What did you get for Christmas?

[hangfour]

A prayer mat. I've been spending a lot of time on my knees lately. Blessings on you all.

[Texas Size 11]

I got FAT!

I got FATTER.

Everything is bigger in Texas - including my backside.

I got a Hornady press and all of the other fixin's to start reloading. My wife did good. Also got one of those Nook reader doo-dad's because I read a lot. I bought my 12 year old a Walther P22 and got to spend part of Christmas day at the range. My mom came in from Florida and I got to spend a week off of work with her and my family.

I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas.

[The Annoyed Man]

....though I'd like to go shopping with TAM for some pedals since I haven't been to a music store in like 3 months....KILLING ME.

I bought a TC Electronic Polytune Chromatic Pedal Tuner. I already own a Peterson stroboscopic tuner pedal, which I bought 4 or 5 years ago, and it is REALLY accurate, but the problem is that it is so accurate as to be practically unusable on stage. It will make you crazy trying to get all the bars lined up. It is accurate enough that you can't really hear the differences in pitch that the tuner is indicating when you get close to spot on, and I have perfect pitch, but you'll go nuts anyway trying to make it "freeze" all the bars across the display. It's great in the studio though, where you have a lot more control over things. But I figured that for $99.00, I couldn't go wrong with an easy to use tuner with a good display that is small enough to not take much room in the gig bag. That Peterson tuner is pretty big.

I also bought some new 1/4" cables, all from Monster. All of my cables are 6 years old or older. I bought a 12 foot Monster Acoustic cable ($80), 1.5 foot Monster patch cable, and a short Monster pedal cable. Their stuff is spendy, but it comes with a lifetime warranty, and you can hear the difference between their acoustic cable and just run of the mill 1/4" cables.

My wife got me a MONO soft guitar case for Christmas, and it will help me to get rid of my gig bag for most occasions... ...one less thing to carry. I've wanted to downsize a little bit so that everything that I usually need will fit in the pockets of the guitar case, instead of having to carry a second bag.

About the MONO cases.... One of the guys that I play with occasionally is one of their sponsored guitar players, and he recommended the case to me and said he could get me a deal on one, so I told my wife I wanted one for Christmas. She dealt with my friend and got the case ordered. Anyway, it shipped out to us, and when I opened it on Christmas day, it was the wrong size! It was marked for dreadnought guitars, the labels said so, and the box said so, and the hang tags on the case said so, but what was in the box wouldn't hold a dreadnought. I couldn't get it zipped closed because it was too narrow across the upper bout width.

Here's where it gets impressive.... I sent an email to MONO that same Christmas day, explaining the problem to them and saying that I was going to get it handled at my end, but that I thought they should know that they have a fulfillment issue at the end of their production line. I included some photos demonstrating the problem. I didn't seriously expect to hear back from them until sometime this week. Instead, I got an email back that same day from one of their managers offering to ship me out a correct one first thing Monday morning. Then he actually phones me on Monday to confirm that he has shipped the replacement case along with some call tags so that I can return the other one - on his nickel - to them. Then he said that he would like me to do an test for him because they are experimenting with different thicknesses of padding at the bottom of their cases; so he asked if I would actually store the guitar for 2 weeks in the case instead of in the hard case where I usually keep it. He said that he was going to bring one home to do the same thing with his dreadnought with a different thickness of padding. He said he would phone me in two weeks so we could compare notes. And the replacement case arrived today. It works like a champ.

I thought that was pretty cool. When I mentioned that I really liked the quality of the product, despite the problem, and that I had bought it on the recommendation of one their sponsored guitarists who is a friend of mine, he asked who it was. I gave him the name (Chris Clayton), and he said, "Sure, I know Chris. I'm also in charge of artist relations." I think this is a fairly new company, and they are working hard at building a reputation for quality and service in the artist community. I was impressed and I hope they really succeed, because I think they deserve it.

But I'm not really a pedal hound. I've only got two (now three): a tuner, and an Ernie Ball volume pedal. I always have pedal envy when I look at the electric guitar guys.... but then, I remember that they are compensating.

[BrianSW99]

An S&W M&P Pro 9mm! Ok, well, wasn't really a gift. I bought that one myself. I did get a really cool bedside alarm clock with an iPod/iPhone dock.

[cbunt1]

The big stuff: The whole family (including ALL of my kiddos) in once place for a few days. The best part.

The satisfying stuff: My wife and I were able to get my mother a bunch of jewelry to replace the stuff that was stolen from her home 3 years ago. We couldn't come close to the quality of the stuff my dad had bought at custom jewelers over 40 years of marriage, but we were financially in a position to get her some really nice pieces--so that she has stuff to wear again.

The self-gratification: I got the "blessing" from the wife to grab a new gun for myself. Was going to buy a classic-series S&W model 57 (.41 mag), but instead *STUMBLED* across a pre-model 28 Highway Patrolman in really good shape and got a heck of a good deal on it. Some could argue that I really don't need yet another .357 in the lineup, but I keep finding I'm a wheelgunner at heart. Still wanting a .41, but...they're making that gun right now...the pre-28 dates back to '57 or '58, so it had to have a good home.

All in all a very good Christmas season.