Do these colors even occur in nature? (Photo by Brent Moore) Poor fruitcakes! Once considered decadent winter delicacies, they have become the butt of cruel jokes about doorstops and paperweights. Critics mock their famous longevity and density. Each year countless unappreciated loaves are even regifted or viciously tossed away. Some speculate that the endless ridicule of comedians is to blame for the fruitcake's brick-like fall from grace, but many suspect a decline in the quality of the cakes themselves. For hundreds of years, fruitcakes were tasty concoctions packed full of rich dried fruits, nuts, and spices -- and an important (and liberal) dose of brandy or whisky. Mass-produced commercial versions left out the booze and the spices and replaced the dried fruit with a candied variety -- super-sweetened bits of garish and artificial goo. Sadly, most fruitcakes that modern consumers encounter are sad, dry, teetotal bricks containing nothing that still resembles actual fruit. Luckily for lovers of holiday desserts, brave chefs are reinventing fruitcake for the 21st century with innovative (and more natural) ingredients and presentation. That's right: Fruitcake is making a comeback -- and this time, it's edible! This year, if you're offered a slice and it looks dark and moist and rich -- not pale and dry and artificial -- overcome your fruitcake fears and try a bite! You might be pleasantly surprised... and if you still hate it, at least you'll have new fodder for fruitcake jokes. Suggested Sites... Christmas Recipe Index: Fruitcakes - a variety of fruity, tantalizing treats. About.com: Fruitcakes - recipes and tips for making fruitcakes that are not just palatable, but delicious. cdkitchen: Fruitcake Recipes - features both traditional and unusual recipes, including beer fruitcake and sourdough fruitcake. Recipes for Christmas Cakes - with or without fruit, these confections will put some cheer into the holiday season. Society for the Protection and Preservation of Fruitcake - learn to love the fruitcake.

Directory categories: Fruitcake Recipes, Fruticakes for Sale, Christmas Dessert Recipes, Christmas Recipes, Cake Recipes

Archived under: Christmas, Cooking, Flops, Food and Drink, Fruitcake, Holidays, Recipes

