One thing I sometimes forget to say in the comments is how wonderful it is to listen to your careful wording and elegant ( always your word!!) thought process! You are one of a kind!
Thank you for this thoughtful take. My husband is in federal prison, so the magic of Christmas is 100% my responsibility for the time being. I don't mind, I love elf shenanigans and mystery, I love saving things I find at thriftstores throughout the year, I make sure my girl is enamored with the season. However, what about me? My girl wants to see me feeling cared for, too. We don't emphasize the gifts aspect of it, but it is inevitably crucial. So, this year, I told her about how I made my mom coupons for chores and whatnot, a great gift for kids to be able to give; but I also got myself a couple of little things and made a note from her elf that says he brought them and hid them for her to be able to give her mother something. She'll be able to wrap them and be able to have the joy of surprising me with something, because she knows I'm unlikely to receive much else given some of my closest people are also in Mexico. All this to say, the joy of being able to give is something we sometimes have to provide for our loved ones ❤️
Sorry you're going through this period without your husband! But that's such a beautiful idea for the elf to bring some gifts for her to give to you! This is a wonderful way to look at it too, that we can help give the joy of giving.
Eve Rodsky talks about this in her book Fair Play. Most men do less domestic work regardless of the income each partner brings in in heterosexual relationships. Many men fundamentally misunderstand that being responsible for a task means 1) automatically knowing that the task needs to be done (not being told that it needs to be done), 2) plan how to do it, 3) execute, 4) and then clean up afterwards. A highly relatable example that Eve Rodsky cited (either in the book or in interviews, I don't recall) taking out the trash. Taking out the trash isn't just taking out the large kitchen trash after being told to take out the trash. It means to know that the trash needs to be taken out, take out the large kitchen trash, then also take out all of the smaller room/bathroom trash, re-line all of the cans, and then putting all of the cans back. In your example of the holiday gifting, if a man does it (big if), steps 1 and 2 (and I'd wager step 4) are missing. On top of that, if a family were to travel to see family during the holidays, then most likely finding the right accomodation, booking, packing the children/pet things, meals (repeat steps 1-4 for all of these) fall on the women as well. You're probably also needing to delegate tasks (possibly intricately planning out) so you won't have to redo what your partner didn't do right. When you really break down how much bandwidth each of these tasks take, it makes perfect sense why the holidays are so disproportionately stressful for many of the female partners. Even if we're "lucky" and work a desk job at the very least this pulls our attention away from it reducing our performance, if we're not so lucky to work in front of the computer we end up spending our leisure time doing all of this work unpaid. It took a very long time and many ongoing conversations for my husband to fully understand and fully take responsibility on domestic labor around the house, but once that foundation is laid, it becomes much easier.
IMHO, not a matter of gender, but of conscientiousness. The latter goes down with stress and residual cognitive load. (Please be aware books outside academia are usually published without fact-checking. The author has to invite peers for that themselves.)
It's really nice to see you get deeper and deeper into things, going past the surface of consumerism and related behaviours, expectations, traditions and more. Your channel has been great from the start, but it's nice seeing you tie greater things to your initial findings and experiences (idk if that's a good way to say that, oops, I'm not a native speaker) I have yet to watch some of your other videos from the past days (oh no I'm behind!), but I'm glad I watched this one today. Good stuff This blog as is truly a gift
This conversation in the video and in the comments makes me realize my dad is such a gem. I live in India, so our festivals and holidays are quite different. but for as long as i can remember dad has been the one to organize the festival meals, decorations and gifts. he is the best at wrapping gifts which are always sweet and thoughtful. he has been the one to pass this down to me as well, and though i don't enjoy it as much, i appreciate the effort that goes into making festivals feel special. A cute thing he always does is getting flowers and making a center table arrangement when any of our family members(my cousins / nieces/ nephews) bring their significant others to our home for the first time. puts a smile on everyone's face :)
Thank you for all the thoughtful videos, the eloquent wording and stress free music Alexa 🥰 I'm really enjoying your account and I felt the need to express that! I hope you are having a wonderful month and end-of-year period in general.
My relationship with my husband is atypical as he is autistic. So giving him a wishlist of a few things I'd like that he can choose from is really helpful for him, since it's harder for him to imagine what others would like (even though he knows me very well). I also had to tell him right out in the beginning of our relationship that I like my presents to be wrapped, even if I know I'm getting that present. Otherwise he wouldn't wrap them. Which ruins some of the magic I think. Haha. We don't have a lot of other holiday traditions as we are atheist, but we always put up our little tree together. Which I really like simply because we put it up together. And I like when he has opinions on what should go wear and what kind of lights there should be and all that. And when it comes to cooking for Christmas, we each make the things that we are good at. So he makes rolls and pies and mashed potatoes. And I do mac and cheese and the turkey (when we used to eat meat). So I think overall our relationship is pretty equal in the Christmas magic making department. haha. My parents on the other hand... my mom did everything Christmas related. And she still does even though they haven't really celebrated fully since I moved out (in... 2006??). She bought her own presents, as well as everyone else's. She did all the stocking goodies, including her own. (As I got older, I remember that her stocking was less full than mine and my dads, because she didn't have to pretend that it was Santa that brought it. She just filled it up half way, and my dad never made an effort to fill the stocking up. D: ). She cooked all the food. Even today, she is always the one to give my husband and I some money every year (this includes birthdays as well). My dad gets me a present every few years. And I don't think he's bought my mom a present for Christmas in a decade or more... It makes me sad and mad that my mom put in all this work for decades to make Christmas special for me (and my dad), and he never made an effort to make Christmas special for her.
