Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025

What Do You Mean You Didn’t Ask For That?

Finding the perfect gift for a loved one can sometimes be a difficult task. Even though we all know that it’s the thought that counts, there are times when a misappropriated gift goes down in family history and the story is retold (and perhaps embellished!) over the years. Here are a few such stories that your fellow horsemen have collected, and we hope that you enjoy them.

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Finding the perfect gift for a loved one can sometimes be a difficult task. Even though we all know that it’s the thought that counts, there are times when a misappropriated gift goes down in family history and the story is retold (and perhaps embellished!) over the years. Here are a few such stories that your fellow horsemen have collected, and we hope that you enjoy them.

Purchasing a gift is generally made considerably easier if you know somebody who is passionate about something in particular, something they throw their heart and soul into. 

So who is easier to shop for than somebody who loves horses, or to be more precise, rides and competes sport horses? There are enough related catalogs and websites out there to fill a Titanic-sized boat, and most horsey people won’t be shy about asking for what they want. To quote millions of little girls around the world, “I want a pony!”

Unfortunately for some readers, their loved ones decided that an average, run-of-the-mill catalog gift just wouldn’t do.

Hannah Ong, Baltimore, Md., thought she was being clear when she asked her mother for a new show coat. “You know,” said Ong, 27, while trying to clarify her request, “a coat to wear at horse shows, while I’m
riding.”

Ong was in graduate school at the time, trying to keep her horses and still show on a budget. She assumed that because she’d been horse showing for years, her mother would understand what she was asking for.

hristmas morning finally rolled around, and Ong and her family were seated near the tree when her mother handed her a large, flat box and flashed Ong her biggest smile. Ong’s excitement mounted as she pulled the box toward her and flipped open the lid.

Silence.

“It’s a coat for you to wear to horse shows, just like you wanted! You’re really going to stand out. I found it at a craft fair, so it’s one-of-a-kind!” her mother said giddily.

Staring at Ong from the box was the most outlandish jacket she’d ever laid eyes on. Made to fit a large man, it appeared to be an old, gray, pinstriped suit coat.

Except that it was covered, completely, with appliquéd cutout Quarter Horses that had been made from a western-themed fabric. Each horse was individually outlined in ribbon and had colored embroidery around the edges.

As Ong smiled sweetly and slid the jacket on to pose for a photo, she wrote a mental note to circle items in a catalog for next year’s festivities.

Erin McCardell, Colora, Md., experienced a similar feeling of horror when she was a child. As the only horsey member of her family, her relatives always found it appropriate to shower her with gifts that they thought screamed, “I love horses!”

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One year, her rather eccentric aunt and uncle told her they thought they had found the perfect present.
Imagine her surprise when she was presented with a lamp. But not just any lamp. Oh no, this was a giant, western
saddle-shaped lamp painted with a motif of bucking horses and wagon wheels, colored in delightful 70s-style oranges and greens.

The horn of the saddle had, at some point, met with an unfortunate accident since it was barely attached. “We found it at a yard sale!” her aunt and uncle told her. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

McCardell agreed that it was, indeed, lovely and later, after her guests had left, she and her mother stored the lamp in the basement, where it lived until it washed away in a flood some years later.

Tree Stories
Many horsey young women grow up, move away from home and find spouses who really know them. They choose a partner who understands the importance of horses and pick a best friend who will spend hours scouring for the best gift in the history of the universe.

Or they marry  the guy who comes home with an entire store-decorated fake Christmas tree as a Christmas present. That’s what happened to Dorrie Fletcher, Newnan, Ga., a few years ago.

As a couple, Fletcher and her husband foxhunted on a semi-regular basis. And for years, she’d been decorating their tree with ornaments she’d been collecting since she was a young girl, something she looked forward to every year.

That is, until the day that her husband found a fox-themed Christmas tree in the window of a store in downtown Newnan. Later that day he bounded through their front door holding an enormous box, grinning from ear to ear.

“Guess what I found for you?” he practically yelled. “You’re going to love it!”

Mr. Perfect then proceeded to pull box after box out of the back of his car and assemble in their living room the tree that would become known as the “Fox Tree.”

