As the holidays approach, you can hear the collective moan of all

the woman folk in the Valley. Well, it is a whine actually. “I have to do all of

the shopping, the cooking and the cleaning for the holidays!” It is as if

we women created all of the traditions just so we could complain about

them. Well, I will let you in on a secret. I would

way rather do all of the shopping, wrapping, cooking and

cleaning; geez, I would even give birth before

I would face what the men folk face for the holidays.

Men have pressure. The endless pressure to compete with their

fellow man. We all know how it starts. First there is the single string of

lights around the door. But when Bob next door hangs icicle lights, well, it’s

is off to Coast to Coast for blue icicle lights. Because my ever lovin’ has

to have that little of bit of an edge over his fellow man, he will light the

trees in the entry, too. Then Bob has to go and outline his driveway in

lights. Then Rowland has to light every nook and cranny of his roof. Then we

all have to have a ten-foot lighted Santas and lighted reindeer that really

prance. The competition has gotten so out of hand that jets keep mistaking our

street for the runways at SeaTac. All I know is that my power meter is spinning

like a whirligig and we don’t even have a tree yet. Ah, the tree, another

realm where men have all of the burden and none of the credit.

I know I live in the land of “u-cut” Christmas trees. But, I really do

not get the magic. Oh, I know, they are fresher and all, but is it worth it?

The only people I know who romanticize the trip to the tree farm are people

who have never done it before. Self-cutting a tree is a particular form of

punishment that we only make men undergo.

We in the Pacific Northwest are famous for our ability to grow

really pretty evergreen trees. That is because it rains a lot here.

Rains a lot. Get it? That means that when you pack up

the whole family and trudge out to the u-cut lot, the odds are that it is

either raining or just finished raining or about to rain again. Remember that fact.

Once at the tree farm, they hand the man in the family an old rusty

hand saw and send him on his way. Instinctively our darling children start

running. They do not stop until they are at the farthest corner of the farm.

There they start pointing and screaming at a twenty-foot behemoth of a tree.

No matter how much we try to convince our kids otherwise, this is the

only tree they want, and they will cry and

moan and wail if they do not get their way.

The only way to cut one of these trees is to lie on your side on

the ground. This is when the rain comes in. It starts raining. Hard. Little

rivers start to form at the base of the tree. They worm their way under

my husband’s coat and down his pant legs. He is not happy. The kids start

whining about how cold and wet they are. They insist they get taken back to

the car. I take the kids back to the car so they do not hear any more of the

“special” words daddy is using. As we

trek back across the farm, I can hear him mumbling about how dental

floss could cut a tree faster. The real irony is that we have spent the last ten

years of our lives giving him every kind of power saw imaginable and they’re

all home safely in the garage.

But at least men are easy to buy a gift for. Not so with women. I know.

I am one.

I will now let you guys in on a little secret: how to buy a gift for the

woman in your life. It won’t help you, but at least you should know what you

are supposed to do. The key to buying a woman a present she adores is to

LISTEN to her when she complains. I know it’s impossible, but if you

listen to her complain instead of tuning her out, you can find out what she

needs. This is a much better idea than buying what you want her to have

(like power tools or lingerie).

I am the first to admit that the sheer amount of listening required is

more than any man can take. That’s why I count my blessings at the holidays.

I am a girl. All I have to do is shop, and cook and clean. Piece of cake in

my book.

Kate Russell lives between

Carnation and Duvall. You can reach her via e-mail

at Katemo1@email.msn.com