TIPS + TRICKS | how to get what you actually want

When I was little, I would scour the Sears catalog, circling and dog-earing every page that had something I hoped to receive from Santa or my parents. I loved flipping through the pages and imagining playing with each toy. But somewhere between that and growing up, it began to feel like doing that was gluttonous.

It's not. It's communication.

Every year, about a month before a holiday, I email Dan a list.

It is not a subtle list. It has links, sizes, colors, and price points, with shipping deadlines noted. This does require a little work on my end, and recognizing the time for ordering and shipping.

I begin collecting links throughout the year — texts to myself, a secret Pinterest board, and no fewer than four browser tabs that have been open so long my phone threatens to go to sleep when I try to find them.

I do not expect to receive everything on the list. I hope to receive something I actually want, chosen for me by someone who loves me, from a starting point I gave. I am still surprised, because I have no idea what I will be getting until I open it (unless of course he leaves the packaging on the kitchen counter).

This makes gift giving a better experience for both of us.

I used to drop vague hints and then silently resent the fact that he didn't pick up on them. Or I would say "oh, I don't need anything, it's fine" — and then feel disappointed when the day came and went. Receiving something thoughtful but a miss would warm my heart, but ultimately I would feel unknown.

Guessing is genuinely hard, and loving someone doesn't automatically make you a skilled and thoughtful gift-giver. Expecting people to read our minds and then quietly scoring them on the results is a system that reliably produces disappointment. I know because I ran that system for years.

The idea that someone who loves you should simply know, without being told, without any help, just through the sheer force of their love and attention, is a story we absorbed somewhere between romantic comedies and the first time someone surprised us with something perfect. We turned that exception into a standard.

We decided the surprise was proof of the love, and that asking for what we wanted ruined the magic. But y'all — Santa needs to be told. He is magic and he still doesn't know.

Knowing what you want and saying so is not a sign that you are demanding or difficult. You have the saved screenshots, the quiet wish, the thing you keep in your cart but never check out. That attention is not nothing. It's information. And it's worth communicating.

The magic was never in the guessing. It was in the choosing. Someone looked at your list and chose something for you from it. That's still a gift. That's still an act of love.

You are allowed to know what you want.
You are allowed to say it out loud.

Doing so is not a failure of romance or a sign that you expect too much. It is a quiet act of self-respect — deciding that your preferences are worth articulating, that the people in your life deserve a real shot at getting it right.

Send the list.