Then comes Christmas. Ah, a hall pass to shop. I’m not so interested in Black Friday and our money tree has seen better days but I do enjoy seeing what I can do with a dollar.
Enter Doc, aka My Most Amazing Man and beloved husband. He’s fine to follow the advent calendar, get and decorate a tree, see A Christmas Carol, sing along with Handel, send cards to those near and dear, light some candles, and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.
I do enjoy all the above and then some including sending Christmas cards to every friend and family member we know. Add a picture, maybe a newspaper column, big hugs and then hope to hear back from those scattered hither and yon.
Pre-digital, our annual picture meant time at the photo lab. Once Doc generously offered to stand in line and wait for the reprints (for who knew how long) while I shopped. Even if it meant hours, if necessary, for hand painted pictures, he’d have gladly waited so he didn’t have to shop another minute.
I’m pretty over-the-top sappy about this mate of mine. We love hanging out and just enjoying life together in almost every area…except shopping. My love for it is equaled only by his disdain.
Something as simple as the photo lab was reason for him to break out in carols. Actually, if the choice had been a root canal – sans anesthesia, hanging indefinitely by his ankles in a bungee-jump-gone-bad over the Grand Canyon or spending a couple of hours shopping, he would’ve, hands down, opted for the drill or the rope!
My observation over the years has been that this aversion to shopping is not limited to Doc. Most guys just…do…not…like…to…shop. Tis the season to be jolly? Forget it! Sleigh bells ring! Who cares? Bah humbug!
As I crossed the store to the Christmas decorations, I rounded the corner and immediately laughed out loud at what I saw. How I longed to pull out my phone and document the site before me!
Down an entire aisle, I kid you not, in a line as straight as if ordered by a school teacher, was one shopping cart after the other – all guarded by husbands, without question, waiting as their wives shopped. Somehow they missed the photo lab option (or the root canal or the bungee jump). If only they’d known…
I couldn’t help but laugh and believe me, it was the only laughter happening anywhere nearby!
“So you’re a husband,” I said to the closest guy. He nodded in misery. I recognized the facial expressions of the long-suffering “men-in-waiting”. I had seen them too many times on the face of my own spouse.
“Your wife’s shopping and you’re just having the best time, huh?” I dared ask tongue-in-cheek.
“Oh yeah,” he rolled his eyes at me. He seemed like a nice enough guy but he was totally over his assignment of entertaining his toddler also held captive till the torture – I mean shopping – was over.
My premise has long been that if it were left to men to do the Christmas shopping, it wouldn’t get done (or possibly started) till the 24th. Of December. And all the presents might come from Home Depot or something akin. The gifts would probably be grills or handsaws or even little flashlight key chains. They might even throw in a squared-off carpenter pencil, a Christmas tree air freshener and two or three Slim Jim sausage sticks for the stockings!
Then a smile crept up on the poor prisoner-of-shopping’s face. It was as if he began to think aloud.
“But,” he raised an eyebrow. “I’ve figured out why men and women are so different about shopping.” He looked smug as if he really did know some guarded secret.
“Why’s that?” I bit, actually hoping he was a psychologist with an answer to this dilemma most of us have faced.
“Men and women and shopping are all part of the evolutionary process,” he said confidently.
“Women have always been the caregivers, the gatherers, bringing home the bounty they’ve searched for – whether blueberries on a bush or blue jeans to fit her family or blue lights for the Christmas tree.” Um, the blue lights were stretching it a bit but I decided to hear him out.
“The woman’s job has been to search till she finds just what she’s looking for…is this ripe enough? Will this fit? How much do I need? What does it feel like?”
I laughed thinking of the hundreds of times I’d heard my mother exclaim as we shopped “Beth, come feel this dress!”
“We men,” he continued on, “have always been the hunters. Capture the wild boar or buffalo. Chase it down, kill it and drag it home as fast as possible!”
All this waiting might have gone to his head but the poor guy’s premise actually did kind of make sense. I thought immediately of Doc.
See, if he needs, say for instance, jeans, we simply go to Store A – no real shopping involved (much to my chagrin). He literally goes to one store. It’s pretty much one swift motion: locate the jeans, grab the right size, head to the register wallet in hand, pay, jeans in the bag and out the door. Drag the bounty home as quickly as possible. It’s all gotta be done fast. No looking around. No time to waste feeling anything. He doesn’t even have to try them on! Just get ‘em and go. It’s the man’s way.
I, on the other hand, can spend a whole day trying to find that one blasted pair of jeans that will A) not cost an arm and a leg and B) flatter if possible. Then I can only hope they won’t shrink…or worse!
Suffice it to say, in spite of suffering through the shopping every year, we manage to get the Maranville Christmas tree decorated and the cards stuffed, addressed and mailed. The ornaments look fine as we add more memories on the tree with each passing year. In fact, I’d say they have quite a good “feel” to them.
There’s a nice, garden variety – the Holy Family, Yoda, U.S. flags (thank you again to our military for your sacrifice), Saint Nicholas, a newly-added Mariners ball, and even Santa on a surfboard (well, I am the beachgirl). So yeah, it’ll never make Martha Stewart Living but like I said, it does have a good feel to it!
Maybe that husband-in-line was right. Maybe those cave folk were on to something after all. It doesn’t take long to capture a little holiday spirit and get the feeling of what this season’s really all about. Hopefully, that’s something we can all agree on.
From our house to yours, may this Christmas find your family feeling great love, peace and joy.
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