Title: Lasting Style Meets Every day life
Episode 15
Male Voice: Chad Harris (CH) Female Voice: Beth Harris (BH)
CHAD: Lasting Style Meets Every day life – Episode 15
BETH: Join us on the journey of discovery to our ‘Lasting Style Meets Everyday Life’ podcast.
CHAD: Join our experts, Beth and Chad Harris from the https://www.thegardengates.com/
BETH: As they help you find the perfect home and garden decor for your perfect lifestyle
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CHAD: Hi, this is “Lasting Style Meets Every day Life” and I am Chad Harris. Beth is still out this week, she’s out shopping for the store and visiting her little nephew and I think she comes home tomorrow if I’m not mistaken. But today I’ve been inspired, I’ve been inspired by a commercial I heard and that’s very off because I never listen to commercials on radio. Mostly something I’ve recorded or programmed in and it was a commercial about Christmas in July. So it got me thinking, how could I influence every guy out there to be the most hated boyfriend or husband on the planet?
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CHAD: This year was going to be the year that you’re the most awesome gift giver on the planet. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to help you become the best gift giver there is. So let’s figure out really what the problem is, let’s explore where our problem is. You know we (and I mean guys) we have a chromosome problem; we are missing the key ingredient in making well thought out rational gift buying decisions. That’s right, come on let’s be honest, we are just one step above a caveman, we’re almost – our diets are like cavemen it’s almost like “give me steak, hear me raw”. Ok, so now that we clearly understand where the problem is let’s look at an experience that I had and I can help you fix your problems and I promise you this actually happens so for years Beth my wife carried around a picture of a Cathy Waterman ring, we were dead broke but she carried this picture and said one day one day one day. So that one day came along, I didn’t know who Cathy Waterman was, I had an idea where it was sold, so I got on the phone and I called the little boutique and I went there and I showed up and of course I didn’t have the picture. Number one rule if you’re buying someone a gift and they carried around a picture, carry it with you. I promise you it will help you in great return. Then as I’m in there, I look at twenty different rings, I picked one and I’m pretty excited, I think it’s what I remember, of course it isn’t the ring but it’s what I remember and the very nice sales person says to me. Would you like a pair of earrings to go with that? And I was like sure, and I’m thinking to myself the ring’s $2,500 the earrings can’t be more than $2,500. So I was like yeah I’ll take the earrings, I’ll take them; I’ll take them no matter what. So we go to the checkout and then she wraps everything, she puts it in a wonderful little box and she hand ties the ribbon at the top, she puts a little sticker on it, she says “here’s a little card you can full out. I’m so excited”, she rings it up and says “ok that will be $10,000” and all I hear is $10,000. I literally crumbled inside and I take a deep breath as sweat is dripping from my brow at that point and I’m panicking as I handed my credit card over and I casually said “give it a swipe and let’s see what happens” and so obviously I came home with the gifts, I’m so excited it’s like better than Christmas and I believe – I can’t even remember why I bought it if it’s Beth birthday or after her birthday or before her birthday, any day, maybe it’s just one of those days. I don’t remember any of that, I only remember the $10,000 and the most important thing is I bought the wrong ring.
So as I gave the gift, I watched Beth open her eyes in amazement, that she looks not at the ring but the earring and she says “these are so beautiful” and I’m thinking to myself “please take them back, please take them back” and she looks at the ring and she’s like “Oh this isn’t like the one in the picture”. So low and behold I come home the next day and she shows me the ring and has the earrings on, I’m looking at the ring and I’m like “that’s not the one I picked out?” She’s like “Oh I brought that one back and I bought another one” and so Lesson #1: When you go to buy something for someone that carries around a picture in their wallet for years, take the picture with you. That is one of the best pieces of advice I can give you; because on that day it didn’t just cost me a pair of earrings, it also cost me an additional upgrade on the ring because I was unable to bring the right one home.
Enough about how stupid I am and let’s get into the nuts and bolts on how not to have a gift disaster and so this is what I did for you, it’s really simple so the women in the audience that are listening turn the volume up and grab your boyfriend or husband and unplug the cotton from their ears and guys if you’re listening, like put your phone down and really start paying attention. I decide that – I was so inspired by this Christmas in July commercial that I heard because I thought it was kind of funny because I was thinking along those lines like “Oh it’s July” it’s almost Christmas time that I went on Twitter and Facebook today and I put out some posts and I asked some people, ladies in particular “What was the worst gift you’ve ever got?” and I got some answers back. I was pretty shocked at that I actually got.
