Get This, Not That: Round 4

This one is for the men. This will be short and sweet, because I have just one message for you this Christmas season.

Get This: Silver and Gold Pearl Ring

Because even when you have the absolute best intentions, this gift is going to backfire. Badly. Even if you’ve watched your 3-months-postpartum wife cry every time she gets dressed because she’s so depressed about her weight, even if you have thought through every possible gift and decided that this is the one that will really convey to her how much you care about her, I assure you, it won’t. Not even if you truly think she’s beautiful at a size 6 or 16. Not even if you’re sure she knows that’s how you feel. Not even then. This is just no. So much no.

I understand the need for practical gifts at Christmastime, I really do. I’m not even the kind of person who thinks a vacuum is a terrible gift — as long as it’s a Dyson. If your wife has been struggling with a crap vacuum cleaner for years, it’s actually thoughtful of you to notice that, and buy her one that will make her work easier and more joyful. (I mean if you’re going to go this route you really ought to consider a Roomba, but I digress)

But listen. Even if your wife told you that what she wanted for Christmas is a workout system (like I did), that is still a completely terrible Christmas gift. Completely terrible. Completely, utterly terrible. Unless she’s a Crossfit instructor or something, she probably doesn’t really *want* a workout system. She might think that it would be helpful and she might want to use it, but she won’t want it in the same way she’ll want a new vacuum, even. Although I personally enjoy working out and get depressed when I don’t do it regularly, I still don’t want a workout system for Christmas (even though I said I did). If your wife is anything like me, she’ll say she wants a workout system because she’s depressed about her weight and feels that it’s the only thing she *deserves* for Christmas. But actually getting it is the equivalent of getting a gift-wrapped punch to the squishy gut. It’s like getting gift-wrapped confirmation of your every failure. The only thing as bad as giving your wife (or daughter, or mother, or sister) a workout system for Christmas would be wrapping up a stack of books like this:

No woman wants a reminder, on Christmas morning, that she really needs to lose a few pounds. Especially not a woman who spends her waking hours — and lots of the ones when she should be sleeping — feeding, clothing, bathing, teaching, and loving children. Christmas is the day when we give each other gifts to remind us of the gift of the Christ Child, and of the endless and unconditional love of God. It’s the one day a year when we should strive, more than any other day, to show loved ones that same kind of endless, unconditional love. So get your wife something pretty, something fun, something impractical. Even if it’s a small something, get her one special gift that has no practical purpose except to say, “I love you with all my heart.”

I promise you, that’s all she wants. And you can always get her the workout system for New Year’s.

Merry Christmas!