Before you get all jealous over my Christmas gift, let me tell you about Christmases past. The memorable gifts were from my mother. There was the bathrobe with delicate silver thread that had matching slippers bedecked with froufrou and the slightest heel that made my seven-year old self think she was a princess. The gold peasant blouse that made my tween self think she looked just like the cool rock star. The best-mittens-ever-made that I still wear today, 50 years later, because I hate when my hands are cold. The novels that I still have to this day because they were the first books I owned and were gifted to me by my mother.  If I coveted it or dog-eared the page in the Sears catalog, she took notice. She was a thoughtful giver of gifts.

On my first holiday as a married couple, my sweet mother-in-law gave me a serving platter while my husband, Great Guy, received articles of clothing. When we got home, I told Great Guy that we would be going out to buy something for me, since I was not a house to be filled but a person to be spoiled. He told his mother. She bought me pearls. I told you she was the best mother-in-law.

Then there is the Great Guy. Great Guy has missed the mark when it was right in front of him. One year I made it really easy for my family to give me a Christmas gift. I asked them to write me a letter telling me how much I mean to them, or some fond memories. Why wait for my funeral, I thought. My children wrote notes. Great Guy bought me every CD made by Dan Fogelberg. We’ll be passing them out at my funeral.

Another year, he re-gifted a $250 Visa gift card he received through work, pawning it off as his gift to me, saying,  “I didn’t know what you wanted, so here’s a gift card.” Whatever. I’ll use it. When I was at a register four months later, it had $1.78 on it. Someone had skimmed off the entire value. I had to call the credit card company who told me they couldn’t help and to call all the actual merchants who received those funds. After spending hours over months calling and filing claims, I still have no idea if those funds were returned to the gift card. It sits on my desk, exhausting me mentally, as a reminder to give cash and not gift cards. 

Now to this Christmas. 

Great Guy was very excited and couldn’t wait for me to see my big Christmas surprise. Said I’d been wanting this for a long time. 

Finally, a ruby ring! 

He feared it wouldn’t be delivered before Christmas. 

I got a manicure.  

It needed two people to help bring it inside.

Oh my! It came with a security detail! 

There had been off-handed remarks about buying a freezer for months, years really, before it arrived on Christmas Eve. Like every time Great Guy would get an Omaha Steak flier and wanted to buy it all, but couldn’t because we don’t have a big freezer. Or when he does buy boxes of Omaha Steaks and we have to toss old chicken and frozen bagels to make room. On rare occasions if we were in the grocery store together, I’d say out loud “I wish I could buy that big box of frozen pretzels or ice cream but can’t because we don’t have room in the freezer.”

Now, lucky me, my Christmas freezer is in the garage, probably frosting over as I write. You might assume that I am an enthusiastic cook who is going to love all this new freezer space. Nope. I make, at most, one actual meal a month. I eat dry cereal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and take-out sushi. None of those things require a freezer. If I lived alone, my refrigerator would contain: milk, chocolate syrup, eggs, mexican cheese, jelly, and hummus. I could live out of a cooler bag with an ice pack. I don’t need cubic-feet freezers.  

Great Guy promptly filled my freezer with every meat on sale and some that weren’t on sale. The box of pretzels I bought had to be taken out. 

So he bought a second freezer

And filled that up too. 

But he left room for my box of pretzels. How thoughtful.

I’m taping pictures of ruby rings to the freezers, hoping he’ll get the hint for next year.