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Merry Christmas to all you lovely people of the great Fossil Forum community . Please show us your Christmas fossils and other paraphernalia related gifts. I have not open my presents yet but got my fingers crossed . all the best to you and yours the Ricos .

There's no title I could think of that didn't sound odd....Show us your Nature's Gifts! Have you been Gifted by Nature? Show us! Yeesh. WHAT I MEAN IS HAVE YOU BEEN GIVEN A "GIFT" BY MOTHER NATURE!??! In other words...show us your fossils that were just LAYING there...waiting for you to notice them! In perfect or almost perfect condition, highlighted by a little sunlight (or not). literally just sitting there waiting for you to pick it up! Most of the time we hunt, scrounge, dig, scrape or otherwise discover fossil finds. Other times they are there just for the picking up, but SOMETIMES....it seems there is just a little extra something, a special fossil that seems like it was just placed there for you to find. I have had this happen so many times it's just WEIRD and I just figure they are Gifts from Nature! My absolute favorite is this honking Cretodus Shark tooth. I stopped by a creek in downtown Dallas while there for a convention and just thought I'd see if there were any fossils there. Nothing to be found AT ALL until I went up the bank and I swear this monster was just sitting there looking just like this. Clean as could be. I seriously thought maybe someone had dropped it. Maybe they did. But I found it. Cretodus 2 inches Most recently were these two echinoids from Bell County, at two different localities. The one Leptosalenia mexicana I'd been TRYING to find for some time. I hunted around for about an hour, was getting hot, so turned around to head out and there the little bugger was, just sitting at my feet all pretty like. . Same for the Phymosoma. Had wandered around finding not much except a few nice gastropods and then boom....this pretty thing sitting right out on top, nicely cleaned up and everything! There's about a half dozen other things...a couple of ammonites, some gatropods and a Pennsylvanian brachiopod that was actually catching the sunlight while stuck in the crevasse of a rock that caught my attention Fun stuff. So what has been your "gift" from Nature?

This idea comes from a recent post. Show us a great fossil given to you because the person didn't really care about fossils. Please don't ruin your reputation by telling about how you scammed some poor kindergartener or elderly out of a great fossil. lol A guy at work said this piece of petrified wood had been left in his garage by the previous owner.....15 years ago. And that's where it stayed. He didn't care about it but also didn't feel right throwing it out but didn't know anyone to give it to. Until he found out last year that I was a collector. Since I live in Ohio I don't come across this sort of thing in my collecting. It weighs about 12 lbs.

So my family and I have been spending time about 2-3 hours away from were we live and have found a neat store that sells art, minerals and fossils. I pointed out a few fossils I liked (pretty much all of them) not thinking anything about it and to my surprise I got some for Christmas! I know 2 aren’t fossils but it’s the biggest sand dollar I’ve ever seen and a neat shell of some kind. Next time I go I’ll have to get the information about where they were found and all of that. But I’m happy to add to my small collection!