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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and to wrap up in our last few minutes of our last live show before Christmas weekend, it is the season of giving as we approach Christmas and celebrate the fifth night of Hanukkah. We're just going to do a fun call in for our last 12 minutes or so on what is the best or the worst gift you've ever received, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Everybody's giving presents right now or almost everybody's giving presents right now. Just tell us the best and the worst. What's the best gift you've ever received? What's the worst gift you've ever received? When were you really disappointed by a gift? Just like it's the thought that counts, but sometimes you go, "Oh, that's a terrible gift," or "Wow, I never imagined I could get such a wonderful gift." 212-433-WNYC. Remember those Christmas mornings from long ago when you received what became your favorite childhood toy or that eighth night of Hanukkah gift when you said, "[unintelligible 00:01:21] is that all I get? Is that all there is?" 212-433-9692.

I think the one memory for me that sticks, it's a funny trivia little memory, but when I was seven, I had a little minor surgery and some of the neighbors were giving me toys because I had to spend a couple of days in the hospital and came back and I was getting all these toys. One of the neighbors gave me a book. It was Tom Sawyer. I was like with all these toys coming in, "Why would anybody give me a book? Ew, a book as a present?" Then somehow I grew up to be a journalist. I read about 16 hours a day now. Anyway, that's mine. What's your best and worst gift for the holidays, for a birthday, for anything else? 212-433-WNYC. We'll take them after this.

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Brain Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. All right, to your best and worst gift. By the way, this is a good one for Twitter, folks, because they're showing an easy tweet, your best and worst gifts, and we'll read some of them off as we go. Maggie in Morris County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Maggie.

Maggie: Hello. Good morning. Happy near and Hanukah and Christmas. This show is a present. Wanted to tell you about-

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Maggie: -the best and worst presents I got on my most recent birthday. The best present was box tickets to see La Traviata at Met and the worst present was a shrink-wrapped bathrobe with the reason being that I was using too many towels. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] A shrink-wrapped bathrobe? I'm not even going to ask. Maggie, thank you very much. Fiona in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Fiona.

Fiona: Hi. Oh, it's so lovely to hear your voice. Best present ever was from my husband. He got these tiny little glass vials that had cork stoppers, and he collected little natural history items, some of them from the bottom of his cuff of his pants or a pocket or something from different adventures we'd taken every year for the first 12 years of our marriage. He put them in a little wooden display box.

Brian Lehrer: Oh God, that's so incredibly romantic and it took effort.

Fiona: I know, and so much for foresight. Although, I think the first year he thought, "Oh, what have I gotten?" He literally went and looked in the lint in his pocket and found some evergreen bows or something and little sand particles and little garnets that he found embedded in rocks and things like that. Pretty wonderful.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, we should all have such good partners. Thank you, Fiona. Perry in South Orange, you're on WNYC. Hi, Perry.

Perry: Hi. Thanks. My favorite gift, I think, I was reminded of it when you asked for this, and it was that in 1973 when I was in middle school one of my dear friends gave me the yellow pages and told me that he was giving me the world at my fingertips. It meant so much to me that I almost took it to college with me. You can only imagine it being a great gift if you can imagine a world before computers. That's what came to me.

Brian Lehrer: Did you use it?

Perry: It made smile again.

Brian Lehrer: That's amazing. Did you end up using the yellow pages for anything in particular that you recall?

Perry: I probably use it for everything. I use it to find restaurants, I use it to find how to take care of my dog, I use it to find vets. I use it for everything. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: That's hilarious. Perry, thank you very much. People who were around before the internet had these things called phone books and they were really thick. If you weren't around then, you should have seen the phone book just for Queens. Alan in Atlanta, your best or worst gift. Hi, Alan. You're on WNYC.

Alan: Hey, how are you doing? Brian, you're the man. The worst gift I ever received was from my aunt who used to own a bookstore and she purchased for me the Left Behind book series which is a Christian rapture series, and not only is it a book that I wouldn't normally read, but she purchased for me books one, three, and seven in the series, and her argument was, "Well, I didn't know if you already had a couple of them." She gave me useless gifts, but I love her to death [unintelligible 00:06:15]

Brian Lehrer: Who was the author of that Christian rapture series? Do you remember?

