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KARMA the gift that keeps on giving! Warning Lesson Learned Ahead.

StepMat789's picture

Sharing my Blog and Hoping it will help someone else!

Tis the Season! Warning: Karma Comes Year Around

I admit I am less than proficient in buying the perfect gift for people…especially for anyone outside of immediate circle. My family knows that I shop on Thanksgiving weekend, a traditional mad scramble to get it all done, handed down from my mother. I have a detailed list and a plan of attack. I will shop until I drop and get it all over in 72 hours, so I can enjoy the holiday season and not spend every weekend until Christmas shopping and wrapping for our huge family. Because let’s face it, I work 60 hours a week, and my idea of wrapping is breaking out the Sunday comics or better yet let me use the bike size Christmas sack and shove their haul all into one compact presentation. I mean come on, it all ends up in the landfill anyhow. Do you realize how much $$ is wasted on wrapping paper, boxes and bows? My family alone gives the 3M company their Christmas bonus via our tape consumption.

My husband and I have been married for quite a few years now. But, the first four years of our marriage I spent stressed out driven by the order to have the same number of gifts for each child with the same amount spent on each. Christmas isn’t about the number of gifts under the tree and it isn’t about the cost, but to my husband he wanted equality. Please do not get me wrong, it is not fair to go all Apple on one child and give the next a pocket acer. But, it was ridiculous task to think I could blend six kids Christmas wishes [Ages 21 to 8] into 12 equal gifts of cost. I spent more time making sure everyone was equal and accounted for that I dreaded the holidays. I did it the best of my ability because I wanted for all of our children to feel equal and because it was the way my husband’s family did things. Then came the Christmas from hell, one coup de resistance to push me over the edge and forever alter my chaos coma of Christmas.

Several years ago, while everyone was opening gifts and snacking on the Christmas confections, my dear, sweet, label driven, aristocratic stepsons had an epic mental breakdown. In front of our entire family, I was shamed for the gifts they were given. The jeans were not the right cut, the hoodies were in the wrong color/brand, the socks were too generic, and Xbox games I bought didn’t have all the features. Oh, I brought all the items on their list, from the right stores, but it was all wrong. Instead of just returning or saying thank you, I was put on notice repeatedly throughout the day how awful these gifts were and I loved my kids more because they got what they wanted and how had ruined their Christmas. I didn’t engage, I mean seriously what would that do? I could have coded blue, donned tinselmy nose hairs and had my mouth hung open dispersing hundred dollar bills …..nothing would have changed the fact that his kids were spoiled brats and were only trying to cause trouble. I simply told my husband, I was done buying gifts for his children…birthdays, holidays, graduations, etc. And, oh how liberality…the beauty of this temper tantrum I reflect upon it fondly.

See my husband is a practical man. His eyes grow wide when he sees a pair of Wrangler Blue Jeans on Black Friday for ten bucks because to him that is a great deal, and who doesn’t love a pair of Wranglers? Oh let’s see…his narcissist, label ridden, prima donnas! They would rather die than wear those Wranglers and my husband would never spend $60-80 on a pair of jeans in their brand of choice. So guess what happened? My husband true to word, handles all of the Christmas shopping for his four kids. Some of the best ones yet have been the 20 bass fishing lures and fishing poles in the middle of the arctic freeze, lures and poles great for summer but not for Christmas. The time when they asked for hoodies and sweats, he brought them hoodies and sweats, a pair of black, grey, green and red everlasting Russell at $6.00 a piece. And, the jeans, oh they didn’t like the Wranglers, so he bought them a no name brand in boot cut. Epic-ally it was two Christmas’s ago when they didn’t give him any ideas so it was tools , jumper cables and tire gauges for three boys who never took a shop class, have zero interest in mechanics, and the only time they have been on a tractor is to capture a great selfie.

Each Christmas, I early await the theme of their gifts – I heard rumblings this year of them asking for gift cards.
My SKIDS used to get the things they “wanted” when I shopped, now they get the things their father feels they need more than their wants. To this day, we still have a limit amount for each “child.” He shops for his and I shop for mine. We save our receipts and make a list of what we purchased. I have ZERO responsibility in purchasing my SKIDS gifts and I do not have wrap them either. I put all of the responsibility on my husband.

Yes, it is evil to giggle at Christmas, I am probably going to hell for feeling vindicated. But, the less responsibility I have to my SKIDs the better my life becomes. I feel like a little devil troll waiting to see the “shocked” look on their faces when they open each present. Part of me feels bad, but the other part of me feels this is one lesson in life they are reminded of each year and I didn’t have to flip my shit to make it happen.

Nice things don’t always come in pretty boxes and bows.

strugglingSM's picture

That is classic! Love it that your DH has a sense of humor. I hope you captured the look on their faces when they opened their jumper cables and tire gauges.

SugarSpice's picture

i get to see karma in action all through the year too. i know exactly how you feel.

dh adores his skids and worships the ground they walk on. there is no limit of money he will spent out of guilt in order to see his skids happy. he is absolutely nuts over one of his son ils as the young man is an extension of his dd.

expensive sporting goods, gala weddings, cars and phones. no limits at all.

i recall one christmas when dh spent an unusual amount of money on me and then i saw why. he had gifted one of the skids with a very expensive cell phone.

dh still goes cheap on my gifts. i have noted this in the karma book. now that one of the skids is a new mother i can see dh going out of control gushing over new g skid and buying the whole nursery and paying for the upkeep while sil in play video games and wont find a stable job.

StepMat789's picture

:jawdrop:

That is why I have said on other posts and will forever remain faithful to disengagement.

hereiam's picture

Hilarious!

So, now they want gift cards? I can't to hear which store they get gift cards for. Advance Auto Parts? Big Bob's Western Wear?

StepMat789's picture

Starbucks seems to be the big one.

I can see them getting fuel and pizza cards. I don't see Starbucks in their future.

However, I love BIG BOBS Western wear! Classic.

still learning's picture

Have the entitled brats volunteer at a food bank this year rather than get them gifts. Sounds like they are spoiled and have no concept about the world around them.

SMforever's picture

You could make a charitable donation in their name and give them a card saying so. That ought to piss em off. Then they'll have to get a job and earn some income to use the tax credit.

LindaLee's picture

We always gave my SD & SIL expensive birthday & Christmas gifts. For my DH's birthday, his DD gave him 2 bags of peanut M&Ms. For Christmas, she gave my DH & me each a coffee mug with a picture of the grandkid on it. I coyly suggested to my husband they must be having financial issues (not). The next year at Thanksgiving dinner, he told them we don't want you to go into debt for us, and so if it's ok, we won't exchange gifts anymore. I LOVE THIS MAN.