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How to buy Christmas presents for your other half

14/12/2014 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

Your approach to Christmas shopping changes when you’re in a long term relationship.

When you first start dating it’s like a contest to see who can buy the other the most stuff. Spending all your cash feels like the perfect way to demonstrate your joy at being coupled up at Christmas time – and nothing says ‘I love you’ better than a giant pile of wrapping paper and a bankruptcy notice.

But then things get serious. And the festive season stops being about proving how much you adore your other half by buying them a different cuddly toy for each of the 12 days of Christmas. You’ve got other priorities now so you need a strategy to ensure it doesn’t swallow all your money, take over your home, and leave you queuing outside the divorce courts on Boxing Day morning. And I suggest that strategy looks something like this:

1. The budget
A strong mantra to live by when Christmas shopping is: Let’s not do anything we’re going to regret in January. Sure, that 75 inch television would bring a huge smile to his face, but not when you announce upon opening that as a result of this purchase, you will not be able to go on holiday again until the turn of the next millennium. (Also, if you want to have any actual conversations next year, I suggest you leave that thing in the shop). Nope, there comes a time when you need a firm and agreed budget to prevent everybody from going so crazy that you have to live on dry pasta until the next yuletide comes around. But it doesn’t take all the fun out of it – quite the opposite – with a successfully on-budget set of gifts comes the perfect opportunity for a Christmas high-five, and what could be better than that?

NB: In the end, happiness in long term relationships is predominantly demonstrated through high fives. If you don’t like them, I suggest you get out now.

2. The smaller the better
I haven’t looked at the stats but I am pretty confident that ‘clutter’ is the most common reason marriages end in divorce. Not adultery, not fundamentally disagreeing about the validity of Love Actually as a film (though I must admit, we have come close), but all that stuff that couples own but can’t figure out where to put. So when it comes to Christmas shopping your first thought (after deciding whether they’ll actually like the thing, of course) is how much space it will take up in your house. Because you’re going to have to live with it and you don’t want there to come a day when you’re shouting at him or her for owning something that you bought them. I’m pretty sure that ‘proving to be a bit of a dick’ is an available option on divorce papers too.

3. The bargain present
A close friend of number 2 is the gift which has been purchased on the proviso that it replaces a current offending belonging. It might be a t-shirt to replace the one with ‘FBI: Female Body Inspector’ written across it from his hilarious acronym phase, or perhaps it’s a pair of boxer shorts with a warning that if he doesn’t throw away the pair with so many holes in them that they’re nothing short of obscene, you’re going to call the police. These presents say ‘I love you but enough is enough’.

4. One for you, one for me
When you live in the same house, apart from going to the toilet, shaving your legs and stomping off upstairs because the other person has been SO UNREASONABLE as to fail to telepathically work out that you’d have liked them to dust the skirting boards while you were out, you do most things together. And you soon realise that if there’s a present you can buy them which can be enjoyed by more than one person at once, that person is most likely going to be you. And so you start to get clever. Tickets to plays you would both enjoy start finding their way onto your shopping list and subscriptions to TV packages that just happen to host your favourite shows as well as theirs suddenly look like ideal presents. You’re not being selfish, you’ve just found a way to both give and receive at exactly the same time and I think Father Christmas would be proud of you.

Exercise is good for you, laziness is not…unfortunately

12/01/2014 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

Don’t you hate it when somebody who has been a member of a gym for all of, like, a week suddenly starts telling you about the virtues of exercise? Urgh, those people are so annoying.

In other news, I joined a gym this week and MY WORD do I feel good for it. I mean, sure, my thighs hurt so much on Friday afternoon that I feared I may never bend again, and my legs move in such a peculiar way when I’m on the cross trainer that I look like Kermit the Frog, but my heart hasn’t beaten this fast since Peter Andre released Mysterious Girl, so I can only assume I’m doing myself some good.

I’m the type of gym-goer that long term members hate, and here’s why:

1. I joined in January. This means that whilst I am full of good intentions now, they are very likely to have departed by the time the clocks go forward.

