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Even a PF Blogger loses control at times, so there’s no reason to be hard on yourself if you ’splurged’ this year. I had set a budget, gotten the list together, and had prepared myself for a frugal, but festive Christmas.

That went out the door with one trip to the jewelry store one evening in early December.

Here’s the Story

My wife has been wanting a diamond engagement band since we got married (almost 20 years ago) but I’ve ALWAYS been against the ~$8,000 price range she’s always pined for. That and the fact that she’s lost most of the jewelry I’ve ever bought her; 1 nice aquamarine ring early on, TWO wedding bands, (and now we’re on our third set) earrings galore and other small jewelry articles. Maybe you understand if I have a little trepidation with plunking down enough money to buy a good used car on something that very well could disappear the next day.

To her credit, she’s been patient, and recognizes the fact she can’t hang onto jewelry very well. But this Christmas, one of the commercials must have finally gotten to her (Damn You Helzberg Diamonds!) and the next thing I know we’re out to the jewelry store.

As I and the boys sat at the "Husband Drop-off Station*", the wife perused the goods.

* A Husband Drop-off Station at Jared’s Jewelers is a little area with a nice comfortable couch, with a number of free sodas, coffees, and cookies along the back of the store. This insidious chain of jewelry stores also has a kid’s area built in so the little ones can be dropped off to play in a nice, safe environment, complete with Disney/Pixar movies and plush toys, while Mommie shops her brains out.

It’s insidious and evil. I wish I had thought of something like that.

Now as a guy, I hear the word diamond, and it automatically triggers my money-defense glands; Contracting my fingers around the credit/debit cards and sending my mind racing to remember important-but-put-off major purchases that we must make instead of buying jewelry.

Usually this mode of financial self-defense is effective, but not this time. My wife was In The Zone!. Salespeople can smell this state and swoop in like hawks on a baby rabbit! Beautifully coiffed sales women gently led her to the piles of jewelry, while shooting glances back our way as if to say "Back-off, she’s OURS now!!"

Knowing I was defeated, I retreated to the safe zone and had a wonderful cup of hazelnut mocha coffee and a couple of biscotti biscuits. The boys happily ran into the child containment area, and we all just waited.

And waited,…

And waited,…

(I suspect that this is a form of psychological warfare perpetrated on the spouse to ’soften them up’ before the final attack [the bill], similar to the continual playing of Van Halen’s "Panama" outside Manual Noriega’s compound before the Panamanian raid on his house in 1989.)

After waiting a near-eternity (or about 30 minutes), I was rewarded by my wife and the sales women by being shown the ring(s) my wife had decided on. It reminds me to this day of being "rewarded" by the delivery of a dead bird to our doorstep by one of our cats. You have no real appreciation for the ‘gift’ but you have to make polite noises as to the obvious quality and charm of the item.

Vini, Vidi, Visa

But the important part was that my wife was thrilled. She had come, shopped, and found a (couple) of rings that everyone ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ over until she glowed with pride. I’m even proud of her that the rings she chose were only 10% of what she had been swooning over on-line and in advertisements.

With a happy wife, and a 90% savings over the amount I THOUGHT I would be paying, I admitted defeat and put on a cheery face as the sales attended added up the damages.

She also got the lifetime cleaning (a way for me to verify the rings are still in her possession ) and lifetime adjustments (alignment, rotation, 100,000 oil changes, etc).

We collected the kids, wandered around the mall for awhile as the jewelers modified the ring to the right size, and came back and received our blessing in an hour. My wife wears it everywhere and has gotten numerous complements on it.

Addendum

Now, as a guy, I don’t get the ‘pull’ that jewelry has for women. In fact, for that price, you could get TWO sets of 18w 1/2 in. 2500 rpm cordless MasterCraftsman power drills, along with at least two battery packs and another charger (if you talked the salesman into it). I just don’t get it.

I did go the no-credit route and just bit the bullet and paid in cash (or debit card actually) so that bill isn’t hanging over our heads. I did have to do quite a tap dance with finances and the rest of Christmas though. So the Don’t-Put-It-On-Credit Christmas was changed to Don’t-Put-Very-Much-On-Credit Christmas. All in all, not that bad.

Did YOU blow your Christmas budget this year?? We’d love to hear your stories. Leave us a comment.