Let’s start with our worst gifts. One of the girls in the office Elise, and yes I hope your husband’s listening told me her husband gave her – and I’m pretty sure they won’t married at the time but they could have been; gave her, I can’t even say it, hotel shampoo and lotion in her stocking. Hotel shampoo and lotion, like he wasn’t going to notice it said Hilton on the bottles. Did he think he tricked her? So that’s a pretty good one. That is definitely a don’t. Then I had an anonymous person send me a private message and said her spouse gave her weight shaker or shaker weight and then a gym membership. So I would highly recommend that would be something you don’t want to give your spouse; a shaker weight and a gym membership especially for Christmas. I mean she might want it, but don’t do it until you’re exactly told what to do, what to buy. Like you’re supposed to go to the yoga store and buy the one month supply of infinite yoga classes, definitely do that but don’t go to Planet All Fitness and pick yourseld up a membership for her thinking that’s exactly what she wanted.
So Ashley one of the girls in the office said someone told her that “hey your gift card’s in your email, make sure to check it” which is a pretty interesting one and then also, singing stuffed animal. So I would say singing stuffed animals definitely aren’t a great gift. Ok but let’s talk about the icing on the cake. I mean I should save this for last but when I read it, I couldn’t even believe it. So Amy writes in that she received a 1980’s orange sweater from the guy’s dead grandmother. Now that is probably the worst gift imaginable. Now Sheryl shimmed in and said that her husband gave her a car stereo upgrade and I can promise you it definitely wasn’t something she was looking for. Now Susan shimmed in and said that her better half gave her a power booster for her convertible mustang, and then shimmed in and said “I guess it was so I can get the ice cream home faster”. Interesting enough Karen shimmed in and said she got a red sweater, ok fair enough, the third time in a row, three years of red sweaters. Jill might almost beat Amy out. Jill she got some spanks and let me tell you what Jill also had to say “you know what he didn’t get for a long time” and then there was Donna, Donna got two things, she got a double gift, because Donna got a vacuum and then Donna got herself a maid just to teach her husband a little lesson. So of the worst gifts that are out there, I would definitely recommend that you don’t buy things like spanks, weight shakers, vacuums, oh maybe gym memberships, or anything along those lines and definitely you’re not going to trick your girlfriend or wife by giving them bottled shampoo and lotion from the hotel you stayed at last. I promise you that one won’t go down. So here are some simple ways that you can accomplish the perfect gift.
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CHAD: So here’s a list of Do’s. Your Do’s are to listen; listen to what your GFW (that would be your girlfriend or wife) is talking about. It’s really simple so you have from now July to December 24th you can wait to the last minute; all you have to do is pay attention. So take some mental notes, what magazines they look at, one of the things I’ve noticed is Beth loves this magazine called “Hello Magazine” she has a hard time finding it, she actually likes the actual physical magazine so I got her a subscription for a year, it kind of back fired on me because they don’t deliver it when they’re supposed to and I hear about it every week but she loves when it comes because she loves to flip through that magazine, so that’s a really great thing. I know, I paid attention I saw that she liked it and then went ahead and got something I knew she would enjoy for every week when it comes. So then pay attention to those social posts, Instagram pictures, when they show you “Oh look how cute those toe nails are” and whatever if it’s a Butter of London toe nail polish, look you can figure it out, look at the pictures, bring the pictures with you and figure it out.
So then suggestive conversations, when you’re out and about say “hey that’s pretty cool, what do you think about it?” and when they give you that look of pure disgust then you know that definitely isn’t the right thing to get them especially if it’s another red sweater.
And here’s a list of Don’ts: Don’t buy anything as seen on TV if the brand is as seen as on TV I promise you they don’t want it, not even a snuggly I promise you. No re-gifting when your mom gives you the salad bowl that you don’t ever use, you can’t give that to your wife or girlfriend and then no last minute runs to Walgreens, I know that it’s enticing they have the perfume for $14.99 sitting on the shelf when you check-out but I promise you that’s not the perfume she is looking for and then hand-me-downs from grandmas closet and definitely 100%, never consider an ex-girlfriend or ex-wife’s gift. I mean don’t do it, you’re just asking yourself for disaster.
