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All I want for Christmas

Shopping for my geek kid on the BoingBoing Gift List was a bad idea, because I found so many things I would love to have. I wish Santa would bring me this memento mori watch.  (Warning: do not go to the Watchismo site unless you want to lose yourself in horological lust.) You know what else […]

Shopping for my geek kid on the BoingBoing Gift List was a bad idea, because I found so many things I would love to have. I wish Santa would bring me this memento mori watch.  (Warning: do not go to the Watchismo site unless you want to lose yourself in horological lust.) You know what else would be great to have, if you were me? This little bitty coffee maker.  And boy oh boy, Santa, does Your Working Boy ever want to have this Saddleback leather satchel, to carry his laptop and his books and his papers.

Ah, but that satchel is $300 or thereabouts. Don’t have that kind of money to spend on Self this year, but I love Saddleback’s guide for how to convince your sweetie to fork out that kind of money for a high-quality leather product:

Her to Him 

  • You know, I feel frisky just thinking about that leather piece.
  • I would just feel so sexy carrying this on my body.
  • I don’t think I’d need to go shopping for another thing all year after buying something like this.

Him to Her

  • Looking at this case just makes me want to HOLD you.
  • I don’t know why, but owning a hope and a dream like this, makes me want to just sit down on the couch and OPEN UP about the hopes and dreams we share.
  • Think of all of the extra TIME we’d spend TOGETHER on our long walks holding hands and showing off the leather.

Sadly, Mrs. Working Boy is immune to my oleaginous blandishments, at least this year, with all these moving expenses upon us. Feh. But in all seriousness, let me put in a good word for spending more money for something high quality and enduring. The other day I was finishing up a cooking job, using my Shun Ken Onion knives that she bought me from Williams-Sonoma two Christmases ago. She spent $300 on three knives — a chef’s knife, a serrated knife, and a paring knife — and it just about killed her to spend that kind of money on a single present (it was all I got that year). (Nota bene: the same exact set is now about $400 this year). I remember opening it that morning, and tearing up at the thoughtfulness of that present. Those knives have not only been deeply practical and useful, they have also been an unbelievable pleasure to use. I told her the other night that I wish she could take these knives back and give them to me all over again, that’s how much I love them. I will use and treasure them till the day I die, and I’m not even kidding. It’s easy to spend a lot of money on gifts that don’t mean a lot, but if you can find just the right thing for your sweetie, even if it costs more than you really want to pay, consider that value is not the same thing as cost.

You ever spent a (relatively) crazy amount on an object, for yourself or someone else, and it turned out to have been a really wise purchase, or investment? What was it? What made it such a worthwhile expenditure?

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