Sunday, December 2, 2012

Giving Her Gifts

I suppose I was the typical guy when I first got married many decades ago. When it came to buying my wife gifts on her birthday, Christmas, and our anniversary, I was clueless. I wasn't brought up to be sensitive or knowledgeable about such things. My dad was a hard working, hard drinking man from the old school and didn't provide much of a model on gift giving to a wife. I never heard Mom complain about lack of gifts so I just figured that's how it was. Maybe Dad got her more gifts than I thought but didn't say much about it. I only remember a few. And I'm afraid I didn't provide much of a model to my own son - I could've done better.

Very early in our marriage, and I hate to admit this,  I bought her some pots and pans for Christmas. She seemed very pleased and happy with them. Good show on her part. I later learned that is NOT a good gift for a wife. Maybe Dad told me. Another year for her birthday I bought her sexy lingerie. I later learned that was really a gift for ME. It took me awhile, but I think I finally got it right. I'm not the quickest learner in the world. So men, listen up - I have some advice and you can decide for yourself.

For birthdays a card, dinner, movie and a gift of clothes or jewelry seems to be to her liking. This is not my big jewelry gift, but it's nice. For Christmas she loves clothes number one, maybe another small piece of jewelry and then after that electrical gadgets like an ipod, a book, pottery for the house, etc. Christmas is a good time for variety but do NOT get her stuff for cooking or cleaning. "This is a top of the line vacuum cleaner, hon," is not what she wants to hear. For anniversaries I go straight jewelry. And it's my big jewelry gift. Now I would love to get her a $5,000 necklace or ring but I simply don't have that kind of money. But I have given her some nice keepsakes in the $100 - $500 range when I can. Flowers fade quickly, clothes grow old or out of date in a blink but jewelry, ahh, jewelry is beautiful, beautiful on her and lasts forever. It can eventually be passed to our daughters and grandaughters. So when our most recent anniversay rolled around last week I gave her pearls. I had never given her pearls before and this necklace caught my eye as I was browsing.



So i took her to a nice restaraunt and gave her the pearl necklace after dinner. This is what I do husbands, and I feel good about what I've learned over the years. Our wives deserve to be pampered. She has now accumated a modest collection of nice jewelry (necklaces, rings, bracelets, earrings) due to my gifts. Young men today might be more sensitive and knowledgeable about such things but I'm dishing out my advice anyway. Some of you may be as clueless as I was.   Chiefpigskin.com