I’ll start the thread: my long-distance Korean boyfriend flew me over to South Korea this winter break to be with him. Been here since last weekend, will stay until January. First time on a plane and first time travelling abroad for me. If you told younger me she’d get to travel so far away, she wouldn’t believe you.
They say the best gift is one they keep on using. By that logic, my best gift is the tea kettle my brother gave me on Christmas 2018. I was getting into drinking tea, but I had no convenient way to heat up the water. It quickly became my most used Christmas gift ever. Then when the pandemic happened and I started working from home, I used it multiple times a day. It’s been used easily a couple thousand times in the past 6 years and it’s still going strong.
Edit: Another arguably best gift is the headphones that my brother also gave me. I forget what year, though, somewhere between 2014 and 2016. They’re a pair of Sony headphones and I started to use them a lot when I started office work at the end of 2017. Basically every day for most of my shifts. I used them so much the (admittedly mediocre) ear pads wore out and I had to replace them at the end of 2019. The 3rd party replacement pads are significantly better and show absolutely zero wear. I stopped using them as much when I upgraded to a wireless pair in 2022, but they still get used every week for work meetings and calls on Teams. I’ve definitely put a few thousand hours of use into them over the past decade.