Aw! Well, hopefully I can turn around that loose expectation in my own family as far as getting my husband to do my stocking and organize a gift so that my kids can see as they get older, that they don't automatically have to do that for themselves if their partners don't have the natural inclination - thank you for sharing, it brings that additional perspective of what I'd want my own kids to observe growing up!
We have a similar division of labour, and to some extent my husband doesn't 'care' to organise for gifting for everyone. However, he is very thoughtful with particular gifts, and sources personalised gifts for a few friends/family members that are special to himself (usually myself and a couple others). If there is an expectation set up, he will also put in the effort, e.g. extended family gift swap. We also discuss and purchase our kids' gifts collaboratively, although I usually do a bit more of the legwork because he works a mentally draining job. He appreciates my efforts and thanks me for it, and I enjoy gifting, so it's a win-win!
It’s a tough one. My husband and I either do not gifts each other at all (we buys what we need or want through throughout the year) or if there is something we want around the holiday season we go together and buys it for both us together. So we look, choose, have a nice meal along the way and just buy it. It works for us. My daughter keeps the wish list and we buy from there exact things she wants and then add little something from us as a surprise. This system works for many years. With others it’s a bit more complicated and my husband does not want to buy any gift at all, so delegating will not work. He thinks and I agree that adults in our family do not need anything. Their houses are full of things. I would be happy if we just cook and gather and have fun together, no gifts except for kids.
This sounds like a system we could actually agree on - our families also don't do gifts for adults already, and I think your routine of going together and buying something the other wants, is a great compromise between just telling someone what to "gift" to you or letting them "surprise" you with something you might actually not want. There's still the experience of something special. Thank you for sharing!
I do all the xmas shopping and wrapping and decorating... my husband would have no idea what to buy, where, how, etc... but he helps with the cooking or does most of it actually. He has the more stressful job, much more work meetings, responsibilities, etc... I work full time but it's less stressful. So I do more of the work at home, all the grocery shopping. I guess I don't mind. But yes, if I wasn't around, xmas would be kind of lacking for the kids... I buy a couple of small gifts for my husband but we don't really get gifts for each other. I don't mind not getting gifts, I'm very picky and prefer to buy my own things. If the kids make something handmade or something they thought of and bought for me (with help of dad or another adult) then of course it's lovely but I don't mind if there's no packages for me.
Honestly, if we left all of Christmas up to the gents, I think many homes simply wouldn’t “do” Christmas. Many seem to be in a kind of “I could take it or leave it” mentality, and while they’ll enjoy it if their family/partner want to go to those traditional lengths, they likewise truly wouldn’t be that bothered if it just didn’t happen. (Like a bachelor apartment that never gets decorated because “if it’s functional, it’s fine.”) Sometimes there’s a very utilitarian approach not only to the “sundries” and “utilitarian” gift items, but also to the approach of gift-giving itself (which is why I think so many women are left to shop for themselves). Sometimes I’ll hear, “If you’d like that for Christmas, just put in the order and let me know how much it was, I’ll give you the money for it!” 😅 Uhhh… Yeah, the “magic” is completely lacking there. No mystery, no anticipation - just certainty and delayed gratification. (Especially if he then forgets to wrap it…) Yet I know if the roles were reversed, he’d be more than happy to do that with me. (In fact, sometimes he’ll buy something I wanted to get him for Christmas and he’ll happily hand it to me and tell me I still can! It’s… Very much not what *I* would want, but he seems genuinely comfortable with such a dynamic. It’s interesting because it kind of “fails to live up to my expectations” of what you described - the magical Christmas morning surprise - and yet it’s clear that what he values actually IS the togetherness more than the gift-giving, fancy meal, the decorations, etc. Which makes me wonder how many other households this dynamic may be true for, and what it might say about me/my expectations that I’m the one who’s more on the consumerism hype train of gift-giving than he is. And maybe he’s got it “right” more than I do? 😮 It also brings up an interesting point: if the gift itself isn’t the “goal,” and the togetherness is wonderful but is also “only one ingredient,” then do we circle back to the “anticipation and mystery” element? Is that the missing link that we’re chasing? And if so, why? Because it was a tradition to feel those things as children and associate them with this day? Is it similar to the pulling of the lever to spin a slot machine and watching as each reel slows to a stop? (And maybe also: are men under any kind of social pressure *not* to have these wants/needs for the receipt of gifts, and could that be affecting how they consider, plan, and exchange gifts with their partners beyond the utilitarian and the ‘sure-to-please-since-she-picked-it-herself’?)
