Hello there. Did you read that last post from Pamela? It made me laugh. It also made me want to write a post and start it with: "My name is Kate and I am low maintenance."
Incidentally, low maintenance doesn't mean low pain, especially for gift-giving seasons. I still remember the first gift that my husband gave to me. We were dating, and we were totally in love. It was in a lovely box from a boutique in Sausalito. I opened it, gave him a big hug and kiss ... and we went together to return it the next day.
Perhaps "low maintenance" isn't the right term.
That wasn't an easy decision, by the way. I do happen to have at least a few grains of sensitivity in my body, and I did respect that this was his first gift to me. So I sat and thought about it. And I decided that I'd rather be totally truthful with him than have the nicest gift in the world. And of course, I would have hated looking at some godawful art glass thing for the rest of my life, you know?
I still remember my first Christmas with my husband. It was the first Christmas that he'd ever celebrated and he went crazy. Bought me all sorts of things. Lingerie, clothes, everything over the top. I returned them all. As I recall, I just credited them back to his credit card. I didn't want anything and he was up to his knees in a previous startup. Seemed really stupid to spend the money. But I petted him and thanked him. And so began our gift pattern.
It's hard to buy me gifts. I have a wedding ring and an engagement ring, so I don't need rings. I have several pair of earrings, so I don't need those either. My husband bought me a beautiful watch for my wedding, and I like it so much that I returned the second watch that he bought me several years later. (It was some lovely designer thing, but I liked my existing watch. Why on earth would I want to wear a different one?) And so forth.
As the wife of an entrepreneur, I'd also rather celebrate "liquidity events" or life events than yearly holidays, too. Sometimes it's just not time to get big, gift-wrapped presents, you know? Call it my personal atavism.
This past year was our ten-year wedding anniversary. I already have jewelry. I already lost one majorly-large piece of it, too, so I'm pretty leery of wearing what I do have - I certainly don't want more. We have thousands of books. I am very hard to fit in clothing, and I like comfortable cotton underwear over any of that wierd slippery stuff I used to wear when younger. I have a bike. I like my car. What to get me? My subconscious was ready to reject almost anything (unless it was a small token), but my husband is smart, and he beat me to the punch. He bought me a digital picture frame, and he loaded it up with pictures of my son and our family. Then he put it into the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen and got tears in my eyes. It was perfect.
Perhaps low maintenance isn't the correct term at all. Darn. I guess I'll settle for just being profoundly difficult.
Happy Holidays for all of you and for all of the "difficult" people on your holiday lists. We know who we are, and we know that we're a pain in the butt. Here's wishing you all enough humor to get through another return season with us!
This first appeared on the Silicon Valley Mom's blog
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