fresh gifts | day 24 | doug's poster post

And now, a very special guest post from my brother-in-law, Doug. If you don't know Doug, you can read about his odd family history here.

Three times a day in my house, I have to hear my wife Erin talk about the Brigantine Castle in NJ and how she spent every night there during the summer as a kid. So last Christmas I thought to myself, “myself, you should try to find something from the Brigantine Castle to give to your wife instead of diamonds again”. That led me to Google-searching the internet and what I found was plentiful and glorious. In addition to all of the naked lady websites, I found a really cool reproduction of an old Brigantine Castle poster:

I know a poster sounds lame, but I'm not talking about the pot or heavy metal posters at Spencers, I am talking about something more personal. And I really loved posters as gifts when I was a kid. They usually featured my favorite sports figures, a St. Pauli Girl or maybe a fancy black light poster. I could never find an actual black light, so the black light Pink Panther poster that I had was useless. On the other hand, the St. Pauli girl poster got a lot of use. Too much information??

Well, I am proud to say the poster I gave Erin was a big hit and looks great hanging in our house in Brigantine.  I can hear Colleen yelling at me now, ”So what's your gift idea, Doug?” Well, to me, nothing says Happy Birthday Jesus more than a poster that has special meaning to your loved one. I found mine on Zazzle.com, but there are several other sites including allposters.com. Just search for your favorite noun (person, place or thing) and see what you can find.

Not sure if anyone noticed, but The Muppets are very popular now, so I searched for them on Zazzle. I found this sexy poster of Miss Piggy that I added it to my Christmas list plus several others that would be appropriate for kids.

Then, on allposters.com, I found the movie poster for the original Muppet Movie from 1979. I included this one because it is vintage and I think Colleen likes stuff like that.

Sticking with the vintage theme for Colleen, I tried searching with “vintage'' in the google box on Zazzle.  I put “vintage Michigan” to commemorate my favorite moment of 2011 when I traveled cross-country to pick up Colleen's freshvintage camper and found this cool Michigan map from 1892.  Chris and I used our GPS that day to find the camper, but where we were in Michigan was so rural that we could probably have used this map to find our way.

You're welcome, Colleen!

If you don't find any posters that you like online, you can always make your own. I used to do that a lot when I was younger, a bit of a hobby you could say. I recently finished a bar in my basement and pulled out a few of my old custom-made posters to decorate the bar area. This one is from my championship B League intramural basketball team in college. I had the team sign it during our championship banquet, making it's value priceless.

Here's an example of a poster my roommates and I made for a Christmas card and portrait to put over the fireplace for our holiday party.

Finally, here's another poster of me from college with friends dressed up for a halloween party.  Can you guess which super hero I am?

I know posters sounds like a lame gift, but maybe it's just the word posters that sounds bad.  Maybe call them prints so it sounds nicer. Well, I hope I get a vintage St. Pauli girl print to go with the Miss Piggy print that Santa promised me. Unless the old hairy pervert keeps them for himself.

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Thanks, Doug! I love the idea of framing a meaningful poster and giving it as a gift. As long as you're not in it.

P.S. I couldn't help but notice this framed picture on the shelf by Erin & Doug's bar. I don't want to speak for everyone, but I know that I am anxiously awaiting the poster-size version.

Read the whole list of fresh gifts.

Comments

[Eleanor]

You are all an inspiration - and crack me up! Thanks for all the ideas and humor! Have a wonderful Christmas, and maybe we'll see you or Erin at a flea market, shivering, and enjoying the fresh air and cool stuff...