I consider myself to be a fairly thoughtful person whether that be as a husband, a friend, a son, a brother or any other role I may fill. Traditionally part of being thoughtful has meant I am fairly good at getting presents for the people I care about. I tend to keep track of things they like and I am then able to figure out things that will likely enjoy receiving particularly things that they will not simply get for themselves. But this Christmas I find myself stuck in a way I never have before. I simply cannot find or think of good presents to give to the most important person in my life, Priya (my wife).
Now unlike last year at this time I currently have a job, which brings both good and bad with it. It is good because it means I have more money than I did last year. Last year I was basically getting Priya presents with her own money, which is not the most rewarding feeling for the person giving the gift. Really it just feels like rather than giving someone a present you are just running an errand for them. The downside to having a job is that unlike last year I do not have very much time to shop or look around for things. There really is no way for me to go shopping alone without Priya knowing exactly what I am doing. I tried to do that Sunday. I told Priya I was going to go out for a bit but there was no way to hide what I was actually doing so I finally admitted I was going to the mall.
I went with multiple items in mind and had done some research online to see if certain stores carried the things I was looking for. I headed to the mall with high expectations but after 3 hours there all I had accomplished was buying myself lunch and a new drink container to take to work. Before I left I did buy Priya a small gift. It was a book of origami on how to make different origami animals and it included lots of origami paper. I of course know Priya likes to do origami but what made this stick out in my head at that moment was that she was doing origami at home when I left and she had been doing it the day before. When I saw the book I could have sworn that the day before Priya had said she didn’t have any instructions on how to make origami animals and she wished she had some. She had been spending a lot of her time Saturday making origami ornaments for our Christmas tree. Then that morning before I left she told me she was going to be doing origami all day along with a few other assorted chores. So when I got home, deflated and defeated from my failed trip I went ahead and gave her the origami book right away rather than waiting until Christmas. Yes, given my lack of any other gifts this was not the smartest of moves but I thought for sure that it was something she would want at the time to make animal ornaments for the tree so I shouldn’t wait. Maybe that is a bit too practical of a way to look at it but that’s how I saw it at the time. Anyway after I gave her the book she was happy but I discovered that she had never said she needed instructions for animal origami but rather already had a bunch. I was shattered. Of course I couldn’t hide this and I soon confessed to Priya that I had not been able to get her anything that day and in fact I had nothing. She told me not to worry about it but of course that was a bit hard to do especially knowing she has already gotten me at least two gifts which she went out of her way to get.
Part of the difficulty I currently face whenever I try and get gifts for Priya is that many of the things I know she likes are things that are best bought by the individual themselves unless they have been specifically pointed out to you (clothing, bags, scarves, shoes and the like) otherwise you will most likely only be getting them something that they will want to return in which case all you really ended up giving them was an errand to go run. Sadly at this time no random pointing out of outfits or bags has occurred and if I were to take Priya shopping and just hold up an item and say “What do you think? Do you like this?” than it would not be very difficult for her to figure out what I was really asking, “Do you want this for your Christmas present?”
So as Christmas grows ever nearer I find myself ever more fearful that my first Christmas married to Priya will be one filled not with joy but with empty boxes.
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