It’s Wednesday, the day when we talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and then you follow up either by commenting or by writing your own post and then linking up!
With Christmas coming up later this month, I thought we had better have a talk about husbands, Christmas presents, and expectations.
First, let me tell you the story of two friends of mine, that we’ll call Dave and Rachel. Dave’s love language is gifts. He loves thinking up ideas of the perfect gift for everyone. He buys Christmas presents throughout the year, and is always so excited to give them.
One year he bought Rachel the perfect gift: an electronic sewing machine. He was giggling like a schoolgirl when she opened the paper, so eager to see the look on her face.
Then, when it was her turn, she handed him an envelope. Inside was a cut out from a flyer for some camera equipment. Rachel hadn’t had time to go buy it, but she figured they could go get it together during the Boxing Day sales. Dave was crushed. He had spent so much time and effort finding the perfect sewing machine model, and Rachel hadn’t bothered to even go shopping.
Christmas can be hazardous to a marriage, especially if you have different ideas of the importance of gifts!
Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with presents. I find gifts stressful to buy, because I never know the right thing. And I don’t always like receiving them, because if I really want something, I can go out and buy it myself. So it’s rare that someone can find me a good gift. It’s also rare that I don’t feel guilty about receiving a gift, because they shouldn’t have had to spend money on me.
But at the same time, as much as I have this angst over presents, having nothing under the tree is kind of depressing. So I suppose I do want something–which means I have to give something. But what? I have the additional problem that my anniversary is December 21–and this year is our twentieth. So I have two big gifts four days apart from each other. And my husband has really specialized hobbies, too!
Some years I went out and bought him a bunch of clothes, since he hates shopping. I think he appreciated the sentiment, but he really doesn’t care about clothes. Other times we’ve just bought something that we needed for the house, like a Wii or a new DVD player. And then we agree that we’re not going to buy anything for each other.
I obey. He doesn’t. So I have a gift to open, but he doesn’t, and then I feel like a louse.
When the children were younger, I also always made sure that they bought or made Keith something, even if it was only a token. But he didn’t return the favour for me, because he didn’t understand how important it was for me that the children did something for Christmas for Mommy. He thought I wanted presents, so he’d buy stuff; but what I really wanted was the thought that went into it.
So every year has been a different set of problems; either I’m unhappy because I didn’t get him a gift but he got me one, after I thought that we wouldn’t buy anything; or I’m unhappy because I know he doesn’t really like the gift I bought; or I’m unhappy because the kids haven’t gotten me anything.
And then one year I woke up, after counting all the times I’d been unhappy, and said, “Wow. I’m being really stupid.”
This Christmas, my goal is not to be stupid! And I think I have the perfect plan. It’s radical, but it just might work. I’m actually going to communicate my desires to my husband, and I’m going to ask him to communicate his to me. In other words, I am not going to expect him to read my mind, or to agree with me on everything.
Last year I did that for Mother’s Day. About a week before, I explained to Keith that what I really, really wanted was for the girls to write me love letters for Mother’s Day. I didn’t want them to spend money. I wanted a keepsake. He made sure they did, and it was the happiest Mother’s Day I’ve ever had. They were great letters!
I know sometimes gift giving can be difficult with spouses because expectations and emotions get so twisted up together. But maybe it’s time we threw out those expectations and just communicated with our husbands. Is it less romantic if you have to tell him what to buy you? If you’re expecting him to come through for you, don’t wait for him to mind read. Let him know!
I don’t think it’s wrong to give a guy a list of 10 things that he could choose from to give you for Christmas. I don’t think it’s wrong to say, “I want you to spend between $50 and $150, but no more, because of our budget this year”. I don’t think it’s wrong to say, “I want you to promise me you won’t buy me anything this year, and instead we’ll put the money towards paying off debt,” or “I’d rather we give each other fun coupons that are free so we can spend the money on the kitchen renovations”, or “I actually want something nice this year.”
For some reason we don’t like talking specifics about gifts, but I think many marriages would be much healthier and happier if we told each other what we want and what we’re expecting. So let your husband know what you want for Christmas and how you want Christmas to go–and then ask him what he wants. That’s not a cop out. It’s just a recipe for a much more peaceful Christmas!
Of course, if you want something more racy for Christmas, you can always use my idea that I posted yesterday at RooMag: Just Say Yes to Him this Christmas!
