Holiday Stress Risers
This article Heart of a Husband By Stephen Fried, where he talks about "solving the puzzle of how to celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah, but the holidays are their own special torture for husbands," really hit home in some areas for me. Over the years, however, some solutions have evolved.
Gift Performance Anxiety - perfect gift for the perfect day? Forget it. Open all holidays to a holiday window. This works especially well for birthdays where the rule is that your birthday window in days = your new age before + your birthday + your new age after. For example, this year I'll be 48 and my birthday is 3/22, so my birthday window starts on 2/2 and ends on 5/9. Pat is welcome to give me multiple gifts throughout this time period - some will be goofy, some will be excellent, some will be actually for her, etc. Pat was 4x this year and her birthday was on 11/8, a Tuesday, a day I'm in MA working, all week in fact. Not to worry! I already started giving her birthday presents in Sept. and will continue until after Christmas - aha, but there is the 1 week holiday interruption rule for Christmas, so the birthday window is suspended and restarted, so I'll be giving gifts into January!
Let's see, so far:
Ford $50 gift card - she had to take a test ride, Sagamore massage & lunch, white&rose gold spiralling necklace, 2 bottles LongIsland Cabernet, various dinners, several cards with nice messages and pictures drawn in, a night out to a play, a night out dancing til 1 am with a hot dog snack before we went home.
Last year, I bought ~$200 worth of stuff for the kitchen at Bed, Bath & Beyond and pulled a different gift out every weekend. See, the idea is plenty of practice and if you don't get it right, there is always next week.
Whose family to Visit on Which Holiday - Alternate Holidays, Alternate Years. On even years, we do Christmas on my side and Thanksgiving on her side, then switch on odd years. New couples have to get on the schedule and inform their in-laws that this is the rule. Being the biggest sibling family helps due to precident and volume of people involved if the newer parties don't conform. Besides, if you get out of sequence, no one will be there.
Emotions and Intrigue - Just warn your significant other that the sisters, aunts, cousins, etc. are prone to sniping once you leave the room so that she'll be prepared with some snappy comebacks of her own.
Have a Great Holiday!!!!
Gift Performance Anxiety - perfect gift for the perfect day? Forget it. Open all holidays to a holiday window. This works especially well for birthdays where the rule is that your birthday window in days = your new age before + your birthday + your new age after. For example, this year I'll be 48 and my birthday is 3/22, so my birthday window starts on 2/2 and ends on 5/9. Pat is welcome to give me multiple gifts throughout this time period - some will be goofy, some will be excellent, some will be actually for her, etc. Pat was 4x this year and her birthday was on 11/8, a Tuesday, a day I'm in MA working, all week in fact. Not to worry! I already started giving her birthday presents in Sept. and will continue until after Christmas - aha, but there is the 1 week holiday interruption rule for Christmas, so the birthday window is suspended and restarted, so I'll be giving gifts into January!
Let's see, so far:
Ford $50 gift card - she had to take a test ride, Sagamore massage & lunch, white&rose gold spiralling necklace, 2 bottles LongIsland Cabernet, various dinners, several cards with nice messages and pictures drawn in, a night out to a play, a night out dancing til 1 am with a hot dog snack before we went home.
Last year, I bought ~$200 worth of stuff for the kitchen at Bed, Bath & Beyond and pulled a different gift out every weekend. See, the idea is plenty of practice and if you don't get it right, there is always next week.
Whose family to Visit on Which Holiday - Alternate Holidays, Alternate Years. On even years, we do Christmas on my side and Thanksgiving on her side, then switch on odd years. New couples have to get on the schedule and inform their in-laws that this is the rule. Being the biggest sibling family helps due to precident and volume of people involved if the newer parties don't conform. Besides, if you get out of sequence, no one will be there.
Emotions and Intrigue - Just warn your significant other that the sisters, aunts, cousins, etc. are prone to sniping once you leave the room so that she'll be prepared with some snappy comebacks of her own.
Have a Great Holiday!!!!
posted by kingchrisg at 12:14 PM
4 Comments:
thanks for the tips! holiday greetings to your family as well!
Hope you had a great holiday season... I think your jewelry presents seem to do the trick just fine!
Hi Wireman!
Haven't heard from you in quite a while... Where'd you go?
Good advice!
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