Explanation:
As a child, my parents would drive my brother and I to the Barnes & Nobles mothership store here in Manhattan and give us $20-30 each and let us wander the store freely for an hour or so to pick whatever we wanted. $20-30 was enough back then so that I remember coming up to the register with armloads of paperback books and my brother and I always set aside some to co-purchase a board game or two. It was always the absolute favorite gift my brother and I got and my brother continued the tradition with his kids when they were younger.
#2 - This is totally weird, but one of the gifts I got for my bar mitzvah (age 13) from one of my classmates was a calculator. I thought at the time, jeez, what a cheap gift. Almost 30 years later, that same calculator is still chugging along and is definitely the most practical and useful gifts I ever got. I would have to categorize it as one of the best for that reason. Sure, it cost $5, but I probably use it once a week to this day and I think I have changed the batteries twice. And Daniel Silber, if you are out there, thanks again.
#3 - My grandmother's sterling silver flatware. In the years before my grandmother died, she made a long list of who was to get what after she passed away, coordinating with both my mom and my aunt (her two daughters in law) to make sure there would be no issues. I was probably the grandson who showed up most regularly for meals and certainly was the one most likely to keep eating until there was nothing left to eat- a trait my grandmother loved dearly. When my grandmother died and I found out that she had left it to me I realized how much the two of us had bonded over those meals with that flatware and I was very, very grateful and touched that she had left it to me. It also happens to be incredibly beautiful and always gets astonished compliments on the rare occasions when I bring it out to use.