YES, is pretty much what I'd like to reply to ALL of that with, but some of your questions/points really hit a chord! So I do think that in some ways the "man's approach" IS more "right" and that your point about the anticipation and magic and mystery is also really insightful. And also the point about how men are under social pressure NOT to have the needs/wants for receiving gifts. I think there's something to that too. And I also think that some of what I've tried to talk about already on here, regarding sharing the sentiment without the gift, either by gifting a "quick consumable" or maybe even a card with a note about your special connection with this person - is not as commonly accepted between men as it is between women. I could be wrong here but from my general awareness, it's not odd for female friends to gift each other chocolates or favorite snacks, small but useful personal care products or even just a card with a heartfelt note of friendship...but my perception is that if men did this for each other it could be a bit weird or unexpected. And so if I wanted some of the "sentiment" from my husband to keep the "surprise" or the magic, in the form of a card or small but thoughtful gift, he might have less experience in this "field of gifting" than other women do. It's also some kind of Catch-22, it feels like, because I don't really know what the "ideal outcome" even is. I don't want my husband to arbitrarily make sure to have a sentimental gift just to fulfill my expectations - even now I am realizing I don't really want to just get something I actually want and have it "from him" under the tree. I still feel like it would be special if he did put some effort into some kind of gift, but I also acknowledge that I need to put effort into not "expecting" some level of that gift and also working on just being happy to have the family time and connection.
it's a self-perpetuating cycle, too - by the time i was ten im pretty sure i was doing more to help with holiday dinners than my own father. peeling potatoes, making the fruit salad, setting the table and filling drinks and serving desserts and plating up and refilling appetizers - hell, i and my sister took over apple pie responsibility entirely when we were twelve. i don't recall exactly how much my dad did, but i do know he would stay in the living room almost the entire span of the day before dinner. It's not to disparage my father - he was the breadwinner, on a normal day the division of labor made more sense - but the difference is stark. the non-food holiday responsibilities are somewhat more understandable in my family's case, as frequently my dad was straight-up at work when things like family gifts were bought and wrapped, but, yanno. the single income family model has changed and the expected women's labor hasn't
It’s almost like women learnt to become caregivers and breadwinners BUT men only learnt to be breadwinners so expecting them to be caregivers without practice is like learning a new language as an adult. It’s tempting to speak to them in the language they understand, if you know the shared language but then they will never learn the new language (which requires the ability to learn from mistakes). If you expect less from them, then they may never learn but if you expect too much they may also give up. Ultimately, it’s a choice to learn the language and cannot be forced. Therefore as women we have to ask ourselves what are we willing to allow in our lives? Better to be alone than in bad company…
Yes! We did recently host Thanksgiving, and to his credit my husband did do a lot of the cooking, and his family were the guests. So it's not that the work in our household is totally separated, and I guess thinking about it in regards to the family models, we might be mostly okay. I have a part time job/income, and therefore do a bit more at home, he has the full time job/income and does a bit less at home. I do also feel like there's progress to be made on both sides for us, as far as thoughtfulness vs. expectations, and deconstructing my relationship with consumer trends is definitely proving to be helpful in my own recalibration!
@@Alexas.nobuyyear I didn’t mean to project there, obviously I was referring to myself as I don’t know your situation. It sounds like your situation is working for you. I do find it a bit complicated because while we want to give women more work opportunities, if they will be disadvantaged at home or in their family life as a result, then can we really say it’s advocating for female rights? On the other hand, without women being part of the workforce and men doing their bit to support this, then nothing will change… perhaps it’s about childcare being shared with the fathers? More paternity pay? Changing our suspicious attitudes when we see a man with a child…not expecting every woman to be defined by motherhood but also not devaluing it…sorry I went on a tangent
Oh man, this one was hard! I usually do them by ear but read off a hymnal for this one (and tomorrow's? I think) and it actually made it more challenging (I thought it'd be easier, but alas). I'm glad you liked it!
💯, I used to be the person buying gifts, and I hated it, like why is it my responsibility? Gifts for my husband friends kids, etc, and before you know it, I had to get 10 extra kids gifting duty, then I decided I am not doing it anymore, and debated about it for one season, then totally dropped that gifting duty the following year.
My immediate family have for quite a while only bought gifts for each other from their wish list. I am happy to say this year most of my gifts have been thrifted, gotten for free, or handcrafted by me.
As far as division of labor, my dad absolutely loves giving gifts. He loves picking out things for his loved ones, and I've seen the joy on his face while he's searching for something. He also loves cooking so he does most of that. And my husband has allergies so his need to clean is higher than my own. Because of this, he developed early on cleaning habits before we met. So I hate that he has allergies and suffers, but I do get a benefit of that as he cleaned so much. He also enjoys cooking where I hate it, so he does most of that as well. But also his digestive system is a little bit sensitive, so he can't eat many things that I love. So sometimes we eat separate meals where I'm making a sandwich and having yogurt and he's cooking a Korean meal. We don't have children and we both work so division of labor is mostly equal, but the frequency is higher than I prefer so he takes care of the additional cleaning that he feels personally necessary because of his allergies.
I'm glad this is not the dynamic with my wife and family, but I will be considerate to ensure that it doesn't become an issue. I only feel guilty for not getting men a present if they, themselves, go out of their way to get me gifts AND it has been a pattern for them to do so. That is, I can reasonably expect them to go out of the way for me. I do feel bad for not reciprocating if that's the case.
