that's another story for another time, most probably on this message board ).

First of all, I hope that I started this thread in the right part of the forum. If I didn't, I apologize.

Now to my problem.

For the past week I have been working like a maniac (can't do shit about it, I'm the owner of the company and the only employee so I have to do a lot, yet I'm still about to bankrupt just about now, tough that's another story for another time)..

I am currently working for the past 16 or so hours and will be working for about at least 12-16 more (with some short breaks).

In about 16 hours I'm invited to my girlfriends house for the Christmas dinner and all. There will be her mom and mom's friend, her brother and my better half (my gf).

I already have gifts for my girlfriend (pretty original, defenitly much much better than what I'm getting from her - I had to tell her what I want, shzzzz...she couldn't remember on her own :S). I also have a pretty nice (at least I think it is nice) gift for her mom and her friend, but I'm stuck at what to buy for the brother.

I know I'm really really late for buying the gift, but the job is overkilling me day in day out for the past week or so.

Since I do not know him that well (I'm dating his sister for almost 6 months now, but we (me and her brother) don't really see that much nor talk), so I don't really have any really really good ideas (I like to give gifts which are not that "standard" or common).

The budget for the gift is approximatly 40-60 US dollars (20-40 euros).

He is 24 years old, a computer guy (goes to some sort of computer university, works for a computer company, etc..) and he likes candy (tough the bastard is really really athletic, I envy him lol).

For his birthday which was in October I got him this:

A big big box with a small box inside and a lot of protective material around the small box
(protecting material for when you ship something and you don't want to break (looks like really small white balls with a diameter of approximatly 1/2" that absorbe damage to the package inside the box) - i hope u understand what you mean, if not, there is a picture of a similar thing here:



In the little box there was only a small paper on which it said "sorry, empty". Than, hiding between this little white balls, there were a lot of small candy and let's say a piece of cake (not really a cake, but for the description it will do just fine), all of it af course properly packed so it was still eatable

When he found all of the candy gifts and the cake, he seemd happy with the gift and really like the "crazy" idea (i came up with the idea about 2 hours before I handed him the gift - i like spontanious ideas, tough I wont' have time tomorrow/today (it's almost 4in the morning here) for that.

Now, I don't really want to give him only candy for christmas, because that would be almost the same + i lose the "cool gift" effect that I made with the last one, when he had to find his gifts (when you oppened the big box,you could only see the small box and the white balls, no candy that was hidding in between the small white balls).

So I have no idea what to buy him.

All of the computer things are kinda nonsence. An USB hard drive (1-4gb) was my idea, but he probably gets it in his company, if he needs it (they probably buy it for him, it's cheap).

Our computer specialized shops do offer (if i remember correctly), I have no idea how you name it in english, "money stamps" (like food stamps in USA, where you can buy food with a "paper" on which it says how much food you can get).
If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll make a short description:

I go to a store and say that I need a so-called "money stamp". I give the lady at the register let's say 30 us dollars and she gives me a paper on which it says "30 us dollars to spend in the store" (where I went to get the "money stamp"). I give this "money stamp" to the brother for a gift, he goes to the same store and can get something with a value of 30us dollars or less (or more, but he has to pay the difference) for free. Everybody understand now? Cool.

But the "money stamps" is my laaaaat option, since I'm getting something similar for the mom and her friend ("gift stamp" for a local theater so that you can go and watch any show you want) and it is also kinda not a crazy or inovative or anything gift, nor you can use/see/play with it when you get it, but than again, he can buy something he really likes/needs.

Empty CD/DVD's is also (i presume) something that he can get from his job and it is also rather a "I'll just take as little time as I can, let's say 3 minutes, to buy a gift" gift - not something I like to do, especially for a gift to somebody, that I get to see more than once a year.

I thought about buying him a USB cup holder/heater, since I see him sometimes drinking cacao drink/coffe, tough I do not know if he drinks his cacao hot or not (coffe kinda needs to hot, but I see him drink cacao more often, when he is at home), yet i'm not sure if I'll find one tomorrow to buy (maybe online I could, but here in Slovenia, they rarely offer a possibility of picking up the thing you bought the same day you ordered it, rather than witing for the postman to bring it and I do not have that much time. And I also can't come empty handed tomorrow and just say "your gift is coming by mail some time this week or in the next year"

So, since I'm going to be up until the dinner starts, I beg you for some ideas about what to buy him tomorrow (I'll have a break or to, have to run some errans for the job and I can jump to some store to get something). You would help me a LOT.

The last thing that fall into my mind was this, tough this is a bit too small of a gift and kinda fits the "I have 3 minutes for the gift" theory yet it is useful.

He uses a gilette Fusion, a hand "razor" for the facial hair and since the razer blades are not that cheap (at least in Slovenia, it is almost cheaper to buy a whole set of the hand razer, which comes with 4 razer blades, than buying only the razer blades), I tought of buying him a set of razers.
If everything fails, I'll get him the razers and maybe even if I get some good/great/crazy other idea(s), I'll maybe still get him the razers on top of the other gift he gets and try to turn the razers out in a funny way like as "it's a practical thing, you can't eat it in 2minutes like candies" joke.


The last last idea that I came up with was a new "first aid" kit for his car, since we just got a new law, that said all of the "first aid" kits have to be changed to a new one, the law being effectiv since 1st of january, 2008. Than I found out, that the law stands only for the first aid kits, that are more than 3 years old and since he got his car exactly 3 years ago (+2 months) I think that by law his is still ok, so no go

Thank you all very very much and I would really apriciate it if your ideas are going to be useful since I'm running out of time.

Bye and thank you so so much (or "Adijo in hvala", that's how we say it) from Slovenia.

Sergio



p.s.
I was writing this for so long (I had to translate from my language, since I posted a similar, but shorter (everybody is sleeping here, so there is no point of writting this much on our, Slovenian message boards) version of this on our "biggest" message board. It took me 40minutes, loool

Thanks again

[vashti]

I think you are investing too much thought into this. It is not usually necessary to buy the most unusual gift to impress people. Just be thoughtful.

Why don't you buy him a nice sweater or a fun game? One of the posters her suggested Cranium to me, and we played it tonight and had a great time.

Books also make very nice gifts if you have a general idea of his taste. If you think he might like true adventure books, I would highly recommend "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer. Here is a link: [url]http://outside.away.com/outside/destinations/199609/199609_into_thin_air_1.html[/url] This author also wrote a good book called "Into the Wild" which has recently been made into a movie. Perhaps you can buy him both.

[Crammond]

Thanks for the ideas, I'll consider them

I don't have a clue about his book taste nor know if he actually reads (books, i know he can read lol )...

Cranium (or any other good "real time game") is a good idea, I will take a look at what our stores in my country have to offer

Thank you.

[Kiechi]

Or perhaps give him a niece or a nephew?

[Crammond]

lol, u know that actually i would. i consider myself old enough and mature enough for it but my better half is a bit younger and looks at it from a different perspective - she says no kids for another 7 years.. :S

[Kiechi]

Judging from your other thread, I don't think procreating isn't the smartest move at the moment, do you?

[Crammond]

i never said i'd have them with my current gf... i wrote it in a way that i feel old enough for having them..

[Kiechi]

It's Christmas tomorrow.

[Crammond]

well here it's christmas eve in about 9 hours... and yes, tomorrow it's 25th, christmas...but here u have a christmas eve/dinner the evening before..

[Kiechi]

Slovenia?


____

[vashti]

Crammond, why did it take you so many characters to ask what you should get your girlfriend's brother for Christmas? Are you really GrkScorp?

[DoesntMatter]

A bottle of rum. That's really a heartfelt gift