Now, what advice do you have for us today? Write your own Wifey Wednesday post and then come back here and leave a link to THAT post in the Linky below! And let me know how you handle Christmas with your husband.
Related posts:
My link is here:
http://terrybreathinggrace.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/are-happy-marriages-as-elusive-as-unicorns/
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As for the post, my husband likes to give me gifts. Even when we agree not to buy each other anything, he can’t help himself. So I have learned to just go with it.
I usually ask for something practical, anyway. For example, my food processor just dies so I told him, “You know what I really need? a food processor. So he’ll get that I’m sure, along with something that he really likes for me and thinks I’ll like.
It’s interesting that you mention the letters at Mother’s Day. I turned 40 this past summer and my husband wrote me the most beautiful letter. Best gift i ever got from him, hands down. I guess we are somewhat similar in that we value heartfelt written words over trinkets from a store.
terry@breathinggrace recently posted..Are Happy Marriages as Elusive as Unicorns?
I’m just going to comment …
Ahh…expectations!! Those can be the tearing down of a perfectly good marriage relationship. I know because I’ve set many a high one that didn’t come to past and ended up angry at my husband because of it.
I believe what to do about Christmas is just what you said:
1. Discuss it, be open – and not on Christmas Eve – give him time to think and process what you’ve said. He really may not have a clue about what you want.
2. Don’t expect him to do for you what you would do for him. He may show his love differently, and while there is nothing wrong with you wanting a certain gift (like your Mother’s Day letters – great idea!!) he may have something in mind that you could like if you’d just be content with accepting his way of giving.
I’ve been married 16 years now and boy I wish I would’ve learned to be a lot less expecting and a lot more contented with my husband. Thankfully, God is merciful and my husband is very patient.
We’re both still learning. 
Merry Christmas to you!
Oh, this made me laugh SO hard! And for the first ten years, if anyone had dared suggest I was “being stupid,” I woulda decked them. After all, I had a right to my expectations! (And the resulting misery, evidently!)
Christmas was always a nightmare. The year he got me a $100 gift certificate to House of Fabrics when I’d spent WEEKS searching for “just the right” gifts for him… The year he bought me the wrong size sweater and I returned it…
Let’s just say that it didn’t take long for him to label me “Impossible to Please” and oh, the tears I cried at that unfair label!
I’ll tell you when I gave up: It was Mother’s Day, over a decade ago. I’d been at a craft fair and noticed cute ear-rings that said, “I love my mommy.” I bought them, gave them to my husband saying, “These are my Mother’s Day gift from the kids.” (I had convinced myself that it was my motherly duty to help him teach our kids how to show gratitude and give nice gifts.) When MD came, no ear-rings. He’d put them away somewhere so “safe” that he couldn’t find them. Even after two moves, they remain very safely hidden!
After 23+ years, I can look back and say I have been SO SO SO stupid…and about the stupidest things! We are together and healthy. What more could I possibly need or want?
Just last night, we bought Christmas gifts for our family: 4 tickets to see a Christmas play together (Daniel picked out the seats, as he’s visual!) We’ll spend time together, laugh our fool heads off, and make lasting memories. Now that’s a real gift!
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Oh, Cheri, I love the story about the earrings! It is funny how we take these things so personally, isn’t it? It’s like we judge our husbands by Christmas morning instead of the rest of the year. I need to remember that just having my husband is an amazing gift (isn’t that sweet?
).
We have had many of the loving missteps above and laugh about them now. People almost always question DH when he says that he’s getting me a new toaster oven or blender (I love them!) And every so often, he throws in some bling (jewelry). Now about every two or three years, DH’s “present” is to get to redo a room or a major house project. He LOVES it and sings and smiles through every part of his projects.
I used to hate having people buy things for me because (in at least one family member’s case) they usually had to use credit or money from other needed items to buy the gift for me. It was a HUGE personal guilt party and made me angry and I didn’t feel good about the gift. I’ve since convinced that person in my life that loving me means NOT getting gifts that she can’t afford, but instead to send a letter or sing some songs and record them. I blogged about those last year – along with other talent-based gifts
http://tillieisms.blogspot.com/2010/11/special-christmas-gifts-come-from-hands.html
My other go-to gift, for those who aren’t doing sweets, is spiced nuts. Recipe is here (I have yet to find someone who doesn’t look forward to getting these – and have many who return their tins for an invited-refill!)
http://tillieisms.blogspot.com/2010/10/chefs-secret-spiced-nuts-for-christmas.html
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Thanks, Tillie! I love the idea of talent based gifts. That’s beautiful.
