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Being as this is my first Christmas with a girlfriend, I had to do something I never had to do before.  Go shopping for a female!  It’s surprising difficult to come up with good gift ideas for someone. 

I wondered how I would know when I was done shopping for her.  Some will say it’s the amount of money you spend, the size of the gifts, or some other easily discernible measurement.  Being a geek and a scientist I looked at shopping as a problem that needed a simple and straightforward solution.

Here is what I came up with.  There are three requirements that must be met in order to complete your shopping.  They are practicality, thoughtfulness and extravagance.

Practicality is about satisfying some basic need.  Is the gift useful and something the person wants or needs?  Gifts like appliances, furniture, clothes, a movie, music CD and so on.  Things they will use on a regular basis and thus in using the item think of you.

Thoughtfulness is about giving something that shows you love/care for the person.  This usually requires you to do real work with the gift.  A picture frame for example would be practical but by putting in a picture of you and your girlfriend/wife you now made something thoughtful.  It’s original and shows that you used some brain power in getting the gift.  It’s something they can display for others to see and know you got it.

Extravagance is all about the splurge.  It’s spoiling the person and demonstrating that you are willing to give of yourself for their happiness.  Now don’t mistake this for saying you have to spend large amounts of money!  This is not about money.  It’s about giving a gift that’s sole purpose is to treat the person.  Flowers, chocolates, wine, jewelry, etc are all examples of extravagance.  Even if it’s only a $20 bracelet from Walmart it’s still extravagant.  A bracelet isn’t practical (not like you need it to live) and unless you get it engraved it’s not really very thoughtful either (considering every guy gets jewerly for his girl at some point) but boy will she like wearing it to show off.

So, with the help of these three requirements you can easily tell when you are ready for Christmas.  If you can look at the gifts you got for that S/O and say you have something practical, thoughtful and extravagant you can call it quits.  Even if you didn’t spend that much or have that many gifts.

So for example here’s what I got my girlfriend:
-4 DVDs of movies she likes but don’t have or have as VHS and have worn out (this is practical)
-Picture frame with three pictures of us from when we first started dating in the winter, one from this early summer and one from this fall on my second trip to NYC (this is thoughtful)
-A 3 stone diamond necklace (this is extravagant)

Ok, maybe it’s all a bit to clinical and scientific but I bet every guy out there will find this idea handy.