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Christmas day is all but over here in Oz. It was a fine one, too, with clear blue skies almost the whole day and temperatures in the low 20s celcius here in Hobart.
Our traditional Christmas gathering is over breakfast (we have a big dinner the night before) so this morning we stuffed ourselves full of Belgian crepes with fruit before getting into some traditional Canadian pumpkin pie. We did the Aussie thing the night before with a big barbeque so between my Aussie self and my Belgian-Canadian wife we covered all the international bases.
So….presents!!
I’m quite happy with my lot. We don’t go overboard at Christmas, but we all do OK. I scored a new robe, a new pair of my favourite pants (Colorado), a copy of The Onion’s “Our Dumb World” and a copy of the latest book from my all time favourite author, Nelson De Mille, called “Gate House”. My wife and I also scored Gold Class cinema tickets, where you get to recline in big fat chairs and they bring you food while you watch the movie. Cool.
How did you all go this year? Anything Saaby? Anything otherwise interesting?
I didn’t get anything remotely automotive, so I went and ordered one of Eggs’ excellent new Saab 2-stroke oil replica coffee mugs (and I don’t even drink coffee or tea!)
Spill your booty-related beans in comments.
——
It wasn’t specifically a Christmas thing, but the photo and story are too good not to share.
A week or so ago, I was lucky enough to receive a parcel from 1985Gripen. He sent me some Saab literature from the LA auto show as well as a few packets of Oreos.
Did I say a few???
Gripen knows I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth and that our Oreo variety is a bit limited here in Oz.
I’m pleased to say that after almost a week, there’s still eight packs left. I’m doing well!
22 responses so far ↓
1 alaero
// Dec 25, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Genuine T7 Saab turbo intake pipe
3.5 Bar fuel regulator
Nordic Performance tshirt
15 inches of Samco Silicon tube loving.
2 Ron57RC
// Dec 26, 2008 at 12:39 am
Having recently returned to SAAB ownership, (10 years having elapsed since I owned a ‘92 9000 CS 2.0 lpt), I felt the need to immerse myself in the legend and lore of the marque. When asked what I might like for Xmas I stated my case; my wife has turned up trumps and I now have copies of “Mr. Saab” and Lance Cole’s “SAAB 99 and 900 The Complete Story”. Well chuffed!
3 Sport Mode
// Dec 26, 2008 at 1:41 am
Only one Christmas present this year, and it came early…
Austin James, our first child, showed up on October 28, 2008. It’s pretty much our only gift this year, but it’s hard to top that anyway.
4 Tedjs
// Dec 26, 2008 at 1:51 am
Some new sweaters and other fun things.
And of course, since I have always enjoy Lego’s: http://www.amazon.com/Brick-Testament-Story-Christmas/dp/1594740127/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230219614&sr=1-1
Hilarious.
Plenty of fun still to come… It is early here.
5 Logan
// Dec 26, 2008 at 1:58 am
Nice gifts everybody. Congrats on the new addition to the family. The new Mrs. And I got a Breville espresso machine! Merry Christmas to everybody!
6 Rogan
// Dec 26, 2008 at 2:51 am
I scored a Turbo X!
Haha, just kidding, I wish.
The only automotive-related thing I got was a Garmin Nuvi GPS.
-Rogan
7 Peter
// Dec 26, 2008 at 5:09 am
Merry Christmas everyone!
Swade, I didn’t get Oreos but I did get Newman-O’s:
http://www.newmansownorganics.com/food_newman-os.html
Haven’t opened them yet as we have been stuffing ourselves all day with plenty of other goodies.
8 Etienne Saabhuy
// Dec 26, 2008 at 5:23 am
Very nice mug ! On this season if you don’t drink Coffee or tea you can drink Hot wine (Gluhweine)
9 swade
// Dec 26, 2008 at 6:51 am
Some Christmas fun here from Eggs and family: http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/VItHVYUQKGe50xsq
10 wilfried
// Dec 26, 2008 at 6:57 am
No direclty saab related X-mas presents for me.
The mug looks both stylish & retro.
(@ etienne),
I do know Glühwein & (saab-)driving do not match, altough your avatar suggests something quite opposite.
But this is remarkable: ‘Pas de contrôle d’alcoolémie pendant les fêtes!’, belgian police announcing not to control in the most precarious period of the year ? :
liege.lameuse.be/actualite/belgique/2008-12-06/controle-alcoolemie-fetes-668561 dot shtml
11 saabyurk
// Dec 26, 2008 at 7:43 am
Wasn’t expecting anything, but my wife got me this throw blanket with my favorite Saabs on it.
You send a photo to Costco, and you get back a 52×72 (inches) cotton blanket with the photo woven in. Pretty nice. My wife secretly put together a collage photo and sent it in. That’s me on the bottom right—the only bad part (the 4 generations of family members was nice though).
Ted, If I worked at the Costco when your wife bought in those photos for the blanket, I would have photoshopped an alpaca into that portrait on the bottom right corner! Would look fantastic. Nice work. – SW
12 Dan9-1
// Dec 26, 2008 at 7:58 am
no Saab presents but I’m looking at a Hirsch Watch with some money I’ve got.
13 Andy Rupert
// Dec 26, 2008 at 12:55 pm
My dad picked up “The Saab–Scania Story” for me. Funny thing was that he found it at a local thrift store for less than US $1!
14 PT
// Dec 26, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Well our 93 Sportcombi was an early Christmas present so we focussed on the kids ( I am sure we did not receive anything like the presents kids get today when we were young!…..) and settled for a couple of nice books for the grown-ups. Helps me keep my brain ticking over amongst all the swimming/cricket/beer/gardening
/surfing that summer brings on.