This is such an interesting question! In my experience it varies couple to couple (though I do agree this type of holiday work falls to women more often). I take on the responsibility of buying the gifts and encouraging the Xmas traditions because I love it. I would want to do this no matter what my husband chose to do. On the other hand, my brother is the primary gift giver in his marriage with my sister-in-law. This makes me wonder if it’s partially about the holiday traditions of your family of origin? Maybe the family you grow up in and the particular ways they celebrated this season impacts these tendencies whether you’re a man or a woman 🤷♀️
That's a great point! I don't know at all what happened in my husband's family as a kid, and I'm actually not even sure how my parents did gifts for us as kids, who was behind it. It could've very well been a joint effort. Some of the increased responsibility I feel about it may also be due to the fact that there's just more holiday traditions for us now than I had when I was a kid, so this was an enlightening idea!
I guess my husband is the woman in the marriage. Holes everywhere in the boards of the house from the Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation like lights. He spends like there is no tomorrow when it’s Christmas. He complains that I am a hoarder but he is the one stacking up gift wrap, ribbon, Xmas trees, decor, etc… He never shops frugally. He pays above retail prices-and for junk gifts many people won’t use. (One year I got a Justin Bieber electric toothbrush.) Then he complains in January when the credit card bills come due.
I'm lucky, sort of, I guess...my husband is what I (affectionately) call a sentimental schlub. He is super family oriented and puts a lot of time into trying to source appropriate things for our kids. Like, more time than I want him to. The hard thing for him is that honestly I myself usually don't have a long wishlist and the more affordable and easy things he could get me like coffee or makeup, he actively despises and I already have too much of it anyway. 😅 We also have frequent discussions about what our holiday plans are, which relatives we most need/want to visit, will we have a tree etc. My own parents had a more "traditional" division of labor as far as I can tell, and while they sometimes made gender-based jokes about stuff I have the impression that they had sorted things out that way and it suited them, and it would have been deeply annoying to one of them had the other encroached on their turf, so to speak.
Haha love that! Honestly I'm not sure how much I'd want our system to change, perhaps really the only thing I'd try to do next year is putting the gifts for ME back onto my husband, (and being okay if he doesn't do that well 😆) but I really don't mind the rest of how things go. And I guess to be fair my husband does do the whole "tree" thing each year since he prefers to have a real one, he'll get it into the house and we'll decorate it - not to mention fixing things around the house generally (plumbing, electrics, woodwork, drywall, etc, he's had most of these as actual jobs in his young adulthood) in a practical sense. So while the "gifts/sentimental/kids stuff" isn't really his realm, pretty much all the practical "stuff" IS very much his realm and responsibility, even if that's still a pretty traditional role-based division for us at the moment!
Gifting in my extended family usually falls to the women, although all of the boys when they DO buy gifts themselves are very generous and thoughtful :) I think sometimes it's a lack of time and inspiration - it is actually hard to buy gifts for people who buy everything they want themselves. Maybe our hyper consumption makes things especially hard for them, and if we didn't satisfy all of our desires so quickly they'd enjoy it more. Something about that rings true for my family at least. When I moved house my brother raised several plants for my new veggie garden as a Christmas gift, it must have taken him ages. If the catering were up to my brothers it would be a more relaxed affair... we'd just have a BBQ and everyone would be less stressed! I find a wish list helpful... I consider it a list of things I would really enjoy and get use out of if I had them - a "like to have" list, but not a "must have" list. Things that are a must have I get myself, unless I know someone else is definitely getting them for me - hardly anything is a must have, I don't really need anything besides a few replacements when using things up or wearing them out.
I think I will get there regarding the wish list! For someone who's trying to re-calibrate a bad relationship with hyper-consumerism like I was, it may be good to "take a wishlist break" but then get back to it when it can be reasonably utilized! Nothing wrong with a good Christmas barbecue, provided it's not Northern-hemisphere-cold outside!
I prefer to pick my own gifts, as practically, if I were to receive a gift anyway, it seems like a better use of the money. But from a no buy perspective, abstaining from the process of picking a gift seems very much in the spirit of a no buy! A worthy idea! I do think asking a partner to swap roles as an exercise is a good idea, to experience and appreciate what the other goes through.
Oh another really interesting thing about kKorea, is that after covid and the lockdown for several years here, families to stop doing the traditional memorial ceremony 제사. It's 100% the responsibility of the wife of the first son, and many many families are just not doing it anymore at all. I asked my clients how that makes them feel about losing this tradition, and I don't know if Koreans are just less sentimental, but most of them say that it's much better this way. And that's not the wife of the first son saying this all the time, it's the mothers, the sons, the children, everyone seems to be on the same page. Just from my little pool of clients and friends.
This IS interesting! But it does kind of make sense that having something like that where a traditional responsibility comes with a designated role, could have ripple effects through society as far as people feeling less stressed without the tradition!
