Pans Under the Tree?
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Marriage on Wednesday, December 22, 2010 2:00 PM
My husband and I had been married for one Christmas, or maybe two, when some family friends gave us one of their tips for a happy marriage.
“No gifts that plug in!” the wife admonished Bryan laughingly, wagging a finger in the air.
Over the years I’ve often thought of that moment as I’ve opened gifts by the tree. Some of my favorites have broken that rule - like the year when my husband went way over the top and bought me a fancy new laptop for Christmas. I certainly wasn’t complaining about the fact that it had a cord!
One of the things I’ve learned in eight years of marriage - and from other people’s marriages - is that there are very few, if any, one-size-fits-all rules. Just like with parenting! People are individuals. What works for some does not work for others, and vice versa.
At The Integrated Catholic Life, Theresa Thomas wrote a piece called “What Your Wife Really Wants for Christmas” and her thesis - that women want their husbands to love and pay attention to them - and her list of “Do"s for husbands are spot-on. But at least one person in the comments section took gentle exception to her list of “Don’t"s, and with good reason, I think.
A commenter on Thomas’s post insisted that his wife, a practical woman who loves to cook, would be excited to receive pots and pans for Christmas, even though Thomas mentioned them as a no-no. I believe him! I was very happy last year when my husband gave me a set of top-of the line cooking pans, since I’d been hoping to replace our battered hand-me-downs for a while.
And I’m not even a particularly big fan of practical gifts! My husband and I made room in the budget this winter to replace the windows in our house, and he recently joked to my family that it was going to be our Christmas present to each other. I raised an eyebrow at him and he winked at me - that’s not the way he and I do things, gift-wise - but I actually know several women who’d be perfectly happy to forgo packages under the tree if it meant they got better insulation and decreased heating costs. And good for them, I say! As long as both partners in a marriage are happy with a solution like that, why shouldn’t they do it?
The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the key to this puzzle is love languages. People for whom gifts are important are going to find much more meaning - or lack thereof - in their gifts than people who care most about words or acts of service. And we all have to figure out the right balance for our own marriages.
(If you want help thinking of ways to show love to a non-gift-oriented spouse, here is a little piece I wrote last year on the topic.)
What about you? How do you feel about practical gifts? Have you found the balance, and how did you get there?
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