I thought I just saw my boss walk into his office ripping open a box of cereal. Turns out it was just a ream of paper. I know about the Atkins flu, but are there Atkins hallucinations? My goodness. It's a good thing I didn’t run in there with my hands cupped asking if I could have some.
Anyway...
Gilberto and I made a truce last year to not celebrate Valentine’s Day anymore. The pressure to buy yet another perfect gift was too much! We were both having minor breakdowns from the stress. And so we were relieved to discover we both felt the same way, and did away with the holiday formalities.
Valentine's Day used to make me nauseous, because Gilberto is one of the hardest guys to shop for EVER. He never likes anything I get for him. And I already had Christmas, our anniversary and his birthday to shop for.
It’s a big family joke that Gilberto thinks I’m a horrible gift giver. I'm NOT, for the record. But Gilberto thinks my taste is awful. It’s because I try my hardest to find something unique that he’ll love, when I should really just be picking up a 12-pack of beer.
He used to think it was just the stuff I got for him, but a few years ago he decided I have a bigger problem.
We had a Christmas party with a gift exchange, and everyone wanted GENDER NEUTRAL gifts. I picked a beautiful blue microfleece blanket and a really cool martini shaker set, both very close to the $20 limit. Not great, but they were gender neutral. And both were things that I wouldn't mind getting myself!
Every single other person brought a $20 gift card. Gilberto was embarrassed beyond belief when our gifts were opened, and the recipients kept trying to trade them for a gift card with other people.
Now Gilberto thinks I don’t know how to buy ANYONE a gift. I still think it was a cultural thing, and NOT me, as most of our guests were Brazilian (and love gift cards because you can’t really get them in Brazil). I learned my lesson, and now just get a gift card when we go to one of their parties. But I still like to use good old fashioned creativity and thoughtfulness for all my other gifts. Including my poor husband.
After last year’s Valentine’s Day gifting fiasco (in which Gilberto and his cousin stopped at the grocery store on their way home from work and spent $60 on a dozen browning red roses that they SPLIT, and I gave Gilberto a shirt that he hated), we gave up and happily called it quits on gifting.
THIS year, I thought we’d just have an ordinary, stress free evening at home. But Gilberto suggested we go out for dinner at one of our favorite Greek restaurants. You don't have to tie my hands to get me to do that! So I guess we did end up celebrating in a way, but it was really really nice. If we had only known all these years past that it was just food we wanted!
The highlight of the night was Gabi obsessing over the candle on our table. She did NOT want a lit candle anywhere near us. We finally let her blow it out just to stop the whole weird, though highly entertaining, candle flame freak out.
You're not alone. We also don't exchange gifts (or even cards) on Valentine's Day.
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