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    • Dec 19, 2017

Pictures are the same as gifts?


Women holding packages, 50, Fabulous & Finally Free

One of the things that was always important to me about Christmas was giving gifts. From the time I was little and still to this day, putting thought into a gift means everything. Some of my happiest memories were of the gifts I gave my mom as a child. They might have been things I made at school or inexpensive things I could buy, but I loved the look on my mom’s face when she would open my meager offerings. I wanted my children to have this experience, I wanted them to be good givers and so I always made a point of taking them with me to pick out gifts for their father. Every year, I would repeatedly ask my husband to do the same, even if it was only a quick trip to Target. That way they could pick out something to put under the tree for me and hopefully get the same joy out of giving that I do. He would have been more likely to steal all of the Christmas gifts and decorations from Whoville than to buy me presents with our children. Usually at his insistence, I would end up buying my own gifts, wrapping them and putting them under the tree myself. Everyone would be surprised except me. At one point I stopped and on more than one Christmas Eve, my husband with his heart that was five sizes too small, would feel guilty and at the last minute, scramble asking my stepson and/or myself to get something under the tree from the kids. We would inevitably spend Christmas Eve going on the internet to Nordstrom.com or NiemanMarcus.com printing out pictures as my “gifts” from the kids so that they would not feel as though I had been left out Christmas morning. Bright side: I always got what I wanted and even receiving a gift certificate for a new Jaguar, which my ex never allowed me to redeem.

In my mind I made excuses for him, “he’s a busy man, he isn’t patient enough to take young children shopping, he has a lot on his mind”; but the reality was, he just couldn’t be bothered to make even the minimal effort it would have required to give our children that much time. I was already in too deep, with 2 children whom I adored, how could I be so unhappy?

Please share your story with us at mystory@50fabulousandfinallyfree.com

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