A New Christmas Tradition

A few of us at work were having a conversation the other morning about Christmas and Christmas shopping. The only man in the conversation was joking around with us and said that he had purchased two gifts that year, one for his wife and one for a family secret Santa and was pretending to be very bitter about it. The group giggled about it and shared stories of how the women in the group had similar experiences where they purchased everything and their partners normally purchased... well one gift and that was usually at the request of their wife!

It's the same in our home. We only buy five gifts for each other as we follow the something you want, need, wear, read and one other theory on buying gifts. Of course, we do buy a few gifts for friends and family and take part in the odd secret Santa with work colleagues and because I was a stay at home Mum, I had plenty of time to work out what we were purchasing and source the gifts (and wrap them!). It wasn't that we were following some unspoken gender rules about who should do what, but I realised that maybe I was taking on things by myself that really should have been more evenly divided up between us!

I often delegate a gift or two to Flyfour, especially now that the children want increasingly more technical things that Flyfour knows about or because I want to make sure that he has the fun of finding and picking gifts too, but we always discuss what I we are buying for the family so it isn't like Flyfour is sitting there Christmas morning with as much awe as the children wondering what is in the wrapped packages around the tree as I'm sure my Dad was many years ago.

I didn't think much of it. I don't buy my own gifts because I'm the only one able to, or because I don't trust Flyfour to buy things that I would like, I buy my gifts because it's more practical for me to do so. I'm the one with the time and the list of what we have purchased everyone for the last ten years or so! Christmas isn't about surprises for us, it's about celebrating together as a family and buying those things that we wouldn't buy for ourselves any other time of year.

Only this year Flyfour and I have thrown a spanner in the works.

Top Ender and Dan Jon have a surprise gift each (both something they need, but they have no clue that they have these needs!) and Flyfour asked if I would mind if he took over my "other" category this year as he wanted to purchase a gift for me that he didn't think I would purchase myself.

I'm not sure I like this new tradition!