Survival Christmas, Christmas presents, Spending on gifts for Christmas part 3

Posted by dodo

Men, who probably long to be given Samantha Fox in a grass skirt and a lawn mower, tend to get black silk pyjamas as the ultimate in sophistication. Invariably they also get something to do with drink: bottle-openers, glasses, wine-coolers. Noel would prefer a wife-cooler over Christmas. A friend says that one of her uncles got fourteen bottles of various kinds of booze one year, and nothing else. He was terribly upset because, he said, anyone would think he was an alcoholic — which in fact he was.

Last year it was the boxer rebellion. Every man chucked out his Y-fronts, and was given boxer shorts, the male equivalent of French knickers. Some were covered in pigs, others in lipstick marks or Father Christmases. ‘So erotic,’ one woman told the Standard, ‘thinking of all that frivolity under his dark grey city suit.’ Turnbull and Asser were offering silk boxer shorts at _£25 and, rather tweely, striped shirts and matching shorts; better than transparent boxer shorts, which make a man look like one of those cellophane packs of giblets in the supermarket.

Sadly, one tends to get into a rut with presents. My husband has always said that he loves the shirts I give him. It was only after twenty-four years of marriage, as we walked down Jermyn Street, that he actually admitted that he preferred much shorter collars.

One man got so fed up with his wife’s ghastly taste in shirts that he took her out to lunch in Jermyn Street. Next door was a man’s clothes shop, where the husband had primed the shop assistants to place two shirts that he liked in the front of the window. As he and his wife walked past, he pointed them out, telling her how much he adored them. Sadly she got so plastered at lunch that she rushed back afterwards and bought the wrong shirts.

Men always claim that women are hard to give presents to. I’m dead easy — all I want is cashmere jerseys, in any colours except red, orange, maroon, fuschia pink and custard yellow; silk shirts in ditto; jewellery; records; books; scent; gardening tokens and the man who plays Jeff Colby in Dynasty.

One friend, whose husband is absolutely hopeless at shopping, makes a point of going round several of her favourite shops, and making a list for him — rather like a wedding list. That way he feels as though he’s chosen the present, and she gets what she wants. The only shop he baulked at was Ann Summers, where her list included a vibrator. He claimed that the competition would be too awesome, and he couldn’t bear the bedroom sounding like a building site.

It’s easier, of course, if your husband’s very rich, like the woman interviewed on television by Clive James who lived in Dallas, who was dickering between choosing a $55,000 and a $65,000diamond bracelet as her Christmas present. One of the best-looking men I ever met always took his wife to the place in the world of her choice as a Christmas present. Sadly, after they had driven across the desert from Tangier to Northern Nigeria one Christmas, the vehicle broke up, and so did the marriage.

First prize for initiative goes to the little girl who, having spent all her Christmas present money on sweets, calmly removed an unopened pair of tights from her mother’s chest of drawers, wrapped it up and gave it back to her for Christmas.

First prize for the romantic gesture goes to the lover whose girlfriend wanted a birdbath. When she came down on Christmas morning, and drew back the kitchen curtains, she found the most beautiful stone birdbath, wrapped in gold tinsel. Over it hung a banner saying, ‘HAPPY CHRISTMAS MY DARLING,’ in huge letters.

It’s no good trying to improve people at Christmas. In the fifties, Tim Jaques gave his father a book on Picasso, hoping it would initiate him into the joys of modern art. His father merely yelled ‘Filth’ and hurled the book across the room.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Survival Christmas, Christmas presents, Spending on gifts for Christmas part 3

• Survival Christmas, Christmas presents, Spending on gifts for Christmas part 1
• Survival Christmas, Christmas presents, Spending on gifts for Christmas part 4
• When do you open your Presents?
• Survival Christmas, Christmas presents, Spending on gifts for Christmas part 2
• Where are you going to spend Christmas this year?
• Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas, Celebration Holiday part 2
• Stockings and Christmas Gifts, Kids’ Trip to Santa's Grotto
• Hanging up Father Christmas Needlepoint Stockings
• A Greeting note for Guests and Hostesses on Christmas
• Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas, Celebration Holiday part 1