Every Single Year
My husband, Jon, has this horrible habit of ruining his Christmas surprises. He doesn't do it purposefully and he means no harm but damn it all to hell, it sucks when I had worked so hard to plan a gift and he finds out what it is early.
Christmas 2005, The Tattoo: Jon had been dreaming about getting a tattoo and casually talking about it for years, when Christmas came around he wanted to use his Christmas bonus to finally get a tattoo. I told him no and that I wanted him to think about it some more. He was upset because I was being a hypocrite, I have a tattoo, he is an adult and can make his own decisions and he had already been waiting, years in fact. I was telling him this not because I didn't want him to get it, but because a few friends of ours had chipped in and bought him a gift certificate for the best tattoo place in town. He was getting seriously upset and I had to spoil the surprise so that he didn't hate me and go out and buy his tattoo out of spite.
Christmas 2006, The Tools: I had saved up $500 by the end of the year to surprise Jon with a gift certificate to Lowe's, so that he could spend his hearts desire on tools. Once again, he received his Christmas bonus and wanted to run right off and spend it at Lowe's, I told him we needed to use the money on gifts for the family and again he was upset that I was telling him what to do with his bonus money. I had to explain and again ruin the surprise that I had already purchased the gift card for Lowe's and was hoping that he could keep the cash that he'd earned as a bonus to use at other stores, like sears or home depot so that he could shop around.
Christmas 2007, The Guitar: I was so proud of this gift, he would have never been able to guess that I would be buying him a travel guitar, not in a million years. I had purchased it online and it was delivered yesterday. I came home planning on how I was going to wrap the gift. When I walked in the door Jon yelled "I swear I didn't mean to!"... I went out the back door to look on the porch where the package was left and sitting on the porch in the bright manufacturers box with big bold lettering and a photograph of the guitar. The bastards just stuck a shipping label on the regular box!
Another Christmas surprise... gone by.
Comments
Oh no!! You really have had horrible luck, haven't you? I hate it when good surprises are ruined too.
I'm terrible at keeping them, but one year I was buying a very special gift for a good friend of mine. I ended up having to tell them what it was because they were going to buy one for themselves. LOL I was so annoyed. :D
I am really bad about snooping around, though, so I guess it's just karma. I'm so bad that I will actually check credit card statements online to see where Sunjay's been shopping. LOL THAT came back to bite me in the butt one year when he waited until the last minute to buy my birthday present...and came down with the flu before he could go shopping. So I didn't get squat on my birthday that year. :D
I tell my family they're not allowed to buy anything for themselves this time of year - period. I say, "You never know what you're going to get for Christmas!"