Christmas shopping: Men vs. Women

A piece rejected by the USA Today, New York Times, Boston Globe, and Hartford Courant...

Of all the amazing differences between genders, how each handles the task of holiday shopping is one that ranks among the most remarkable.

Many women get excited about Christmas shopping; many men, if I can speak for an entire gender here, fear it. I will generalize and this will surely lead me into some trouble, but women are just more skilled than men are at shopping, period, which surprises me that Santa Claus is a male. Santa, if he is like most guys, would prefer to remain at home, in the bowels of his basement workshop, hammering things, or counting his screwdrivers or throwing drill bits into the loose insulation dangling from the ceiling. Even I, who am rather limited with tools, would find something to saw or bore a hole into rather than fight mall traffic at Christmastime.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that guys lose it in Christmas traffic; it goes against everything that evolution has taught them.

But the thing that truly baffles me personally each year at Christmas is profoundly simple – that is, knowing what to buy for people. Typically, I go out on Dec. 23, or perhaps Christmas Eve, aiming to buy a trunkful of gifts without having prepared a list of any kind, or even having a clear idea of what stores I’m going to. Interestingly, I just allow my car to lead me in a direction, which is usually a shopping mall in one of two directions within 20 minutes of my house, and then, when I get close to extensive commercial development and buildings that have banners which read SALE, I turn into a parking lot, often at the last second, and it might be because I have a green arrow for a left turn as opposed to taking a right turn into a parking lot and having to wait in a long line.

Idling in a line of shoppers seeking the perfect parking space, I’ve found, is not a good time to develop patience.

There is no strategy, really; there is no rhyme or reason for where I end up. But once I’m inside a retail business, whether by accident or through a set of variables that I can’t even explain here, the real cluelessness begins. I ask myself things like, “What am I doing here?”, “Whom do I have to buy for?”, “Did I remember to bring my wallet?”, and “Did I get them gloves last year?”
This is when I wish I had the functionality of a woman’s brain, at least for this one day.

As a man, this is confusing territory. I mean, there are only so many gifts one can buy that are generic enough to give to people whose Christmas list you forgot. This is another critical difference between men and women. Men don’t remember what people ever say they want, despite how many times someone might repeat it. This shortcoming definitely has to do with the ability to listen, which guys are notoriously bad at.

In my experience, women are quite good at this. They can remember what someone may have whispered to them during a Fourth of July fireworks finale, when it’s impossible to hear anything but loud explosives. Many women have a keen ability to screen out all distractions when another person mentions something they want. Somehow, they are able to say to themselves, “I have to remember to get them that for Christmas”, whereas men are thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool if those fireworks shot off sideways and blew up an entire building?”

Perhaps if shopping malls shot off fireworks around the holidays, it would motivate more men to get there, much like the strobe lights that car dealers and movie theaters flash across the night sky to attract people. I am always a sucker for wondering where those lights are coming from.