Oh and one of my FAVORITE gifts of all time: FLEECE SHEETS. They give again and again every year when I know my family is snuggled down into warm cuddly softness and I can turn the thermostat down at night. And hand-knitted house socks… I’ve gotten those from Spinster Beth
http://spinsterbeth.blogspot.com/
She is contemplating opening an Etsy store and I really hope she does, she makes beautiful things!
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After close to 19 years of being married, here is how my husband and I handle Christmas gifts. We set an agreed budget and then we each write out a list of suggested wish list items. It works great for us!
Perfect, Holly!
“I have a love-hate relationship with presents. I find gifts stressful to buy, because I never know the right thing. And I don’t always like receiving them, because if I really want something, I can go out and buy it myself. So it’s rare that someone can find me a good gift. It’s also rare that I don’t feel guilty about receiving a gift, because they shouldn’t have had to spend money on me.”
I could have written that paragraph, Sheila!!!
Giving and getting gifts is enough to give me a small meltdown. I feel like I NEVER know what to get people (my love language is quality time, with a big fat score of 0 in gifts) and if I need things I buy them for myself. If my husband INSISTS on giving me a gift (which is rare), he asks what I want or he gets me something small and practical. Our friends joke about us because we don’t give each other birthday, valentines, or anniversary gifts…
I am SO thankful that I married a man who, also as a 0 in gifts, asks for a paper shredder for Christmas because he says “I don’t really need anything… except maybe a paper shredder.” So guess what he’s getting for Christmas? LOL
Expectations are so much better when everyone is privy to them. Otherwise you might as well just call them “dashed hopes.”
Amanda, that’s a wonderful last line! I’m going to put it on Twitter!
Good to know we’re not the only ones like this! We’re both extremely low on the”gifts” scale too, and always go for the practical. This year, for example, my husband is getting some Kitchenaid mixer attachments (that were almost free after rebates), and he’s trying to track down an inexpensive label maker for me. It doesn’t sound romantic, but both of us will be happy with those items!
And that’s the main thing–that we’re happy, right? Even if other people think it’s a horrible gift.
In a sense, gifts are easy at our house because we don’t usually spend money on ourselves, either for our hobbies or for necessities, so we can usually come up with a practical, albeit boring list of gifts. Thankfully my husband is creative and wise and doesn’t always just get me the practical, although I’m quite serious when I suggest them & I always appreciate them. (Last year he got me pyrex baking dishes and another year he got me a waffle iron.The baking dishes I specifically mentioned, the waffle iron I didn’t- he just knew that my family growing up had a tradition of Saturday morning waffles and I was missing that because ours broke.) But sometimes creativity and romance are nice and he does a great job with that.
We bought a waffle iron for the family two Christmases ago, too. I love it!
I really do struggle with Christmas (and birthday and anniversary) gifts for my honey. He can never think of anything he wants within our budget so the list he makes is crazy! When I buy him clothes he returns them (because he’s very, very tall and it’s hard to get a good fit) and by the time I buy the books on the list he’s already borrowed them from the library! I’m a gift giver… but I completely draw a blank on how to do gifts with him.
So this year we’ve been talking about this. My frustration with buying for him stresses me out. We had an honest discussion and we’ve decided instead of buying something for each other, we’re going to spend that money blessing someone (or organization) of that person’s choice. It has actually shown me something beautiful about my husband… I would have never guessed he had a “soft spot” in his heart for the place he is choosing to “spend” his gift.
But I have to be honest… I did ask for a little something… less than $20 under the tree for me, just so I could unwrap something. I highly recommended a bag of decaf espresso beans!
Hi Carla Anne! Great to see you here. That’s a sweet story about how you’re handling Christmas this year. I think that’s lovely. And yes, a little gift under the tree never hurt anyone!
I was linked to this post and I am shocked by the accolades given to this “Dave” character. I can only hope by “electronic” sewing machine, you only meant “requires plugging into a wall socket”, and that the machine was constructed in the 20th century, the earlier the better. Ugh! Just the thought of a digital sewing machine grosses me out. Sewing machines should be made of metal, with no screens and as few knobs as possible. Brand new sewing machines are fragile plastic husks and made to break within 6 months to a few years. If this is what Dave purchased, then he is a thoughtless, terrible husband indeed, and Rachel should look for greener pastures, or at least whip him into shape.