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"Merry Christmas!" Who wouldn't want to see this, and only this, under the tree? (Photo by Kirrily Robert) In honor of National Regifting Day last week, we've been asking our fellow Yahoo!s to tell us about the best and worst gifts they ever received. While some of them (hand-knit sweaters, earrings) were pretty cool, others (the knockoff dolls and perfume) were not so much. As we draw closer to the last-minute frenzy of the gift-buying and -giving seasons, we conclude our look at great and crappy presents with our final presents to you in the hopes that, as you shop, you stop and think before you take out your wallet. Adam: Age 15. After a few years playing a hand-me-down guitar, my folks got me a brand new one. I just passed the 20-year mark of playing that same guitar. There's something very cool and special about giving someone a musical instrument when the time is right. My rule: never sell a musical instrument. Always give it away to someone who will play it. Helene K.: For my 25th birthday (or maybe it was my 21st?), I got "The Book of Penises" from some "friends." I was very, very embarrassed when I opened it in the middle of a formal party and prayed that my mom wouldn't find it! So, yeah... that was the worst one. The best gift was my first bike. Mike: My most memorable -- and therefore, the "best" -- gift I ever received was when I was 11 years old. 1983. The slingshot-type game "Battleground: Crossbows and Catapults." I don't remember if there were actual rules to the game. My friend and I just loved to double/triple-wind up the rubber band on the crossbows and shoot that hockey puck-type disc at each other's castles. Or even better, we'd fire it up high with the catapult from the dining room to the family room. And it was just as much fun to build your castle as sturdy as you could so that it would take some serious rubber band windin' and crossbow/catapult flingin' to bring it down. My parents sure got their money's worth on that one, since I honestly think I played it far past the following Christmas. Dang, all this reminiscing makes me wanna play it again! Time to check eBay.... Liz: My best gift and worst gift are the same item. When I was a kid, some well-meaning family member always got me slipper socks, and I always hated them. As an adult, I now live in them and I hope to get slipper socks under the tree. Heather: The best Christmas gift I've received in recent years was a counted cross-stitch Christmas tree skirt. It took my mother over a year to make, and it's an heirloom I intend on passing along to my own children someday. My brother will be the last to get one. JoAnne: When I was in 4th grade, the class had a gift exchange. I ended up with the oddly-shaped box that everyone was curious about. I was so excited! I tore it open, and found I was the proud owner of a lime-green plastic tissue box cover. (That was the worst gift, in case you weren't sure.) My mom knit Christmas stockings for my three sisters and me to hang. As is often the case with the youngest child, by the time she got to mine, she had run out of both the fuzzy yarn for Santa's beard and the jingle bells. Sigh. The jingle bell issue was addressed later (possibly around the time of the lime green tissue box cover, come to think of it...), but wait, my parents weren't through with me yet. My stocking disappeared from their boxes of decorations. "It might have been in the box of junk I threw out when I was cleaning the garage." Although I was an adult by then, I was devastated, having reached the age when things family members made with love were incredibly dear. Many years later, as my parents, three sisters, three brothers-in-law, and their six kids opened their gifts, I opened mine. My stocking! My original stocking! I burst into tears of joy and ran from the room. As I fled down the hall, I heard someone say, "See? I told you she'd cry when she opened that." It was the best gift ever. Jessica J: Apparently, when my mom was asked one Christmas what I wanted for Christmas, she told all my relatives, "Buy her some dishtowels." And that was all I got. Dishtowels. Twelve sets of dishtowels. Suggested Sites... National Regifting Day - guide to regifting and office parties. I Love the 80s: Board Games - from "The A-Team" to "Uncle Wiggly." Making Christmas Tree Skirts - create your own heirloom. Christmas Stocking Patterns - make your own daughter (or son) cry. Vintage Towels - they're not just for drying anymore.

Directory categories: National Regifting Day, Guitars, Cycling Gear and Equipment, Board Games, Knitting and Crocheting

Archived under: Board Games, Books, Christmas, Crafts, Decorating, Footwear, Games, Guitars, Hanukkah, Holidays, Home and Garden, Knitting, Musical Instruments