2. One of my favourite things about going to the gym is that it’s an excuse to go shopping. I purchased a pair of running-trousery-things (a technical term only us sporty types understand) on the sole basis that they have a luminous pink stripe on them. I had to buy new trainers because, unless I take-up basketball, my Converse ones are not really going to cut it (though, as you can see, they would match my new running trousers perfectly).

3. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. I have to ask for help before I use any piece of machinery, including the changing room lockers.

4. I cough and splutter whilst swimming, which is extremely distracting for other people in the pool.

5. I smile at other people in the gym. You’re not supposed to smile in the gym.

But a girl’s got to start somewhere.

I realised at the end of last year that as much as I enjoy eating lard and staying completely still for days at a time, I have to start doing some exercise. The sofa will feel all the softer and the Cadbury’s Boosts will taste all the sweeter if I have actually bothered to move at some point during the day.

I’ve taken baby steps to ease myself in; I started off in the pool where I know exactly what I’m doing (spluttering my way up and down until my arms feel like they’re going to come off) and then slowly but surely into the actual gym bit where all the scary bikes, treadmills and weights live.

One thing I’m delighted to discover is that – despite my excellently coordinated attire – absolutely nobody looks at me at all. I had feared that my trips to the gym would simply provide free physical comedy for all the other members to watch. I imagined one lifting a toned hand from their exercise bike to point at me whilst I floundered on the cross trainer, whilst the other switched the video camera they’d attached to their sweatband on to score £250 from You’ve Been Framed when I inevitably fell off into a pool of my own sweat. But it’s not like that at all. And I haven’t fallen off anything…yet. *touches every piece of wood in the house*

As is usually the case, the only person who gives a damn what I look like is me, and even I’m losing interest. Now that I’m actually going with a view to getting fit, rather than just because they have hair straighteners in the changing room, looking bad is the least of my worries; I’m just trying to survive without perspiring my way into hospital.

And though it’s very early days, I do feel better for it, partly because of the exercise I’m doing, and partly because I no longer feel guilty for spending my entire life sitting down. This is progress my friends, so let’s see how long it lasts.

And, don’t worry, I’m not going to try and tell you to do the same thing. Chances are you already do exercise regularly like a good human being and despise people like me who only take it up because it’s January. Or otherwise you dodge it altogether in favour of the settee and a box set, in which case, I’ll see you in the spring.

21 things you shouldn’t put on a wedding gift list

21/07/2013 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

1. An iPad. Nice try.

2. Socks. What, are you going to put pants on there too? Come on.

3. Clothes for children you haven’t yet spawned. It’s weird.

4. A toilet brush. Nobody wants to buy you that.

5. Anything else to do with your toilet. Rolls, duck and amusing seats are also out of the question.

6. Incense sticks. I’m sorry, are you getting married in the nineties?

7. A year’s supply of birthday presents for other people. Don’t pretend it hasn’t crossed your mind.

8. Same goes for wrapping paper.

9. His and Hers ANYTHING WHATSOEVER.

10. An apron that makes it look like you’re wearing women’s underwear. Do I need to explain why?

11. Massage oil. You’re getting married; you’re way passed all that.

12. An ironing board. People don’t want one for themselves, let alone you.

13. Coat hangers. Yes it would be nice if they all matched but let’s not peak too soon.

14. A pumice stone. No guest will enjoy being responsible for the smoothness of your feet.

15. A banana guard. Even when they understand it’s for, it’ll still make people uncomfortable.

16. Headphones. Noise cancelling technology doesn’t exactly say true love, does it?

17. A tamagotchi. No it is not a good way to test if you would be good parents.

18. A bread maker – unless you aspire to put on three stone in your first month of marriage.

19. An ‘Oh no not you again!’ doormat (Yes, they exist). The one person it genuinely applies to will be the one to buy it for you. The ‘Wow! Nice Underwear‘ mat is probably best avoided too.

20. The Kama Sutra. Don’t give your guests nightmares.

21. Shoes. I know, I was gutted too.