Twas several days before Christmas and all through the land, women lay weeping while husbands were sleeping instead of giving a helping hand.
The hours spent toiling and baking galore, nothing it seems was too big a chore. She glances at her husband whose snoring grew louder, as he rolled right over to instantly crowd her. She leapt out of bed and yelled “I’m finished, I’m done. This Christmas it seems is not a lot of fun.” Morning came early, so early it seemed.
The gifts, the cards, the decorating you see, the responsibility for that is all on me. And I gazed at the pile of gifts to wrap as Tom sat in his chair taking a long winter’s nap. I fumed, I steamed, I was furious you see, but I calmed down a little as I looked at my tree. I took a deep breath, and sat down instead, and picked up the newspaper and here’s what it said:
Page 2 of the Saturday/Sunday Wall Street Journal, December 12-13
“SLOPPY WRAPPING CAN MAKE FOR BETTER GIFTS” Jessica Rixom, assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Nevada, Reno led a study on the impact of neat vs sloppy gift wrapping. The researchers conducted three experiments and all three with diverse groups of people found that the sloppily wrapped packages delivered more satisfaction to the recipient. Why? Because they lowered expectations. The same gift, one wrapped neatly and one wrapped sloppily. The neatly wrapped packages led to higher expectations about the gift and disappointment. I was ecstatic! No more excuses from Tom about not knowing how to wrap, therefore he couldn’t possibly wrap. Now with him wrapping the gifts for our family, they would elicit low expectations and everyone would be much happier with the gift. Manna from heaven.
I went over to Tom, threw the paper in his lap, “wake up” I said, you’re done with your nap. The despair on his face was plain to see, as he walked into the room and saw gifts meant for me.
I grabbed a glass of eggnog, sat down by my tree, what a wonderful season this turned out to be.
I do have to give Tom credit for putting up the outside lights. He doesn’t enjoy it but he does it. He even helped a neighbor’s wife put up their outdoor lights as her husband refused to do it. In fact when Tom went into their house to look for him, he found him sitting in a chair muttering “I hate Christmas, I hate Christmas.” Whatever you celebrate this year I hope you have a wonderful Holiday and a happy, vaccinated New Year!