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I would like to introduce you to my wife. Her
name is Lynn and most people think she is a normal human being,
but she’s not. Well, not during the months of November and
December, anyway. During those two months, she transforms from
a loving mother of five and into a Christmas present acquisition
and wrapping machine. It all starts innocently enough. She’ll
leave work at lunch and casually browse through a store or the
mall and pick up one little thing that she thinks would be
“cute” for one of our nieces or nephews, but faster than I can
ask, “How much was that thing?” the change is complete. Her
eyes have become scanners, her mind a complex relational
database. Her feet have become wheels, built for speed. She
has the strength of three women twice her size. For the next
fifty days or so, I will check our roof daily expecting to find
reindeer waiting for her. I have never actually seen a reindeer
on our roof, but I believe I have heard them, and I definitely
have cleaned some questionable things out of the gutter. In 30
days she will have purchased and wrapped literally dozens of
gifts and will have developed a detailed hit list for December.
Do not get in her way.
I made that mistake once, but
only once, because I’m a fast learner, but fast learning
abilities aside, I do have one weakness that I constantly
struggle with: I’m a “one for you, one for me” shopper. I have
the ability to justify any purchase for myself if I think about
it long enough. Lynn combats my compulsion by confiscating
everything I buy and wrapping it. You know that feeling you get
if you wear a hat on a really windy day and a big gust hits you
and suddenly your hat is gone? That’s what it’s like for me
when I come home from a store of any kind, and she’s in full
wrapping mode. I walk in the door and the fantastic treasures I
bring home just disappear. Every Christmas I know what many of
my gifts are, because they are all the things I bought for
myself over the prior two months.
I’m not just talking about
gift items, either. I’m talking about everyday “need” items.
One year she almost wrapped a package of toilet paper that I
brought home on December 21st because, and I quote,
“It’s too close to Christmas to be buying things for
ourselves.” I was able to talk her out of that one using the
argument that any household that goes without toilet paper for
the four days leading up to Christmas would be neither festive,
nor merry. “Toilet paper”, I said, “is the key to a successful
holiday season.” Plus, it wasn’t the really soft stuff.
Recently, she’s eased up on
wrapping every little thing, but if I buy anything for myself
that isn’t a necessity, I have to either:
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Sneak it into the house after
she has fallen asleep, or
-
Begin the justification
procedure before I actually purchase the item.
It is a pain in the neck, but
that’s only because I’m weak. If it were possible for a
salesperson at the mall to sell me Christmas day – the actual
day – I’d buy it and use it in November. She keeps me honest,
and I keep her busy. I’m lucky to have her, though, because I’m
a really bad Christmas present buyer. It’s true. We may have
fifty people on our present buying list and I’ll find really
fantastic things for two of them. When I find those two items,
though, whoa boy am I excited! I don’t even mind the payment
process, because by then, I can’t wait to show everyone,
including the people I’ve found those gifts for, what I’ve
found. Then I get home, Lynn makes everything disappear and I
think to myself, “Well, what was the point in that? I’m right
back to where I started.” Then I sit down on the couch and look
for a football game on TV.
Lynn, however, gets the point
and always gets it well in advance of December 23rd,
which is usually when it hits me. That’s when I really
appreciate that my wife is a holiday machine, because without
her, everyone we know would be getting toilet paper for
Christmas.
And not the really soft
stuff, either.
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Also, it would be really cool if you
would tell your friends about jpchambers.com.
Thanks,
John
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