IMDonehere

"set de table."
________

That is the exact way we said it when I was growing up in Brooklyn.

ribeirasacra

Why bother? With the marvels of the interweb one can purchase everything on line.
Just 2 example of on line shops:
http://www.myamericanmarket.com/us
http://www.my-us-store.com/en/
Sorry could not find French or Germans doing taste tests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4UEifGF8DU

bvlenci

Dat wuz Brooklyn, New Yawk, wuzznit?

bvlenci

Why bother with any presents then? Anything you could give someone for their birthday, they could buy online.

IMDonehere

Dat wuz Brooklyn, New Yawk, wuzznit?

People from Brooklyn never add the Nu Yourk part. And they say, I goin' inta da City (when visiting Manhattan).

Nikki

Funny, IMDonehere. My father's Uncle Sam would have used that as a punchline.

Kerouac, now I know how to tempt you to a get-together in Paris.

I like the shopping bag idea, the coasters, even small penny candies.

And don't knock the good laugh as a factor in giving bad gifts. I have a house full of such gifts and the laughs that go with them.

bvlenci

We have tombala evenings every year after Christmas, where we invite friends or neighbors to play this Italian game (similar to Bingo), with the prizes being useless gifts we've received over the course of the year. We have to make sure, of course, that on the friends evening, the prizes were gifts from neighbors, and vice versa.

bvlenci

That should have been tombola.

IMDonehere

In the US, there is a similar custom. People are invited to holiday party and asked to bring the worst gift they can find. The first person opens his or her gift. Then the second person has the choice of either taking the first person's gift or opening their own. And this continues until the first person has the final choice.

Underhill

Shopping bags are a great idea, as European stores generally don't pass out free ones (neither do our local stores now, but that's a different story).