So interesting that the GREAT appeal of this channel has very little to do with its relevancy to my own situation! My husband ( the Bruce of the bthomson (I'm Judy😎) does all the shopping and cooking and much else! I worked a regular 40 HR job for 36 years and just didn't take on much else 😴! But... This does not mean that I do not get the ever so slight hurt that many women feel in the diminished attention and care of their spouse! Much of the dissatisfaction in marriage comes from this lessoning of attention! Just because we take each other for granted ( not always a bad thing imo) does not let us off the hook of showing care. But in truth I HATE Hallmark! And resent the money to buy cards, gift bags, and other Holliday riff raff! But a sweet flower or bracelet or candy goes a long way!
That's very cool, that your husband does a lot of the "domestic" labor! I think part of the issue in my household is that there's been a lot of "new" lately, my husband started his job 2-3 years ago, and then there's been kids, and whatnot. So perhaps we will find a better balance with every passing holiday season 😄 I'm with you on the Hallmark stuff, I know some people love the presentation and take the message of care through how a gift is wrapped, but I'm okay with a more practical approach.
This is offtopic Alexa but I just found out that TwoSet Violin is gone!? Wth is happening 😭 i'm sorry for the short rant, I know you're a fan as well 😂
Yes! I've got a viola friend and we're thinking about trying to "fill the void" - for ourselves! - by making some twoset-viola videos (we won't call ourselves that obviously if we do ever post anything 😅)
“Weaponized incompetence” is why most men don’t do well with holiday responsibilities when you entrust them with it. Even if they’re not consciously doing it, they’ve been conditioned their whole lives to know that the women in their life will pick up the slack, and women have been conditioned to pick up the slack (otherwise it’s seen as their fault if things don’t go well). Men have never known the full weight of that responsibility, and know if they do it badly, it won’t matter to them and they’ll probably never have to do it again because they’ve shown they can’t be trusted. But then no blame is placed on them because of the double standard and “boys will be boys” kind of mentality. 😔
It is kind of funny, in our house it's usually me doing the sub-par job at things - not on purpose, but for example when I "clean the kitchen" it's very much a daily job of utility. I'll do the steps but I don't have the bandwidth to stress about if it's "well-done" - certainly not as far as the details go. When my husband cleans the kitchen he takes the time to make sure it's spotless, gets down and examines the counter surfaces, etc. and he does claim that if he didn't work full time, he'd do it at that level every day. And he actually might...but he's kind of like that, and I'm just not, and don't really know how to "become more like that" or reorganize the priorities in my mind (to favor better-cleaned kitchens over playing with kids or doing something creative). So it's also a mismatch of expectations and possibly ability in regards to my own non-weaponized incompetence😅
@ haha very valid as well! Obviously not a blanket statement, I think I was feeling a little heated about the topic after watching your video 😅 But I do think you and your husband might be the exception to the rule! Men and women have generally been conditioned to care about different things sadly.
I usually love your videos, but this one was a miss for me. My husband gives me the greatest, most thoughtful gifts, second only to gifts my father gives me. I really believe this idea of “men bad at shopping” is just an excuse for dudes to hide behind. Not only did my husband get me great gifts this season, he went out of his way to thrift them for me! Which I appreciate more. Is he perfect? Far from it. But I implore people to push against these gender norms.
I hear you! I am also really not a fan of "gender norms" in general. So on further reflection I'm not sure this video best represents my own views of gender either, or what I'd like to perpertuate. Thank you for this feedback, and for sharing so respectfully. I'm not sure if I voiced the idea that "men are bad at shopping" as a general rule (rather than a perception of society), and if I did I am certainly open to retracting that! Maybe the titling/thumbnail of the video is indicative of that, actually, so I will retract the implication as a general rule here in the comments and be more thoughtful about how I handle that in the future. I was trying to be careful to just talk about what I had observed direct examples of here (either other women saying directly on social media, or my own experiences). Gender does seem to be a correlation (rather than cause) of many people having mismatched expectations with their partners over holiday traditions. And there can/will be so many different reasons for why that is. Maybe I'm just not being served the content of same-sex partners talking about holidays or men don't make this content about women, or any number of things - so it's probably a topic that should be taken more care with to be presented in a balanced way - in hindsight not a great choice for a part of a "vlogmas" series where I can't really do that😅 I will be attempting to use more widespread sources of info in my content next year, read some books, research more studies, etc... so hopefully there'll be fewer misses. Fair warning that there may be a couple more questionable ones before the end of vlogmas though 👀 do let me know your thoughts!
I didn't hear anyone saying that men are bad at shopping in the video. I specifically remember hearing it said that men consume just as much as women. I'm not sure why your different personal experience would make some a "miss" for you- it's just a different perspective. The idea conveyed about the division of labor and holidays is objectively accurate for our society as a whole.
One thing I sometimes forget to say in the comments is how wonderful it is to listen to your careful wording and elegant ( always your word!!) thought process! You are one of a kind!
