The One About Gift Giving

For the first time in my life I'm going to send out Christmas cards with a letter. Rachel picked out the stationary and I got to use some creativity in writing it. I'll try to put the girls to work stuffing envelopes and sticking on the stamps. Remember when you used to have to lick stamps?

I'm not quite done with my Christmas shopping yet. I always have a problem with getting the perfect gift. I always feel like the gift is somehow beneath the recipient. I think about getting flowers for Rachel and I imagine her getting them and thinking, "Gee, roses? They're for guys who cheat on their wives." or "Yellow flowers? I don't want yellow flowers in my house. What am I going to do with yellow flowers? If only he had gotten me blue flowers. There's something I could work with." So I start picking out blue flowers, and it hits me again, "Blue flowers? Doesn't he love me? If he loved me he'd get me daisies and lilies and wild flowers." So I start looking for wild flowers and it hits me, She wouldn't say anything like that. She would be so grateful for me even thinking of her that I'm afraid she would faint. Yes, she would faint if I bought her flowers. That would hurt the baby. I'd better not do it. Besides, she's more practical, she'd want me to use the money to pay down the debt from the wedding. (Do you see the next trend coming?) In fact, she'd probably get mad at me for spending money at all. She'd say "Flowers? Delivered? What did you spend on these, $50?" I'd stammer for a few seconds, then come out with it, "Yes, $55." and she'd say "$55 for flowers? They're going to die in a 3 days. That's $18 per day for flowers to be in the house. We can't afford $18 per day!" Again, she'd never said those things. In fact, she's never said anything like that before. There's no reason to think that she'd be mad at me for buying her flowers, or for spending an average of $18 per day on anything, if I really wanted to get it. So the flowers go unpurchased, the extra gift stays on the rack, and I put the money in my wallet and it ends up going to purchase overpriced soda in the vending machine at work.

So this Christmas, I'm going to focus on giving gifts for the feeling I get in giving them. I'm not going to worry about what color someone likes or if a certain style might not be their taste. I'll give a gift receipt, and when mom opens her camaflauged wading boots she'll at least have some good conversation for her co-workers.