Gifts: When You Don’t Like What’s Under the Tissue Paper

It’s the day after Christmas. Do you like what your mate gave you this year? If not, how do you handle the fact that what he or she gave you is not what you asked for or what you like?

Gift-giving in relationships can be a touchy situation. Most people like receiving gifts, but if they show disappointment about the gift, their chances of getting future gifts might seriously dwindle. So what to do?

I knew of a woman whose husband bought her a top of a frying pan for Christmas. You read right. The top of a frying pan. She opened the box expecting clothing or something romantic, and she was faced with a stainless steel top of a frying pan.

“I remember feeling so hurt and insignificant when I pulled back the tissue paper,” she told me.

Just as her face was set to drop and register disappointment, her husband went into a two-minute explanation of how many stores he had gone to in order to find the exact top that would fit the pan. He had heard his wife complain throughout the past year about how inconvenient it had been to cook with the wrong size top for the pan.

“As I listened to his story about how hard he had worked to find me the right top to the pan, it dawned on me,” she said. “The gift wasn’t what was in the box. The gift was the story behind what was in the box. I’ve never been disappointed in a gift since that time.”

There is a lot of wisdom in this story about the top of a frying pan. If you don’t like the gift your mate gives you, look beyond the gift. That’s where the real treasure lies.

Technorati Tags: , ,

December 26, 2010 | Filed Under gift giving in relationships, gifts from your mate | Leave a Comment