When I was 18 years old my favorite cousin, Denny, decided he would buy me a Christmas gift. The gift was wrapped beautifully. When I opened the gift I was surprised to find---a bedpan. My entire family, nine siblings & my parents, laughed hysterically. It was the beginning of the annual gift exchange. The next year I returned the bedpan back to him complete with fake feces (made out of pumpernickel bread and white glue) and toilet paper smeared with brown paint. I really thought that I had him. Nope, he wrapped a man's urinal. And of course, the story on how he got the urinal had everyone laughing.

The year I turned 20 I got married. The annual Christmas Eve party was to be at my house. I enlisted my husband to make a full sized outhouse complete with the moon shapes cut out of the door and corn cobs for toilet paper. I was positive that he could not out do me this time. As in the past, I was wrong! He came in my house holding what looked like a small dog. Nope, it was a pig! He bought me a live pig for Christmas! Everyone squealed with laughter! (Christmas day we brought the pig to a local farmer we knew. It grew to be a huge pig.) Needless to say, my Christmas Eve parties were always a hit. Everyone wanted to know what we would do to each other next. Maryann M.