Everyone has heard of “crowdsourcing” right? I usually hate cutesy terms made up by management consultants and business journalists – and that one is no exception. That being said, it may be a goofy term, but I’ll begrudgingly admit that it is appropriate. Whether you are talking about the enormous amounts of content uploaded to YouTube everyday or the millions of movie ratings that NetFlix users add in order to help improve everyone’s recommendations, there’s no doubt about it – asking your customers to add value to your product just works.

Why the heck am I talking about this? What does it have to do with contests, giveaways, holidays, etc? Well, nothing really, but I’m lacking creativity tonight so I decided to crowdsource tonight’s post and help you out with some holiday gift ideas. Earlier this week I asked everyone who was entering one of our Sam’s Club membership giveaways to write about the “best gift they’ve ever received” and some of the responses have been really fantastic so I thought I’d post a few of my favorites tonight. This saves me from having to be creative, and maybe it will help you to find an idea or two for this year’s gift giving.

For anyone expecting another $25 gift-card giveaway I say to you – “ha! not tonight!”. I do have another gift card to giveaway, but I’m going to hold off on it for now. We have another giveaway that I’ll post on this coming Friday (the 13th – not good for you suspicious readers I suppose), so I am going to make that one a $50 giveaway instead of the usual $25. That will give the winner a few extra dollars to spend towards the gift-buying (or whatever else they happen to need).

If – unlike me – you’ve already started the Holiday gift buying, you can find some good ideas on the Holidays Made Simple gift guide. Maybe you know someone who has a desk – if you win the $50 card, you can get them this “Executive Desktop Valet” for $45.81 and still have $4.19 left over to buy a magazine or something. See, I have a full service blog here – I give you the ideas and the money to pay for them.

So, don’t forget to come back on Friday to enter the next giveaway and if you haven’t already, you can enter any or all of the six other giveaways that the wife and I have running right now.

To help get you in the gift-giving mentality, check out a few of the comments our readers have left…(there are a lot of awesome stories that people have posted, so you should read through all of them, this is just a sampling).

Amanda wrote:

The best “present receiving” for me was actually when I gave my husband a Christmas present. It was 2006, I was working since I was staying home to raise my daughter. We where really tight on money so I knew I wouldn’t be able to get my husband anything. However I found out in November that my father wanted to sell a car, he said if I could help with online ads he’d give me $300 from the sale. That day I jumped on the computer and got that sucker sold before the end of the month. I didn’t tell my husband about it. I went out and bought him a Takamine acoustic guitar with a hard case.
Here’s the part I love….
We went to my parents house on Christmas morning. A few days before I had come over and hide both presents and that morn I hid the guitar in my parents bathroom and wrapped the case. He opened the case and was pretty excited (even though it was much nicer than his beat up guitar!) but said it looked a little to big for the one he had; which I knew he would say. I pretended to get really upset saying the guy that sold it to me told me it would fit perfect. I started fake crying and ran off to my parents room. My dad who was in on it said he should give me a minute than go see if I was OK. When I husband came in the bathroom I was sitting on the edge of the tub holding his new Takamine. He was so surprised he almost started to cry. I will never forget the smile on his face that day!!

Robin wrote:

My best present ever wasn’t really the present (although it was my first very own tv!), but the way the present was given to me. I was about 13 or so and opened a box from my Dad and the box had a clue in it which led to another clue, which led to another clue, etc… HE HAD MADE A SCAVENGER HUNT FOR ME!!! It was SO much fun – I think he enjoyed watching me as much as I enjoyed doing it. Eventually, of course, I came to the actual present, which was, as I said above, my very own tv – it was my first one and I had been DYING for it. It was the best experience I had with an Xmas gift. THANKS DADDY I LOVE YOU!

Amy wrote:

The best present I ever received would be a toy car made from a slice of 2×4 and four bobbins from the inside of ribbon reels. I know it sounds dull but I grew up in a family that couldn’t make ends meet. My sister and I spent a lot of time living with our grandparents growing up because our parents were struggling to even pay the bills but I LOVED spending time with my granddad, he was everything to me. One year things were looking particularly sparse and even as my grandmother worked her job in the bow factory and my grandfather received his army pension benefits we were in a bad spot. We knew that food came first and there never failed to be food on the table especially come Christmas time when we all came together as a family but not being one to allow us to go without my grandfather had worked in his glass doored shed in the garden to put together a toy car made from scraps from his DIY about the house and my grandmothers ribbon reels to make sure that there was something special under the tree for us. The car itself didn’t last long as I towed it around the house but even as the wheels started to wobble I dragged it behind me. It must have been a pretty sad sight to see thinking about it now but I never saw myself as hard done by and that little car was the highlight of my Christmas.

Joannie wrote:

The best holiday present I ever received happened during our church Christmas pageant. I was a teenager, and had been chosen as the angel in the pageant. I got to wear a beautiful white robe with a halo and golden wings. A little girl in our parish who was very ill with leukemia wanted to attend the pageant so she could see the angel. Her parents bundled her up and brought her to the church. I had to stand in one spot overlooking the manger scene during the entire pageant, standing very still. I decided to focus my gaze on the little girl in the congregation the entire time. I smiled at her continuously, and her face lit up, as if she knew she would soon be in the company of real angels. That is the most blessed present I ever received – that little girl’s smile at Christmas. p.s. this really is a true story.
hey – I might be a godless heathen, but that’s still a good story so I don’t mind re-posting it.

Wendi wrote:

The best present I ever got was made with a lot of love from my Dad. When I was 9 or 10 he made me a
dollhouse by hand. I saw him making it in the garage before Christmas
and he told me it was for my cousin. Imagine my shock when he gave it to me on Christmas morning. Unfortunately I did not express my gratitude to him for all of his hard work because I really wanted a new bike. I was so disappointed by his handmade gift.
What a rotten kid I was. Luckily he forgave me!!

The information provided in this article was shared as part of the Sam’s Club Sharing the Savings blogger campaign. Compensation was received for participation but the views and opinions expressed are solely my own.