So here are some perfect gift ideas for you. Alight, so #1: You can never go wrong with the spa day. You know the one she likes to go to. I’ll be honest with you, I have two or three that I love to spend Beth to. One for a longer day; one for you know if she’s just going to get a massage, and I’ve also taken the time to make sure to understand the things that she likes so pedicure, manicure, facial, massage, what kind of massage, stone massage, a deep tissue massage, all those things and you can do all that by asking questions and while you may not like any of those things, I can assure you she does. So here are something you can do for a day spa which is really interesting and I’ve done it before, if you schedule a manicure and pedicure along with a massage and a facial, what you do is you come in for the manicure or pedicure and you let the spa know you would like to have it with her at the same time. I’ve done the pedicures with Beth before as well, plus the manicures where it’s not really my thing but I know deep down inside she loved it. Now I would say the slippery feet part afterwards didn’t go really well because I looked silly wearing those little itty bitty flip flops considering I wear a size 15. My feet were sticking out, my heels were hanging off but I did it for her and not necessarily for me, so that is a great thing you can do and she’s going to love it.
The next thing you can do, is you can find classes and I know that sounds funny but you can find cooking classes, wine tasting glasses even like yoga studio classes that you can go to that’s more one and one and again none of these things might be your thing but that type of interaction with your spouse, especially if she knows you don’t like it would get you years, well maybe days or minutes of brownie points down the road. And that’s what it really is, it’s all about the brownie points for when you really do blow it, that you can skirt by with well you know “remember what I did?”.
And then another great one is the overnight get away you know be a tourist in your own town with an overnight get away and so find a little great hotel, might be one she’s familiar with or not familiar make sure you check it out a little bit. You don’t want to go someplace that has a big heart bed and a mirror ceiling, that won’t go over really well for you. I mean it might be or might not, it can grossly turn into what are you thinking and that won’t work for you really well and also do a little bit of research and find a great restaurant that you haven’t been too before that she read about or told you about or just opening or if you’re in New Orleans you can pick any one of John Buchan’s restaurants and you’ll find something that’ll be great maybe one that she hasn’t gone to before or you can also grab a few things and go have a simple dinner, I promise you that would go over really well and then the next day, the next morning just go have simple coffee and conversation. You know talk about things you don’t normally talk about. You know I’m a the biggest offender of this because I am a workaholic so all I do is work, all I talk about is work and I as a spouse have to do a better job I should say as in not bringing work into every single conversation. So those things are really important especially if your spouse knows what your habits are on a regular basis that would go over extremely well. You would do really well by jumping out of your comfort zone will win you a life time of opportunities, you know what I’m talking about, a life time of opportunities. So when all else fails and you have no idea what to do, you can always make that last minute run to your favourite jewellery store. Now here comes the problem, you’re going to do this on December 24th at 1:15 in the afternoon and your pickings are going to be whatever is in the case.
So if you just follow my simple little steps on listening, suggestive conversation, your don’ts, like don’t do anything seen on TV. No re-gifting, come up with some great ideas that are unique to you and your spouse that you know she will enjoy. And as an example, if your wife loves to fish then make that an outing but if your wife loves to have T, high T as they say then make that your outing, it really has to do with paying attention, listening so that you have the perfect Christmas gift this year and that’s what this is about having the perfect christmas gift. It takes a little bit of thought, its July you have several months to plan this. I hope this has been educational for you and if hasn’t you’re a lost cause.
This is Chad Harris with “Lasting Style Meets Everyday Life” you can always check me out at http://www.athomewithbethandchad.com/, there’s a blog I post on a regular basis. Our YouTube Channel “thegardengates”
OUTRO: That’s all for episode of our “Lasting Style Meets Every Day Life” podcast. Visit http://www.athomewithbethandchad.com/ for more tips on home and garden ideas or find everything you need for the home at https://www.thegardengates.com.Be sure to join Beth and Chad next time on “Lasting Style Meets Every Day Life” podcast.
