December 15, 2010

Day 12 + 3 - Stocking Stuffer Stress


One thing that goes overlooked during Christmas is the value of the Stocking Stuffer. Personally I’ve never been a big Stocking Stuffer guy. Growing up it was always an afterthought and simply a guaranteed jackpot of M&M’s, scratch-offs and possibly a gift card. The simplicity of my stocking gifts growing up is what has me suffering an extreme case of…

Stocking Stuffer Stress

I’m a gift giver. Plain and simple. I’m the rare guy who enjoys shopping and buying gifts for my wife and whomever else is lucky enough to be on my list. I pay attention all year to hints. I do my own research. I enjoy it and quite frankly I’m damn good at it. That being said I have an extremely difficult time coming up with ideas for the Stocking Stuffer. All this despite the fact my wife is a huge fan of the Stocking Stuffer and excels in the purchasing of these gifts. She recognizes my stress and drops hints, cutouts, coupons, spreadsheets, etc. all year. I’ll open up my wallet or my calendar and find little magazine cutouts of $10-15$ items that are “perfect stocking stuffers!”

Unfortunately for whatever reason I have a hard time taking it as serious as she does. Where as I keep an organized folder of ideas and printouts for actual presents I simply can’t keep the stocking stuffers in control. I always end up giving it my best effort and doing things on my own. When in doubt you head to Sephora. A ladies dream.

Walking through Sephora is like looking at one giant restaurant menu written in script. Don’t you just hate when menu’s are in script? I know I do. Anyway, you just walk up and down the aisles staring blankly at the rows and rows of things that all look exactly alike. Much like a menu.

Each year I spend about 20 minutes staring at the different color nail polishes since it’s easy enough to understand. Kind’ve like how I immediately go straight to the “Pollo” section of the menu. I take this purchase seriously and am always looking forward to my wife’s reaction when she sees the color I picked out on my own. Well, last year I painstakingly analyzed each color and came upon what I thought was a great one. I forget the color’s name but it’s probably something like, “Deep Blue Euphoria”. I was proud of my purchase.

Fast forward to Christmas morning and the wife opens up the stocking and I find out that my 25 minute hunt for the perfect nail polish resulted in picking out the exact same color I chose the year before. What can I say – I guess I really liked that color. You know what they say, one can never have too many “Deep Blue Euphoria”!

And so goes my Stocking Stuffer Stress

Happy Holidays

1 comment:

Shelly said...

in my defense, the stocking stuffer does nto have to be in the $10-$15 range! essential that cost no more than $2 are always a happy find: your favorite soap, your favorite candy bar, etc. but of course, a $10-15 range stuffer is always appreciated!