Let me preface this story by saying that-
#1- The husband is seriously STRUGGLING at giving gifts. He used to be so damn good at picking out the perfect gift, listening to the subtle hints and had no problems going out and finding something I would use, love, enjoy etc.
However- once the kiddo was born, we entered as I refer to them as "THE DARK AGES". He flat out gave up. Now, I'm not sure if this had something to do with our son being born and the stress and struggle of being new parents or if he had run out of ideas or simply didn't give a shit any longer. But whatever the reason- it was a dark, dark time....
Thankfully, the kiddo now helps him and we are slowly getting back on track. But I still have to leave the most obvious of clues.
#2- This story is about perfume. I used to wear perfume all the time while the husband and I were dating and then in our early, pre-baby years. But just as the husband gave up on the gift giving, new Mommy-hood found me frumpy and smelling like soap and shampoo and not a damn thing more than that.
Alright- so let's begin mmkay...
A few months prior to Christmas I smelled this AH-MAZING scent on some of the church ladies at my work. These are young, trendy, PUT TOGETHER WOMEN and I have NOT a thing in common with them except for our love of Jesus and the blackest of black mascara. But I slowly started to notice that these uber fabulous women smelled so good and it would appear that they all wore one scent. How strange that such a large group of diverse women could all pull off this scent, but WEAR IT WELL they did!
Naturally, I asked what it was and soon found out the yummy, floral spiciness that was FLOWERBOMB by Viktor & Rolf.
Over the course of the next month, I was OBSESSED with this scent and weirdly enough, I couldn't stop thinking about how great it smelled. Probably because I was knee deep in the Eucalyptus and Lemon essential oils as I tried to combat cold and flu season and I was simply not feeling it.
A quick search on The Google found that this perfume retails for $85 for the smallest bottle. Now ladies- I simply do NOT spend this amount of money on silly things like this and so I asked the husband to buy me a bottle for Christmas.
Legit- I sent this man a link to Macy's and told him "buy this for me for Christmas yeah?".
Shortly after Thanksgiving, we found ourselves at the mall and I suggested a quick stop into Macy's for a "sniff test" so the husband could smell for himself the scent that had taken over my mind for the last couple of months. We dodged the super aggressive, heavily perfumed sales ladies and found the counter with the FLOWERBOMB. A quick spritz on the little cardboard card and we were thoroughly GROSSED OUT and I was completely disappointed. This smell (whatever this HORRID fragrance was sprayed onto this card) smelled not a thing like the classy church ladies did.
As we ran out of Macy's in horror, I vowed that I simply wasn't a perfume girl after all.
Fast forward another couple of weeks and I was babysitting for a sweet little girl. Turns out that her Mama wears FLOWERBOMB and had given her an almost empty bottle of her very own to play dress up with. As we were playing with her dolls, this sweet girl decided she wanted to spray this horrid smell ALL OVER her dolls and promptly got quite a bit on me.
Turns out- it wasn't so bad. After the sheer strength of the smell wore down a bit, I found that I actually liked it. When I went home later that night, the husband asked me what smelled so good and so it would seem, he liked it as well. I'm guessing perfume just smells different on the body?!?
I once again asked the husband for a bottle for Christmas. But I decided to start small with a travel size which was on sale at Sephora- you know, in case I decided the smell didn't agree with me after all. I texted the husband the link and asked him to get me the travel size for Christmas that way we weren't out almost $100. He agreed that this was a good idea.
Well....Christmas morning came and went and no perfume under the tree. I was actually very surprised by this as I was 100% expecting to see a little travel bottle of this stuff shoved in a gift bag or placed in my stocking.
You guys- I don't usually obsess about something for months and go to all this trouble if I don't want it. So I was actually quite surprised and disappointed that I didn't get it. But the husband did alright with a few other gifts and he enjoyed the gifts I gave to him so I really didn't think to much on it. We had a great Christmas morning regardless. Later that day, he asked me if I really had wanted that perfume.
Remember when I told you the husband wasn't great at picking up the obvious hints? Yeah that.
As a result, he told me to just go ahead and order it. So the next day- I did just that. When I told him an hour or so later that I had just ordered the small travel size like we talked about, he just started laughing. Turns out that not 10 minutes prior, he had also ordered it for me.
I cannot. Months I talk about this perfume, the links I send, the conversations we've had about something as ridiculous as perfume and the second HE TELLS ME TO BUY A BOTTLE, he goes out and does the same thing?!? Say what? This is simply too damn funny.
This time next week, I will be the proud owner of TWO BOTTLES OF THE SAME PERFUME because we couldn't get our act together after months of struggle.
So that's my Christmas story about the PERFUME DEBACLE. It has a happy ending for sure but it's still a bit ridiculous. During the dark ages, I gave up and just bought my own gifts. While I easily could have done so this time, I truly feel that every couple should give sweet tokens of love and care to their spouse. Simply put- it cannot be all one sided. We all want and deserve to feel like we are worth the time and effort it takes to pick out a thoughtful gift. And y'all- the gifts do not need to be big and grand. Most times, the very best gifts are the ones that cost nothing and come straight from the heart.
Merry Christmas!
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