Alan: Tim LaHaye maybe. I believe LaHaye. I'm not sure how you say it.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. I think-- [crosstalk] Go ahead. He's not the one-- We had one of them on the show who wrote books like that and I asked about the rapture as that author understood it and like, "Do you really think everybody who doesn't believe in Jesus is going to die at that time?" and all of that stuff, and he didn't love it. Alan, thank you very much and I'm glad that that was meaningful to you. [unintelligible 00:06:55] in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, [unintelligible 00:06:58].

Speaker 6: Hi. How are you? Love you. My worst gift was-- I'm retired now. Grab bags at the job on your job site, and oh my God, I picked, it was a beautifully wrapped, beautiful box. It was gift wrapped so pretty. I didn't open it. I brought it home on Christmas day, put it under the tree on my little family. My two children was here, they're grown now, and we opened up that gift. It was a mop head-

Brian Lehrer: A mop head?

Speaker 6: -and dressed like a Santa Claus. Nobody on the job would acknowledge who did that. I cried like a baby because I was more embarrassed in front of my family. Thank you for letting me tell-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Was it a demeaning thing like they saw you as just the person who cleans

Speaker 6: I don't want to go that way. It was just why would anyone do that during the Christmas holiday spirit? I don't want to get into that, but thank you for taking my call, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for making it [unintelligible 00:08:06]. Don in Teaneck, you're on WNYC. Hi, Don.

Don: Hi. How are you? You are expert interviewer, believe me.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. You have a worst present for us, right?

Don: The worst present was a gift to a boxing club to learn boxing.

Brian Lehrer: You didn't like that?

Don: No, not at all. I don't want to hurt anybody.

Brian Lehrer: Or get hurt, right?

Don: Oh, absolutely. [unintelligible 00:08:42]

Brian Lehrer: Who would they put you in there to spar with, like, "God, do I really want to do this?"

Don: Somebody who I believe he's pretty famous, but I forgot his name, but he's a famous boxer.

Brian Lehrer: What do you do if they gave you a gift certificate for boxing lessons and you don't want to do it? Did you give it away?

Don: I just graciously received it.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and let it sit. Don, thank you very much. Yes, gee, I guess we could do a whole other one on regifting. I don't know how you regift boxing lessons, but here's another worst. Liz in Huntington, you're on WNYC. Hi, Liz.

Liz: Hi. Thank you. I'm calling to tell you a story that happened about 26, 27 years ago. My husband and my younger son and I went to the Caribbean for the first time and I absolutely fell in love with the colors of the water, the warmth of the water, and I immediately started plotting on how we could come back there. That Christmas ,my son and husband kept on knowingly nodding to each other while we were opening Christmas presents. I had to leave one for the end. They asked me to leave this one, "Wait until she gets this one, wait until she sees this one."

We finally get to the end and I open it up. It's a white t-shirt with a picture of me in the Caribbean and it says, "Take me back." I thought I was getting plane tickets and I got a t-shirt. I was so disappointed and I'll never forget it. Because I had worked it up so much, I was crushed.

Brian Lehrer: It's almost the cliche, right? It's like, "I wanted to go back to the Caribbean and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

Liz: You're right. [laughs] It was bad. I never forgot it.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, thank you very much. All right. I guess we're going to leave it there because we won't have time to do justice to another. Let me tell you one of the great gifts for me every day, the people who produce this show along with me, Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, Esperanza Rosenbaum, and we've had Emily Lowinger and Shweta Watwe recently helping out. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen produces our daily politics podcast.

Our interns this term are Trinity Lopez and Brianna Brady. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio. We've had Juliana Fonda at the audio controls most of the time this year with Mayan Levinson, Milton Ruiz, Sham Sondra, Matt Morando, and Jason Isaac some of the time. I'm Brian Lehrer. One last happy Hanukkah to everybody who celebrates that. Merry Christmas to everybody who celebrates that. We'll be back on Kwanzaa. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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