Thank you for this thoughtful take. My husband is in federal prison, so the magic of Christmas is 100% my responsibility for the time being. I don't mind, I love elf shenanigans and mystery, I love saving things I find at thriftstores throughout the year, I make sure my girl is enamored with the season. However, what about me? My girl wants to see me feeling cared for, too. We don't emphasize the gifts aspect of it, but it is inevitably crucial. So, this year, I told her about how I made my mom coupons for chores and whatnot, a great gift for kids to be able to give; but I also got myself a couple of little things and made a note from her elf that says he brought them and hid them for her to be able to give her mother something. She'll be able to wrap them and be able to have the joy of surprising me with something, because she knows I'm unlikely to receive much else given some of my closest people are also in Mexico. All this to say, the joy of being able to give is something we sometimes have to provide for our loved ones ❤️
Sorry you're going through this period without your husband! But that's such a beautiful idea for the elf to bring some gifts for her to give to you! This is a wonderful way to look at it too, that we can help give the joy of giving.
Eve Rodsky talks about this in her book Fair Play. Most men do less domestic work regardless of the income each partner brings in in heterosexual relationships. Many men fundamentally misunderstand that being responsible for a task means 1) automatically knowing that the task needs to be done (not being told that it needs to be done), 2) plan how to do it, 3) execute, 4) and then clean up afterwards. A highly relatable example that Eve Rodsky cited (either in the book or in interviews, I don't recall) taking out the trash. Taking out the trash isn't just taking out the large kitchen trash after being told to take out the trash. It means to know that the trash needs to be taken out, take out the large kitchen trash, then also take out all of the smaller room/bathroom trash, re-line all of the cans, and then putting all of the cans back. In your example of the holiday gifting, if a man does it (big if), steps 1 and 2 (and I'd wager step 4) are missing. On top of that, if a family were to travel to see family during the holidays, then most likely finding the right accomodation, booking, packing the children/pet things, meals (repeat steps 1-4 for all of these) fall on the women as well. You're probably also needing to delegate tasks (possibly intricately planning out) so you won't have to redo what your partner didn't do right. When you really break down how much bandwidth each of these tasks take, it makes perfect sense why the holidays are so disproportionately stressful for many of the female partners. Even if we're "lucky" and work a desk job at the very least this pulls our attention away from it reducing our performance, if we're not so lucky to work in front of the computer we end up spending our leisure time doing all of this work unpaid. It took a very long time and many ongoing conversations for my husband to fully understand and fully take responsibility on domestic labor around the house, but once that foundation is laid, it becomes much easier.
Ooh I think I have heard these "steps" shared before, thank you for sharing the source!
IMHO, not a matter of gender, but of conscientiousness. The latter goes down with stress and residual cognitive load.
(Please be aware books outside academia are usually published without fact-checking. The author has to invite peers for that themselves.)
It's really nice to see you get deeper and deeper into things, going past the surface of consumerism and related behaviours, expectations, traditions and more. Your channel has been great from the start, but it's nice seeing you tie greater things to your initial findings and experiences (idk if that's a good way to say that, oops, I'm not a native speaker)
I have yet to watch some of your other videos from the past days (oh no I'm behind!), but I'm glad I watched this one today. Good stuff
This blog as is truly a gift
And the viola playing is so nice too
Thank you so much!
This conversation in the video and in the comments makes me realize my dad is such a gem. I live in India, so our festivals and holidays are quite different. but for as long as i can remember dad has been the one to organize the festival meals, decorations and gifts. he is the best at wrapping gifts which are always sweet and thoughtful. he has been the one to pass this down to me as well, and though i don't enjoy it as much, i appreciate the effort that goes into making festivals feel special. A cute thing he always does is getting flowers and making a center table arrangement when any of our family members(my cousins / nieces/ nephews) bring their significant others to our home for the first time. puts a smile on everyone's face :)
Love this!
Thank you for all the thoughtful videos, the eloquent wording and stress free music Alexa 🥰 I'm really enjoying your account and I felt the need to express that! I hope you are having a wonderful month and end-of-year period in general.
Thank you, hope your end-of-year is shaping up wonderfully too!
My relationship with my husband is atypical as he is autistic. So giving him a wishlist of a few things I'd like that he can choose from is really helpful for him, since it's harder for him to imagine what others would like (even though he knows me very well). I also had to tell him right out in the beginning of our relationship that I like my presents to be wrapped, even if I know I'm getting that present. Otherwise he wouldn't wrap them. Which ruins some of the magic I think. Haha. We don't have a lot of other holiday traditions as we are atheist, but we always put up our little tree together. Which I really like simply because we put it up together. And I like when he has opinions on what should go wear and what kind of lights there should be and all that. And when it comes to cooking for Christmas, we each make the things that we are good at. So he makes rolls and pies and mashed potatoes. And I do mac and cheese and the turkey (when we used to eat meat). So I think overall our relationship is pretty equal in the Christmas magic making department. haha.
My parents on the other hand... my mom did everything Christmas related. And she still does even though they haven't really celebrated fully since I moved out (in... 2006??). She bought her own presents, as well as everyone else's. She did all the stocking goodies, including her own. (As I got older, I remember that her stocking was less full than mine and my dads, because she didn't have to pretend that it was Santa that brought it. She just filled it up half way, and my dad never made an effort to fill the stocking up. D: ). She cooked all the food. Even today, she is always the one to give my husband and I some money every year (this includes birthdays as well). My dad gets me a present every few years. And I don't think he's bought my mom a present for Christmas in a decade or more... It makes me sad and mad that my mom put in all this work for decades to make Christmas special for me (and my dad), and he never made an effort to make Christmas special for her.
