I ordered James’s Christmas present on Cyber Monday; found it had been delivered to my office when I came in the following Tuesday; brought it home on Wednesday; and……………. made him open it that night. On December 8th.
I’m terrible. And the worst thing is – so is James!
We are like a couple of 5 years olds when it comes to exchanging Christmas presents. As soon as we have the gift in our possession – it’s like the thing is burning our skin unless we give it to the other person immediately.
This situation started out early on in our relationship. We didn’t spend our first Christmas together… so naturally we had to exchange before the holidays. It made sense. After that, however, we had no excuse. And over the last few years – it’s kind of become our own little tradition to do it this way. Just the two of us… exchanging gifts whenever the heck we feel like it.
If I really thought about it – I’d say we do it because it spreads the Christmas joy throughout the month instead of having all the excitement come and go in two days. But really – that’s not the reason we do it. We do it because we aren’t patient enough to wait until Christmas day. And it’s never the person receiving the gift who is impatient… it’s the person who is giving the gift who rushes the process. Perhaps we do it because it’s a pretty great feeling – to know you’ve paid close enough attention to your partner all year to know exactly what would make them grin from ear to ear… without them ever having to tell you so.
And I suppose all these reasons (and more) are why James proposed to me the day he bought my engagement ring – instead of later in the week (according to his original plan). Because when you have the perfect thing to make your love smile for days/months/years to come – why wouldn’t you want to give it to them right away?
Or maybe that’s just a really good excuse for us to act like a couple of 5 year olds. 🙂
(Here is the first gift I got from James last night. New glove/mittens! I had worn a hole right through the thumbs in my old pair and was bummed because they were perfect for chilly photo shoots because I could pull back the mitten part so my fingers were free to snap away. 🙂 The new pair he got me is even better though because I can pull the top of the thumb back too… Which means not only can I shoot in these, but I can text too! Yeah!)
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