The Handwritten Options method.

If you celebrate Christmas and haven’t purchased anything for your wife, you are now in real trouble… or are you? Here is a proven method that allows you to provide a meaningful gift without spending any time at the store or thinking ahead. In fact, you can even do this Christmas morning if you can get up 15 minutes before your wife. Here are a few simple steps:

1. Brainstorm for 5 minutes about potential gifts. If you have trouble, you can default to this year’s top 3 gifts women are looking for: weekend getaway, spa package, and gift card to her favorite boutique or shop (at least that’s what I heard on the radio the other day).
2. Write your ideas on separate pieces of paper. Ideally you will come up with 4-5 different options. If you have a preference for what you want your wife to choose, purposely put in a few options that are certainly too expensive for your budget. Or, if your wife isn’t budget conscious, then put in a few super cheap options. This will make your preference look a little better.
3. Fold up the options and bundle together in her stocking.
4. Have her lay out the options and read them one by one.
5. She makes the selection and is very happy.

This is a great method since it requires almost no time or materials–You didn’t even step foot into the store. You might even convince your wife to make the actual purchase, since she will probably want to pick it out herself. It will likely cost more than you would have otherwise spent, but that’s the price you pay for procrastinating. Try it out and let me know if it was a success.

The RecyclingWork Garbage method.

If you are like me, you probably have mugs, umbrellas, binders, and other ridiculous merchandise with your vendors’ logos on the front. Instead of letting this pile up in your office, be sure to regift to your wife. Some of the holiday presents you receive from work, vendors, or conferences might be too out of control–like that little mini flashlight, the collapsible Frisbee, the squishy foam ball, or the shrink wrapped t-shirt–but there are a few good ones that would make a perfect gift for your wife.

For example, I was on a team that completed a fairly large project. The project sponsor rewarded each team member with a fancy picture book. I really didn’t think much of it, but knew my wife would like it. The books were wrapped, but luckily someone else opened theirs and I could see what it was. I brought the book home and presented it to my wife for Christmas. She was ecstatic and I was a hero. I didn’t need to go shopping for the gift and I didn’t even spend any money, and yet, at that moment I was a hero.

(She did find out eventually what I had done, so be sure to cover your tracks or the gift will instantly lose meaning.)

During our second Christmas together, I somehow convinced my wife to give me a list of items she would like. She identified 3 categories: clothing, office supplies, and household stuff. I decided to ignore the clothing idea and went for the office supplies and household stuff–thankfully she gave me a few ideas within each of these categories. I went to Wal-Mart and raided the office supplies aisle–20 packages of 3×5 cards, a dozen folders, 10 packs of pens, some lined paper for good measure, plus a couple other random things like staples and tape refills. I then went to the household aisle and picked up a griddle. What a job I did! Christmas shopping for my wife took less than 20 minutes! I didn’t really know how to wrap anything, which has been a recurring problem over the years (thank goodness for plastic shopping bags), so I just piled everything up into a couple packing boxes and taped some wrapping paper to the sides and tops of the boxes.

Christmas morning came and I was excited to see my wife’s reaction, but what a bust it turned out to be (the gift-giving, not her face). Apparently my wife assumed that the office supplies would be used to stuff her stocking (was that my job too?), not as her main gifts. She looked shocked as she surveyed the sea of note cards, pens, and paper.

“You aren’t happy?” I asked.

“Not really,” she said, “I really wanted the clothes I told you about.”

“Well,” I said, “that was too hard to figure out. What if I guessed a size that was too big? I would be in a lot of trouble. I decided to avoid that drama. Besides, you wrote this other stuff down too.”

We discussed the situation for a while, but this really went nowhere, and although I didn’t get into a lot of trouble, I didn’t make Christmas very good that year. Years have passed, and I still hate spending a lot of time trying to figure out what she wants, so I have devised a few methods that enable me to provide a nice gift without spending a lot of time or thought.

So, I am dubbing December Thoughtless Gift Month, and providing tips on getting holiday gifts for your wife without spending much time or thought.

The Santa’s Little Helper method

Although shopping from a list can prove to be disastrous (see above), it can be successful if you delegate the purchasing duties to a female who can interpret the code. Like a cryptanalyst working for the government, your sister, mother, or female friend can understand what your wife really meant to write. You might need to sell your little helper on this idea, but just tell her that you are desperate to provide a good Christmas this year, and she is the only one capable of doing it. After you have buttered her up, let her know that she has free reign to purchase whatever she thinks it is your wife wants. Of course you should provide a budget. I suggest 20 percent below what you actually want to spend–hopefully this way you will only end up 20 percent over. Although the female helper will spend a bit more than you would have, you will be on your way to a successful and pain free Christmas, without much thought. Nice work!