Aw! Well, hopefully I can turn around that loose expectation in my own family as far as getting my husband to do my stocking and organize a gift so that my kids can see as they get older, that they don't automatically have to do that for themselves if their partners don't have the natural inclination - thank you for sharing, it brings that additional perspective of what I'd want my own kids to observe growing up!
We have a similar division of labour, and to some extent my husband doesn't 'care' to organise for gifting for everyone. However, he is very thoughtful with particular gifts, and sources personalised gifts for a few friends/family members that are special to himself (usually myself and a couple others). If there is an expectation set up, he will also put in the effort, e.g. extended family gift swap. We also discuss and purchase our kids' gifts collaboratively, although I usually do a bit more of the legwork because he works a mentally draining job. He appreciates my efforts and thanks me for it, and I enjoy gifting, so it's a win-win!
It’s a tough one. My husband and I either do not gifts each other at all (we buys what we need or want through throughout the year) or if there is something we want around the holiday season we go together and buys it for both us together. So we look, choose, have a nice meal along the way and just buy it. It works for us. My daughter keeps the wish list and we buy from there exact things she wants and then add little something from us as a surprise. This system works for many years.
With others it’s a bit more complicated and my husband does not want to buy any gift at all, so delegating will not work.
He thinks and I agree that adults in our family do not need anything. Their houses are full of things.
I would be happy if we just cook and gather and have fun together, no gifts except for kids.
This sounds like a system we could actually agree on - our families also don't do gifts for adults already, and I think your routine of going together and buying something the other wants, is a great compromise between just telling someone what to "gift" to you or letting them "surprise" you with something you might actually not want. There's still the experience of something special. Thank you for sharing!
I do all the xmas shopping and wrapping and decorating... my husband would have no idea what to buy, where, how, etc... but he helps with the cooking or does most of it actually. He has the more stressful job, much more work meetings, responsibilities, etc... I work full time but it's less stressful. So I do more of the work at home, all the grocery shopping. I guess I don't mind. But yes, if I wasn't around, xmas would be kind of lacking for the kids... I buy a couple of small gifts for my husband but we don't really get gifts for each other. I don't mind not getting gifts, I'm very picky and prefer to buy my own things. If the kids make something handmade or something they thought of and bought for me (with help of dad or another adult) then of course it's lovely but I don't mind if there's no packages for me.
Honestly, if we left all of Christmas up to the gents, I think many homes simply wouldn’t “do” Christmas. Many seem to be in a kind of “I could take it or leave it” mentality, and while they’ll enjoy it if their family/partner want to go to those traditional lengths, they likewise truly wouldn’t be that bothered if it just didn’t happen. (Like a bachelor apartment that never gets decorated because “if it’s functional, it’s fine.”) Sometimes there’s a very utilitarian approach not only to the “sundries” and “utilitarian” gift items, but also to the approach of gift-giving itself (which is why I think so many women are left to shop for themselves). Sometimes I’ll hear, “If you’d like that for Christmas, just put in the order and let me know how much it was, I’ll give you the money for it!” 😅 Uhhh… Yeah, the “magic” is completely lacking there. No mystery, no anticipation - just certainty and delayed gratification. (Especially if he then forgets to wrap it…) Yet I know if the roles were reversed, he’d be more than happy to do that with me. (In fact, sometimes he’ll buy something I wanted to get him for Christmas and he’ll happily hand it to me and tell me I still can! It’s… Very much not what *I* would want, but he seems genuinely comfortable with such a dynamic. It’s interesting because it kind of “fails to live up to my expectations” of what you described - the magical Christmas morning surprise - and yet it’s clear that what he values actually IS the togetherness more than the gift-giving, fancy meal, the decorations, etc. Which makes me wonder how many other households this dynamic may be true for, and what it might say about me/my expectations that I’m the one who’s more on the consumerism hype train of gift-giving than he is. And maybe he’s got it “right” more than I do? 😮 It also brings up an interesting point: if the gift itself isn’t the “goal,” and the togetherness is wonderful but is also “only one ingredient,” then do we circle back to the “anticipation and mystery” element? Is that the missing link that we’re chasing? And if so, why? Because it was a tradition to feel those things as children and associate them with this day? Is it similar to the pulling of the lever to spin a slot machine and watching as each reel slows to a stop? (And maybe also: are men under any kind of social pressure *not* to have these wants/needs for the receipt of gifts, and could that be affecting how they consider, plan, and exchange gifts with their partners beyond the utilitarian and the ‘sure-to-please-since-she-picked-it-herself’?)
Excellent comment with excellent questions!
YES, is pretty much what I'd like to reply to ALL of that with, but some of your questions/points really hit a chord! So I do think that in some ways the "man's approach" IS more "right" and that your point about the anticipation and magic and mystery is also really insightful. And also the point about how men are under social pressure NOT to have the needs/wants for receiving gifts. I think there's something to that too.
