By Jan Ross ~
Every magazine I pick up recently has articles about what to give your girlfriend/fiancé/wife for Christmas. Beautiful, glittering piles of decadent chocolates, imaginatively scented soaps, exquisite jewelry and exotic trinkets like a bejeweled iPhone case sparkle enticingly from the pages. Most of the plunder is ridiculously overpriced, completely impractical and not something you would ever use in your lifetime.
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Except the chocolates, of course. You can never go wrong with chocolates.
So what should you get your beloved one? Actually … I don’t have a clue.
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There may be many, many women out there who would love a bejeweled iPhone case and you may be partnered with one of them. All I can do is suggest. Not what you should purchase, but what you should definitely not purchase.
- Wool Sweaters. Nobody needs a wool sweater. They are scratchy, difficult and expensive to clean, they stretch out and moths love to feed on them. Why would anyone buy a wool sweater when you can get soft, comfy, gorgeous sweaters in some sort of manmade fabric that wash like a dream, hold their shape and are much more reasonably priced? And that wool sweater with the reindeer on the front? Step away from the sweaters.
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- Purses. It is physically impossible to buy a purse for another person that they will truly love. A purse is an individual decision, based on many individual factors. Divided or not? Pockets on the outside or not? Shoulder bag or tote? Bright colors or black? One nice designer purse or several lesser-know but equally pretty purses? Don’t even try.
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- Wallets. Similar situation to a purse. My friend Beth gave me a beautiful, brown leather wallet for Christmas one year and I carried it for years and years. In the meantime, wallet fashion changed and they became more colorful and gorgeous. I craved one. So I put it on my Christmas list. In breathless anticipation, I opened the box containing my new wallet. And found. A new wallet that was exactly like my old wallet. My husband, bless his clueless little heart, had no idea what I actually wanted. So I bought myself a beautiful, bright colored wallet and was happy. Shopping for yourself is a great way to get the perfect gift.
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- Any item that assists with house cleaning. Maybe you truly want a new vacuum cleaner under the Christmas tree but I find that highly unlikely. I’m not about to appear on an episode of “Hoarders” anytime soon but I certainly don’t want anything to clean my house jauntily wrapped under my Christmas tree. Or someone may find that new vacuum cleaner hose plugged right where the sun don’t shine.
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- Airline tickets to Paris. Wait.
This one is on the wrong list! You can totally give someone airline tickets to Paris.
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Or a wool sweater, a purse, a wallet or even an engraved set of toilet brushes – if you love them and you know they will absolutely love that gift. There is actually not a truly accurate list of gifts to give or not to give someone, because everyone has different taste (and possibly more diplomacy than me) and you know them better than anyone. Give them what you know they will love. Or pretend to love. It’s the same thing because he will never know. Honestly, he never even noticed the new wallet.
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So shop, buy, wrap and give with love and generosity and she will love it.
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Except that reindeer sweater. Don’t even think about it.
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About the Author:
Jan Ross is a freelance travel writer who travels the world and writes all about it. Her favorite things to do are taking foodie tours, finding fabulous new shops where she can buy shoes and other desperately important accoutrements and lounging on a tropical beach while a white-jacketed waiter brings her a frozen drink on a tray, possibly accompanied by some sort of succulent cheese or decadent chocolate. She may be just a tiny bit spoiled. She maintains a travel blog at www.wanderlustwonder.com where she writes about these topics and many more.
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Photo credit: Master Isolated Images
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