Well, it’s that time of year again. The end of December is coming and with it, that special time we all need to sit and worry about what we will be putting under the tree this year.

Personally, it’s getting to the point where I’d rather skip the whole thing.

I used to like all the decorations and glitzy chintz of the lights and the tree, the cheerful and morbidly solemn music you would hear everywhere, the anticipation and disappointment of opening presents.

Then I grew up.

Humbug, you say. Why, yes!

Seriously, though. When I was a kid, it was fairly easy to get presents for me. Nothing was actually any fun. All toys had the same dull characteristics. There was nothing extremely special that every kid wanted or had to have.

Now, every kid already has everything that’s any fun. If they don’t, at least around here, they’re borderline outcastes.

Anyway, it’s the season of giving. No, more accurately, it’s the season of spending. And the season of frantically trying to think of something that won’t cause eye-rolling.

I overheard a conversation at work one year, between two guys at lunch.

“I’m getting Karen light fixtures for the house,” said one.

“Why?” asked the other, as he at the last of his cold pasta.

“For Christmas, you know. She’s been complaining about how much she hates the ones that are there.”

“Oh,” said the other, and he pulled a mandarin orange from his lunch box, “Has she picked some out?”

“No.”

“Oh,” said the other, as he took a bite of banana.

“Why?”

“Well,” said the other, as he opened his chocolate pudding, “If she didn’t pick any out, you should probably get her some chocolates of something.”

“She’s on a diet.”

“Ok,” said the other, as he picked through a handful of cashews, “Whatever. But you may not want to pick them out yourself.”

“No?”

“No,” said the other, and he closed his lunch box and walked away.

Personally, I thought he should go for it. Just go out and buy new fixtures for the entire house and wrap them up nice and put them under the tree. So, when she wakes up Christmas morning, she can be filled with all the appropriate excitement as she reaches for the first box, and then be filled with the appropriate amount of disapprobation as she opens the next couple of boxes, then be filled with the exact right amount of anger as she opens the last of them. Only then will you understand that women don’t want the light fixtures changed, they want to pick out the new light fixtures.

But I still think it would be funny.