He made sure that he brought home the plaid tree skirt, the ribbons that were tied on the artificial stems, the empty plaid cones that hold random items, the slew of fake, glittered pine cones to be placed in the branches and every single gaudy ornament that went with it. 

It even sported a stuffed snooty fox who sat upon the top of the tree, staring down at and quite possibly laughing.

“I wanted to get rid of it so badly,” said Fletcher. “But I just couldn’t do it. He loved that tree, and he thought I would love that tree, and I just couldn’t break his heart like that.”

And so the tree lives on, happily glittering and twinkling year after year and is a true reminder that it’s the thought that counts no matter the excessive wattage involved.

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Nancy Preisser, Murfreesboro, Tenn., also has a husband who wanted the prize for “best-gift-giver.” And he was doing pretty well for a while. In fact, the remote control unit that allowed the barn lights to be turned on from inside the house had been the perfect birthday present that year.

Such was his thinking when he bought her a set of intercoms. Upon opening the box, she was confused. Luckily, her 7-year-old son enlightened her. “They’re so we can talk to you when you’re at the barn!” he explained.

Preisser did her best to treat the intercoms as “Almost the Greatest Christmas Gift Ever” (just shy of the new hunter she really wanted), but, in reality, the barn was her place of solitude. There was no place she enjoyed more after a hard day at work. Her barn was where she went to get away from housework, homework help and cooking. That is, until the intercoms appeared.

One unit was placed in the kitchen and one in the barn, and after quick test to make sure they worked, Preisser got down to taking care of her horses and enjoying her short-lived peace and quiet.

“Buzz, Buzz. Mom? Hi Mom. When’s dinner?” Five minutes later. “Buzz, Buzz. Hi Honey! Aren’t these great? When are you coming in?” Ten minutes later. “Buzz, Buzz. Mom, Dad says I have to do my homework, and I can’t do my homework.” Twenty minutes later, “Buzz, Buzz. Mommmm! I can’t find (insert name of missing item that was not actually missing).”

Imagine Preisser’s dismay when, after a few weeks of completely interrupted solitude, the intercoms mysteriously broke. “One evening I noticed the green light on the tack room intercom wasn’t on,” said Preisser. “I guess I should have checked to see if the unit was plugged in or if the circuit breaker needed to be tripped.”

In the end, serenity trumped guilt and the intercoms were oh-so-sadly placed into the trashcan, never to be heard from again.

But It’s Perfect For You!

Surprisingly, the previously explained gifts are just a few of the delights that Chronicle readers have received over the years. A multitude of pastel-colored T-shirts lovingly adorned with white unicorns have been delivered to the youngest readers’ Christmas trees and Hanukkah bushes.

Along with the mystical horse-themed clothing are other gems just waiting to be returned to the nearest warehouse:

    •    12 extra-large sweatshirts puff-painted with a variety of
running, rearing or flying horses.
    •    11 plastic toy horses given to readers over the age of 30.
    •    10 dead seahorses to be shelved and marveled upon.
    •    9 Black Stallion books for college students.
    •    8 pony-shaped pillows.
    •    7 fleece coolers three sizes too small.
    •    6 enormous T-shirts with phrases such as “A horse is a horse unless of course it’s a Tennessee Walking Horse.”
    •    5 pony-sized rainbow-colored halters given to warmblood owners.
    •    4 strange fuzzy “toy” horses with real manes and tails.
    •    3 horse head statues, all quite angry and hungry, teeth bared and red eyes blazing.
    •    2 huge, red-eyed, clip-on fox head earrings.
    •    And 1 very heavy, three-inch wide, gold-plated “horse medallion” hung on an equal-sized golden chain.
       
So our advice for this holiday season, when asking that special someone for your much-desired horse-themed gift, is this: Go get a catalog, open to the correct page, take a red pen, and circle the exact object you wish for. If necessary, draw arrows toward the gift and destroy the photos of all other items in the catalog.
Otherwise, Santa might just bring you a broken western saddle posing as a lighting fixture. 

Megan Martin

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