This isn’t a strategy for heads of household to buy gifts. You have that. This is a strategy for how to buy gifts for heads of household who have everything.
‘Tis the season when people ask me, “What do you want for Christmas?” It’s usually a text message these days, so I just don’t reply.
What do I want? I don’t know. I’ve been perplexed by the question so many times I realized I have turned into my old man. When I used to ask him what he wanted for Christmas, he’d shoot back, “Nothing.”
That’s where I am. What do I want? Nothing.
Your mentality changes over the years of life forfeited to providing woman and children their daily bread. You’re like the captain of a ship who is a little jaded from being hypervigilant about inclement weather, leaks in the vessel and angling enough fish for everyone to eat. In the midst of all that responsibility, some lowly sailor comes to your cabin to ask how you are doing today. Are you feeling tip-top? Are you okay?
I don’t know, who cares?
The truth is that if we want something nice or need a break from the day-to-day, we get it ourselves. We’re not used to somebody else doing it for us, so we’re a little stumped when challenged to give them ideas for what we need that we don’t already have.
In short:
- We are not our priority.
- If we need something, we’ll get it ourselves.
I was annoyed with the persistence of the question when the answer dawned on me. I was thinking about what my mother gave me one year, and what I get my father every year, and the two birthed the realization of a gift philosophy for your father or whatever head of household you need to buy for.
I made some offhand comment to my mother that I like sandalwood soap, and she got me a few bars for Christmas. They weren’t so much bars, but big heavy blocks that weighed a pound or two and lasted a couple months. I guessed they cost no less than $8, maybe $10 each. I delighted in using them every time I showered.
I also knew that I would never buy them for myself. I would never spend that much on soap. It doesn’t matter how much I loved it. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t much money. I would never spend $10 on one bar of soap when I know that can buy 20 or even 30 bars. It’s irrational, but it’s baked in.
That reminded me of the formula I discovered to make my father happy every Christmas and birthday. I get him Costco steaks. Every year I identify the fattest, most expensive steaks in Costco (usually ribeye), and I buy the most expensive package in the bin. He loves it.
My father loves it because he never buys ribeye. He father can afford ribeye, but he cannot make the mental leap it takes to spend that much on one meal that he has to cook. He only buys flank steak. He cooks an excellent flank steak, but even the best flank steak in the world is still a flank steak. It just doesn’t compare to a big, fat, bloody ribeye. So I force him to eat ribeye a couple times a year, and he loves it.
That’s the secret. You find some niche or category where your dear head of household, because of whatever mental hang-up he has, will not treat himself. And you buy that in the top of the line. It can be something as simple as soap. When he has it in hand, he has to indulge in some luxury he isn’t accustomed to.
The hard part is figuring out the nice or category. But once you do, you have his gift forever. I get my dad ribeyes every year because he still won’t buy them for himself. And my mother can get me big bricks of fancy soap because I’ll never buy them myself.