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Well, at least it goes with the painting (Photo by Cathy, Sam, Max and Mai) Thursday was National Regifting Day, celebrating and encouraging recycling and reuse of old, unwanted, unloved, or otherwise extraneous gifts and presents. The occasion got us to wondering how common the practice is, anyway. Here in the Yahoo! Search Editorial department, we have an annual white elephant gift exchange, but those "presents" are usually (and intentionally) pretty lousy and we couldn't imagine our colleagues inflicting them on anyone they actually liked. Regardless, and (mostly) prepared for the answers, we asked our fellow Yahoo!s to tell us about the best and worst gifts they ever received. Dave: The best gift I ever got? Not even close. It's a plastic swing in the shape of a Heinz pickle. Bright green, about 18 inches long and six inches in diameter, it has "Heinz" stamped right into both sides of it, and chains on either end to hook it up to the playground set. The only drawback with it is, the plastic is so old and fragile that if anyone ever tried to use it for its intended purpose -- that is, to swing -- it'd probably shatter into a million pieces. So it remains strictly a display piece. Probably the worst gift I ever got was a "Cuban" cigar. I'm not really a cigar smoker (maybe one a year -- if that), but I was in Russia and thought, "Well, if I'm ever going to smoke a genuine Cuban cigar, this is the place to get it." An acquaintance got me one, and even as I lit it up, I knew something was wrong. Rather than a divine combination of fine Caribbean tobaccos, this one smelled -- and tasted -- like a combination of unwashed socks and damp cabbage. I fought my way through about half of it before throwing in the towel. Eugenia: The best gift I have ever received from my parents was a Big Mouth Billy Bass. Initially, I thought it was the worst gift ever, so I gave it away in a yard sale the following year. I wish I had kept it because now I know that it would have made me the most popular person at the Annual Yahoo! Search Editorial White Elephant Party. Ricky: My best gift was a Nintendo system with the red Zapper, Power Pad, and two (not one, but two!) controllers. Worst one I ever gave -- a "naked guys with balls magnet set." Suzi: I'm split on the best and worst I've ever received or gifted. But I'm entirely smitten with one white elephant I never managed to get: Octodog's Frankfurter Converter! Of course, I spend time every year perfecting my "Present Face" for those times when it comes in handy. Mitzi: Okay, the worst gift would have to be the year my sister and I desperately wanted Barbie dolls and got something called a Debbie Dunbar doll instead -- purchased from the Fuller Brush man (if you can remember that far back). I remember being perplexed and disappointed (never having heard of the doll) and trying my best to act happy. Best gift goes to the Creepy Crawler set (the old-school one that came with metal plates that you learned to never touch when they were heated). It was my "Santa pick" and I didn't think I had any chance of getting one. But I had a great time cooking up spiders and centipedes to put around the house -- and on my sister's bed. Sebastian: My first year of teaching, a freshman who was Italian (like me) was determined to make me a scarf. I insisted that she not do that, since I felt there were certain boundary issues. But in Italian culture -- and just about every other one -- teachers are considered to be almost a family member. After all, teachers do take care of one's children six to eight hours a day, and give them the tools to be adults. She demanded, in a very Italian fashion, to know what color I wanted, so I gave in. I chose burgundy, the unofficial color of my Venetian ancestors. I wear it to this day. There is nothing like the class of your first year of teaching; it's much like your first love, or your first year away from home. I'm glad I have a memento, and glad there's Facebook, so I can keep in touch with the Rascals from '06. Suggested Sites... National Regifting Day - guide to regifting and office parties. Five Ways to Fake Delight Over a Crummy Gift - just because you never know. How to Organize a White Elephant Gift Exchange - why keep all the crap you don't want when you can unload it on someone else? You Received a Lousy Gift, Now What? - it's gonna happen; you know it is. How to Receive a Lousy Gift Graciously - step 1: smile and say "thank you." It won't kill you.

Directory categories: National Regifting Day, Pickles, Cigars, Hot Dogs, Knitting and Crocheting

Archived under: Christmas, Crafts, Games, Hanukkah, Holidays, Homemade, Hot Dogs, Italy, Knitting, Nintendo, Shopping, Video Games