15 aeronaut
// Dec 26, 2008 at 1:55 pm
stage 3 nordic cpu!
16 Topher
// Dec 26, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I got a whole bunch of great things. The big present from my girlfriend was the Coach messenger bag I’ve been aching for, but couldn’t see spending almost $400 on. I got some cash and some clothes, and a brew your own beer kit.
As far as Saab related items, I received a griffin logo pin, a Saab needle, 9-3 convertible anniversary pen, Saab silicone pen, Turbo X pen, Turbo X notebook, The Saab 9-3 book by Anders Tunberg, and a book/magazine about Michael Mauer and the Saab Design Center.
Sadly, a black 9-3 convertible was not sitting in my driveway with a big red bow around it…maybe next year…
17 Jeff
// Dec 26, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I got a new external hard drive, the complete series of Freaks and Geeks (probably one of the best shows ever on TV), the Mystery Science Theater 3000 20th Anniversary box (definitely THE best show ever on TV), and a new acoustic guitar.
Plus a ton of gift cards. I won’t be paying for anything from Best Buy for months!
18 eggsngrits
// Dec 27, 2008 at 3:17 am
Yurk: Great blanket. Swade: the Oreos are deadly. Alero: Very nice, indeed! Jeff: You’ll dig the external hard drive space.
Swade: Thanks for posting the Elf yourself link, my daughter has the moves, eh? We practiced for months.
My haul was relatively small this year — I’d bought myself a new camera a few weeks ago. Some Andes Creme de Menthe thins, iTunes gift card, Costco membership (we’ve not been members for a while), some brake rotors for the 9-5.
19 alfaracer
// Dec 27, 2008 at 4:21 am
The opinion from my wife that a Turbo X would look just fine in the driveway!
There are still plenty of Xs available here in the Northeast US so the search will begin in January.
BTW, new to this site (and to Saabs) so congrats to Swade for one of the best car sites I’ve ever hit.
20 1985 Gripen
// Dec 27, 2008 at 5:20 am
I got my wife the Motorola BLNC IHF1000 Bluetooth car kit (the same one Saab packages as their “official” Bluetooth car kit solution) and Saab adapter cable (128 01 584) for her new-to-her CPO 2005 9-5 Arc SportWagon. Now I just need to take it down and have it installed.
I didn’t get anything Saab-related this year, but I did get a genuine Swiss Army knife (keychain-sized) with a built-in USB flash drive, a Skagen (Denmark is in Scandinavia, so I guess it’s somewhat Saab-related…) titanium wristwatch, and a brushed antiqued brass desktop banker’s lamp with green shade for my desk at work (I had one as a kid and miss it).
I bought myself a great new stereo for my ‘85 C900T a few weeks ago though. My old AM/FM/Cassette deck died (the cassette portion stopped working so I can’t play my iPod through it via cassette adapter anymore) so that was fate’s way of saying I need to upgrade to 21st century technology (or at least 1990s technology…).
I bought the Pioneer DEH-P7000BT head unit and a pair of 3-way 4″ speakers to replace the stock dash speakers. The head unit has a USB cable on it so that I can either play MP3s straight from a USB flash drive I plug straight into it or I can plug-in my iPod to a special adapter cable I bought for it and control my iPod from the head unit (the track info scrolls in the head unit’s display and everything). The head unit is also HD Radio-ready so I bought the optional HD Radio receiver for it. The best thing is the head unit has a built-in Bluetooth car kit.
When I receive a phone call it automatically mutes the audio (if I’m listening to the radio, or it’ll pause the iPod if I’m listening to the iPod at the time), allows me to take the phone call (plays the telephone audio through the dash speakers and receives my voice through an included microphone), and when the call’s over it puts the music back on.
The only downside of it is that the illumination is blue and white and there’s no way to change it to green to match the rest of the dash illumination.
Despite that it’s brilliant! It’s now one of those things like ATM machines, microwave ovens, cell phones, and TiVo I have no idea how people lived before the advent of.
Oh yeah, it has a CD player built-in too, but what’s the point?
Why doesn’t Saab include a stereo head unit with all of these features as standard in their “luxury” automobiles? Or at least as an option? Delphi sucks so hard.
Hope everyone has a great holiday season and a happy new year.
21 Jeff
// Dec 27, 2008 at 6:12 am
I actually had a ton of space on a network drive, but it was so frickin’ slow that I decided to go BACK to a USB drive, after having two fail on me.
22 1985 Gripen
// Dec 28, 2008 at 4:12 am
@Swade: which two Oreo packs are the ones you finished? Just curious.
@Peter: I included some organic Oreos (which incidentally I like the taste of better than Oreo brand) in the shipment. You can see the package right in the middle of the pile in the pic. I didn’t get Newman Ohs for that reason. The only time I ever tried Newman Ohs I accidentally bought the gluten-free version and they were so terrible that I couldn’t even finish the one cookie I bit into. I had to spit it out and immediately threw-away the whole package. I know it’s my fault for buying the wrong variety, but now I associate Newman Ohs with that taste. Do not want.
@all: just saw a new Saab “red tag” commercial on TV (on CNN) that’s pretty good. It features the light pipes in the dark. You just see the light pipes lit up in the dark, then they turn on the lights in an airplane hanger and three 9-3s are parked there (sedan, combi, and ‘vert). Then they show a full-screen GM logo (apparently for all those who don’t know Saab is GM and included in the fire sales). Then they kick in with the “red tag” price on the 9-3 of $25K and change, pointing out that it’s more than a $6K discount.