I think you possibly missed the point…
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Yes, Emily, the point really wasn’t the sewing machine. It was the fact that Dave resesarched what she wanted (and she did want this kind of sewing machine) and then bought it. That’s really the point.
Well then–and I mean no offense with this–perhaps Rachel is not as good a wife as she could be, although I suppose that was part of the point of the post; I think I understand now. Just, with that kind of logic, I may as well start using MARGARINE when I cook for my wife and two children! Or perhaps I should start buying mass-produced playclothes for the kids rather than make them myself! I really do mean no offense since you say Rachel is a friend of yours, but I believe that if one is to make as sacred a commitment as marriage, it should be all or nothing.
Emily, I’m afraid this is rather a silly conversation! I’m sorry you don’t like computerized sewing machines, but the point is that Rachel did, and David researched that and bought what she wanted. You are, of course, feel free to disagree with Rachel’s taste, but that has absolutely no bearing on the quality of their marriage. The point is that we should consider our spouse’s wants and needs at Christmas. Anyone’s tastes in sewing machines, other than one’s spouse, has absolutely nothing to do with that.
Sheila, you are SO me! It all stresses me out! This year we are super tight on a budget and I don’t know what to do at all. We are good about speaking up about “I wants” — but not so much when it’s “no, REALLY, don’t spend ANY money!!” You’re right — it’s just a matter of communicating! As are most things!
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This year we’re on a fairly tight budget due to a (voluntary) reduction in our income and an increase in some living expenses. There was a particular tv series that we both wanted to watch on dvd that isn’t available through rental, so we decided this would be our present to each other. We will still do stocking gifts, which are smaller items and will let each other of some things we would like.
And both of our birthdays are fairly soon after Christmas as well. I saw that a particular performance was coming to our city that I thought we would enjoy. I considered surprising my husband with the tickets, but I decided to check with him first to make sure it was something he would like. So pretty much our birthdays are already coovered too.
My husband is lambasted by his coworkers and UNinformed friends EVERY anniversary and birthday that he doesn’t have to get a card or gift (and we don’t even acknowledge the Hallmark-induced occasions!) and then they’re most incredulous when Christmas comes around and he still doesn’t have to buy anything. See, presents and touch barely register on my Love Language scale. I’ve always disliked shopping and the commercialized crowds of Christmas. Why on earth would I expect anyone to subject themselves to such unpleasantries on my account or behalf? If I need or want something I get it. I also have two teenagers that don’t get too excited about presents either now. Of course, as children they wanted EVERYthing under the sun, and then would participate in the bragging bits at school – at least until they learned about privilege and less-fortunate circumstances. I realize their enthusiasm, or lack thereof, comes from witnessing our lacklustre approach to gift-giving, but a steadfast rule of our house also keeps commercialism to a minimum … Junk In = Junk Out. For everyTHING that comes IN to our space, there’s probably one or two things that go OUT.
Carol, I’m glad your husband shares your lack of enthusiasm for gifts! That must make it much easier. I prefer just doing fun things together to gifts, too.
I LOVE the title of this blog. Although I’ll admit I have the love and honor part down but I’m working on the vacuuming part
. Our Christmas is a bit unorthodox because my husband’s bday is Christmas Eve and we were married two days after Christmas. So we usually go on vacation to celebrate all four holidays (including New Year’s Eve). It’s the only time of the year we can both get away from work for more than a week so we take advantage of that.
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Hi, Fawn! Thanks for the encouragement. I actually used to have a different subtitle: the same one as my book. It used to be: To Love, Honor and Vacuum: When you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother. And I used to talk a lot more about parenting, etc. I still do talk parenting, but lately I’ve been talking so much marriage that I thought I should change the subtitle!
I’m like you in that we have too many important dates right around Christmas! I find it often difficult for presents, but what I really want to do this year is just give more to charity. I really don’t need anything. But I’d love to take a few days and just hibernate with hubby!
We spend time with family and enjoy one another. Nothing major, but family means a lot to us.
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My husband and I buy for ourselves from each other =) I’ll pick out something and show it to him, and he will do the same to me. Presents don’t really register to us as a way of showing our love, ours is more in time spent together doing what the other one enjoys. We have fun with it though & will brag each other up for the wonderful gift we received =) My brother and his wife took to doing the same thing and have enjoyed Christmas ever since! It just takes the pressure off and lets us really enjoy the day for what it should be.