It’s for Women--Christmases Past, Present and Future

My husband announced the other night that he had bought my Christmas present.

“You know, you can always take it back,” he added next.

Usually he delivers that thoughtful line as he hands me the gift itself, so this represents a progression.

Who knows, maybe this time when he gives me the present the sales receipt will be tucked next to the bow--just to make things simpler, more streamlined.

I’ve noticed that this has emerged as a general pattern in my husband’s holiday habits over the past few years. He’s cutting back, unilaterally.

Recently he announced over lunch with friends that all of his Christmas shopping was done. When I heard him say this, I turned, incredulously at first, thinking about my sister’s husband, my father, his mother, not to mention my own mother, but then I stopped.

Of course he’s done. He’s a man.

Men don’t do Christmas shopping, not really, not in the sense of making lists and checking them twice and certainly not if they have wives or girlfriends.

Men say things like, “The mall’s too crowded” or “I don’t know what to get,” and with such penetrating insights, they excuse themselves. (“And besides, it’s Saturday. There’s a game on!” some have been known to add).

So instead, they’ll ask the women they know to pick up something for their mother, their father, brother, nieces, nephews, sister and grandmother-- since you’re going anyway --and these women will nod, maybe even smile. They will shop.

I know about this, you understand. I am one of the biggest suckers around.

Let me say right here that I am not a woman with a lot of spare time on her hands.

I do not relish crowds, or waiting in line 15 minutes at the cash register, or going upstairs to customer service for a box, which usually doesn’t fit anyway, and then like a rabbit leading the greyhounds, enticing at least one cruising motorist to follow me so closely toward my parked car that a front tire comes within inches of clipping my heel.

But I go. I shop, box and wrap. This year, my husband mailed. I asked him to. I had more shopping to do.

So why do I do this? I am a feminist. I believe in equality of the sexes, equal pay for equal work. And when has my husband ever shopped for my relatives? Try never.

Moreover, I’ve been asking around. Not one woman friend of mine can remember a time when her husband or boyfriend went on a solo shopping spree for her relatives. Forget about them actually doing it, but an offer might be nice.

Which brings me to another holiday truth, one that I am not entirely proud of. As much as women may complain about doing it all themselves, there is a certain perverse joy to it.

Christmas is supposed to be infused with that warm, fuzzy feeling. Everybody expects this and women, usually, make it happen.

We shop, bake Christmas cookies, thread banisters with ropes of fake pine needles, heap holly and pine cones atop mantles and dangle mistletoe over doorways.

Men sometimes string lights and pick up a carton of eggnog at the supermarket.

Yes, no doubt about it, this is a sexist, inequitable distribution of labor. But at least women are in control, thank God.

One friend of mine, a professional woman with a 14-year-old son, says she’s been orchestrating Christmas all of her married life. She doesn’t particularly enjoy it, she explains, but she married young and didn’t know any better. Now she knows too much.

Lord knows what kind of presents her husband would come back with if he were set loose in the mall. Better she should do it herself than be mortified by gifts that will bear her name too.

Another working mother says she addresses all of her family’s Christmas cards, including those mailed to business acquaintances she has never met, because even her doctor has better handwriting than her husband does.

And one woman I talked to is still buying the gifts for her in-laws even though she and her husband of 16 years have recently divorced. (Obviously, this is a clinical case.)

As for my own husband, while Santa’s helper he is not, I don’t mean to imply that he’s some sort of Scrooge either.

Last year, in fact, he really went out on a limb. While I was taking a nap after an exhausting morning of shopping, he brought home a Christmas tree and set it up in the living room. This was supposed to be a nice gesture, in the spirit of the holidays.

But when I came down the stairs, not only was I surprised, I was stunned. Keep in mind that I was barely awake, so I wasn’t in full command of my senses.

I told him that the tree looked, uh, a little small and suffice to say, he did not take it well. He told me that I could go out and get my own tree, which, true to my Christmas nature, I did.

I dragged off his tree, shoved it in the back of the station wagon, returned it, bought a new one and installed it in the living room--all by myself. When it was done, I was tired, scratched, cold and not very happy.

But I was back in control. And I have to admit, it felt good.

Dianne Klein’s column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Klein by writing to her at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7406.