You Can't Put A Price On Love (Yes You Can, And It's Under $100)
You Can’t Put A Price On Love (Yes You Can, And It’s Under $100)
“Gifts For Her That Won’t Look Creepy On Your Search History”
Michael Goodwin
With the holidays rapidly approaching (inescapably so,) the time honored self-torture of gift giving comes with it. It is a process that haunts every man right around the time the Halloween decorations come down. Coststudy by pricer.org, as well as other surveys concluded that the average person spends around $850 on Christmas presents (I’m apparently a very horrible person to know.) If you are capable of this sort of madness, then I applaud (and secretly despise) you. For others, allow me to assist.
First, it helps to know the nature of the relationship. For wives and girlfriends (preferably only the one,) gifts of all kinds are passable and no care need be taken. With friends, it’s a little different. Whereas roses for your wife is probably a good idea, doing that sort of thing to a girl with a guy looks kinda weird and likely to end angrily. Also, when I say friend, I don’t mean a person you watch from afar at work and couldn’t pick you out of a police lineup (which hopefully isn’t your goal.) I mean a person you know on a comfortable level with no restraining orders or incidents involving pepper spray.
Secondly, it helps to know your limitations. Despite what those really strange car commercials show, it is in fact not very common to make life altering purchases on a whim and putting a bow on it overnight like a madman (again, if you can do this, I applaud and despise you.) Big ticket items like diamonds and vacations are fine, but you can’t put a beach under the tree and rings get lost in the garland. Besides, everyone wants a hoard of presents to rival that of a dragon with its gold (never refer to your girlfriend as a dragon.) What then, can you get for a few filler presents for her? Well this is by no means an exhaustive list, but a nice primer to help you start.
First off, if she likes roses and she likes gold, it stands to reason she’ll like gold dipped roses. Now most jewelry stores offer some variation of this as do many online retailers. It is possible to go bargain bin and get one on Amazon.com but expect variety of very good to colored aluminum foil on a pipe cleaner. Resist temptation and don’t go the pipe cleaner route. A decent rose costs around $85. Brand names like Forever Rose and Eternity Rose offer lacquered, trimmed roses in a variety of colors or just flat out gold dipped. It’s not like they just dip a flower in molten gold and give you an ingot of treasure with a few leaves sticking out of it, but they do look nice. They also do a imitation of Beauty and The Beast type thing by putting the rose in a glass case with a wooden base. I suppose that could work if she’s obsessed with Disney movies or you are atrocious.
A second choice is an old standby that for some reason still works. Charm bracelets have been around probably since the paleolithic era. Probably fastened with little rat bones and teeth, the idea is that a simple bracelet is given and the receiver adds little trinkets to it over time. Usually silver, you can get one with an almost endless possibility of little charms that remind you of her (be very, very careful here.) The hidden genius of this gift is that every once in a while you just pick up another charm and you’re covered for another occasion. You could theoretically keep a few of these in the closet and if you forget some special day, voila, crisis averted.
When in doubt, drink your way out. Yes, it is possible to make your own beer or wine (probably wine, unless she’s a trucker, in which case congratulations) with a relatively small investment. Available from any brewing supply store or online, these kits usually contain a blend of grape concentrate along with fruit additives to customize your wine. For added effect, you bottle it yourself and can have custom labels made online. The process of wine making is an easy one. Here are the basic instructions: Add grape concentrate into bucket with water and sugar, add yeast, wait a few weeks, add any preservatives that come with the kit and then add fruit to taste. That’s it. You now know as much about making wine as a master vintner (okay, more like a guy making prison wine in the toilet, but still.) This gift idea has the sneaky benefit of ensuring a second date. See, it takes a month for the wine to ferment, so when you two decide to bottle your creation, you have an excuse to be together (romantic ain’t it, “excuse”.)
Maybe the lady isn’t exactly a booze hound, maybe her father was killed by a rose thorn removal machine and her mom was strangled by a charm bracelet (she has horrible luck, run.) In this case, maybe a good piece of religious art would work. Hear me out here, there are plenty of stores online that offer anything from bronze plaques of the holy family to music boxes and inspirational books (there is also a heading entitled “Kids” but I’m pretty sure they aren’t selling those. Though maybe that’s what orphanages do.) So if there’s a religion she’s into (including voodoo, yes, I checked) you can always go the “reason for the season” route.
Finally there are the more intimate gifts (no, not those, you’re on your own there, my search history is disturbing enough.) A chilling amount of bath products exist that boggle the mind. There are shower bombs and lotions, bubbles and sponges. Anything to enhance her relaxation in the most unlikely of places (I mean, there literally is a toilet in there.) There are even candles of all scents and colors. In fact, there are candles that have objects inside the wax, as they melt, the gift is revealed (There is also one that is a cat with an aluminum skeleton inside. I’m not entirely sure of the message that conveys, but I thought it was original.) Candles usually go over well and it’s hard to go wrong with bath products.
With these examples, it’s easy to see that any gift giving occasion can be confronted head on. Use some creativity, failing that use a search engine. You know this woman (God I hope you do, I don’t want to be evidence in your stalking trial,) and you know what she likes. Any hobby, childhood memory or favorite piece of clothing can be used.
As a closer, think of this, I know a man who made his girlfriend a blanket out of a bunch of sweaters that looked like the one she had as a child (I thought it was a bit demented, but she liked it.) He just thought of something that meant a lot to a person that meant a lot to him. That’s what gift giving boils down to; showing someone you were thinking of them, and that doesn’t need a price tag (keep it above $90 or you’ll find out that while love doesn’t have a price tag, an argument damn sure has an opening bid.)