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"Oooh, what could it be?" "Remember, now you're responsible for feeding it and cleaning up after it." (Photo by BAD RABBIT INC.) We've all done it, so don't pretend you haven't. You get a gift from some well-meaning someone -- that someone, though, really doesn't understand you or know what you like, and you end up, frankly, with a useless piece of crap. You smile gamely, put on that slightly over-enthusiastic voice, and thank the giver profusely -- but at the same time you're silently cursing them. With that in mind, National Regifting Day was created to allow folks to (somewhat) guiltlessly inflict those gifts -- er, we mean, "give them graciously" -- to someone who can better use them. This regifting isn't always altruistic and done with the givee's best interests in mind. Sometimes the giver has a case of schadenfreude and just wants to inflict his or her victim with the same misery they themselves experienced. With that in mind, we've once again gone to our Yahoo! colleagues to ask them what were the best -- and worst -- gifts they've ever received. Over the next few days, we'll review those gifts. Some sound really cool, while others... well, let's just say we know what oddly shaped packages we'll be avoiding at the next department holiday party. Jessica: The worst gift I ever received was a box of five free CDs from a subscription club -- and the opportunity to pay monthly if I decided I liked them. Adrianna: The worst gift I ever received was from my grandma when I was in high school. I was delighted to receive a bottle of Tommy Girl cologne for Hanukkah, since it was what I was wishing for the most. But, after showing it to my friends, they pointed out that it was actually a knockoff drugstore brand version. I was so embarrassed and once I tested it out on myself, I noticed that they were right. It didn't smell like Tommy Girl, it smelled like cheap cologne! Astrid: Best gift: (besides my kids and family...) a raclette grill that I got when I turned 18. It was totally unexpected, but I used it until I moved to America last year. I gave it away to my sister (who still uses it), because your power system over here is different. Worst gift: A pair of sneakers from my husband, which I never liked. I had to wear them for years, so as to not hurt his feelings. I was so happy when they wore out! Maria: My worst gift ever was an umbrella shaped like a pencil from my sister-in-law -- she wasn't trying to be funny, either! My best gift: a pair of gold earrings from my husband -- the first gift he ever gave me -- I honestly didn't know he had it in him. (Maybe he got a little help?) Sarah:When I was 8 (and not living in California), I received a pair of gerbils as a gift. Being the creative child that I was, I named the white one "Snowy" and the black one "Blackie." They escaped from their cage over twenty times during the three years that I had them, but were never caught once by any of our cats. Happy Holidays!!! And happy holidays to all of you. We’ll be back tomorrow with more great -- and lousy -- gifts. In the meantime, what were some of your own least and most favorite presents? Suggested Sites... National Regifting Day - guide to regifting and office parties. How to Throw a Re-Gifting Christmas Party - it's better to give than receive. Regiftable.com - regifting stories and tips. Regifting the Right Way - tips to avoid getting caught. 12 Rules for Regifting without Fear - at least change the card ...

Directory categories: Music Membership Clubs, Fragrances, Fondue Recipes, Sneakers, Earrings

Archived under: Celebrations, Cheese, Christmas, Fragrances, Hanukkah, Holidays, Shoes, Shopping, Sneakers

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A Krampus scares the crowds in Klagenfurt (Photo by Wolfgang Wedenig) North American kids have it easy. We get on Santa's bad side and what happens? A disappointing lump of coal in our stocking instead of a Zhu Zhu Pet. In some European countries, we'd be the ones in a sack -- being carried off by St. Nick's frightening associates. In much of Europe, gifts are delivered not by Santa, but by St. Nicholas (the slimmer, more serious forebear of Mr. Claus). But the good saint doesn't just reward the nice kiddies; he knows that some have been naughty, too. Not wanting to get his hands (or pretty robes) dirty, St. Nick employs a variety of assistants to frighten the mischief out of misbehaving tots. In Austria, Nick's companions are demonic creatures called Krampuses, with huge horns, shaggy hair, and menacing teeth. They carry birch switches for lashing wayward youngsters (and unsuspecting grownups), and sacks to haul off the truly deplorable ones. Traditionally, on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, Nick and his beasties roam the streets, visiting children's homes. The good ones get rewarded. The bad ones? Well, best not to think about it.... In many places, though, the day has become Krampusfest, with throngs of grownups in horrific, elaborate costumes running the streets, fueled as much by schnapps as by the desire to encourage filial virtue. But if Krampus is keeping the kids in line, who's watching the Krampus? Suggested Sites... St. Nicholas Eve - Krampus Day - the story of the Krampus and his role in Christmas celebrations. Wikipedia: Companions of Saint Nicholas - from Krampus to Knecht Ruprecht to Zwarte Piet. Krampus-Umzug in Klagenfurt - hundreds of photos of amazing Krampus costumes. Krampus Postcards - vintage images of the demonic holiday character. The Blitzkrieg on Grinchitude - Hallmark & Krampus - Stephen Colbert meets Krampus.

Directory categories: Krampus, Companions of Saint Nicholas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nicholas Day, Christmas Around the World

Archived under: Austria, Christmas, Europe, Holidays, Horror, Krampus, Monsters and Creatures, Mythology and Folklore, Regional

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