And I also think that some of what I've tried to talk about already on here, regarding sharing the sentiment without the gift, either by gifting a "quick consumable" or maybe even a card with a note about your special connection with this person - is not as commonly accepted between men as it is between women. I could be wrong here but from my general awareness, it's not odd for female friends to gift each other chocolates or favorite snacks, small but useful personal care products or even just a card with a heartfelt note of friendship...but my perception is that if men did this for each other it could be a bit weird or unexpected. And so if I wanted some of the "sentiment" from my husband to keep the "surprise" or the magic, in the form of a card or small but thoughtful gift, he might have less experience in this "field of gifting" than other women do.
It's also some kind of Catch-22, it feels like, because I don't really know what the "ideal outcome" even is. I don't want my husband to arbitrarily make sure to have a sentimental gift just to fulfill my expectations - even now I am realizing I don't really want to just get something I actually want and have it "from him" under the tree. I still feel like it would be special if he did put some effort into some kind of gift, but I also acknowledge that I need to put effort into not "expecting" some level of that gift and also working on just being happy to have the family time and connection.
it's a self-perpetuating cycle, too - by the time i was ten im pretty sure i was doing more to help with holiday dinners than my own father. peeling potatoes, making the fruit salad, setting the table and filling drinks and serving desserts and plating up and refilling appetizers - hell, i and my sister took over apple pie responsibility entirely when we were twelve. i don't recall exactly how much my dad did, but i do know he would stay in the living room almost the entire span of the day before dinner. It's not to disparage my father - he was the breadwinner, on a normal day the division of labor made more sense - but the difference is stark. the non-food holiday responsibilities are somewhat more understandable in my family's case, as frequently my dad was straight-up at work when things like family gifts were bought and wrapped, but, yanno. the single income family model has changed and the expected women's labor hasn't
It’s almost like women learnt to become caregivers and breadwinners BUT men only learnt to be breadwinners so expecting them to be caregivers without practice is like learning a new language as an adult. It’s tempting to speak to them in the language they understand, if you know the shared language but then they will never learn the new language (which requires the ability to learn from mistakes). If you expect less from them, then they may never learn but if you expect too much they may also give up. Ultimately, it’s a choice to learn the language and cannot be forced. Therefore as women we have to ask ourselves what are we willing to allow in our lives? Better to be alone than in bad company…
Yes! We did recently host Thanksgiving, and to his credit my husband did do a lot of the cooking, and his family were the guests. So it's not that the work in our household is totally separated, and I guess thinking about it in regards to the family models, we might be mostly okay. I have a part time job/income, and therefore do a bit more at home, he has the full time job/income and does a bit less at home.
I do also feel like there's progress to be made on both sides for us, as far as thoughtfulness vs. expectations, and deconstructing my relationship with consumer trends is definitely proving to be helpful in my own recalibration!
@@Alexas.nobuyyear I didn’t mean to project there, obviously I was referring to myself as I don’t know your situation. It sounds like your situation is working for you. I do find it a bit complicated because while we want to give women more work opportunities, if they will be disadvantaged at home or in their family life as a result, then can we really say it’s advocating for female rights? On the other hand, without women being part of the workforce and men doing their bit to support this, then nothing will change… perhaps it’s about childcare being shared with the fathers? More paternity pay? Changing our suspicious attitudes when we see a man with a child…not expecting every woman to be defined by motherhood but also not devaluing it…sorry I went on a tangent
Your rendition of this carol is your best so far! Sweet phrasing and lovely tone! ( They have all been nice!)
Oh man, this one was hard! I usually do them by ear but read off a hymnal for this one (and tomorrow's? I think) and it actually made it more challenging (I thought it'd be easier, but alas). I'm glad you liked it!
💯, I used to be the person buying gifts, and I hated it, like why is it my responsibility? Gifts for my husband friends kids, etc, and before you know it, I had to get 10 extra kids gifting duty, then I decided I am not doing it anymore, and debated about it for one season, then totally dropped that gifting duty the following year.
My immediate family have for quite a while only bought gifts for each other from their wish list. I am happy to say this year most of my gifts have been thrifted, gotten for free, or handcrafted by me.
How lovely!
As far as division of labor, my dad absolutely loves giving gifts. He loves picking out things for his loved ones, and I've seen the joy on his face while he's searching for something. He also loves cooking so he does most of that.
And my husband has allergies so his need to clean is higher than my own. Because of this, he developed early on cleaning habits before we met. So I hate that he has allergies and suffers, but I do get a benefit of that as he cleaned so much. He also enjoys cooking where I hate it, so he does most of that as well. But also his digestive system is a little bit sensitive, so he can't eat many things that I love. So sometimes we eat separate meals where I'm making a sandwich and having yogurt and he's cooking a Korean meal. We don't have children and we both work so division of labor is mostly equal, but the frequency is higher than I prefer so he takes care of the additional cleaning that he feels personally necessary because of his allergies.
I'm glad this is not the dynamic with my wife and family, but I will be considerate to ensure that it doesn't become an issue.
I only feel guilty for not getting men a present if they, themselves, go out of their way to get me gifts AND it has been a pattern for them to do so. That is, I can reasonably expect them to go out of the way for me. I do feel bad for not reciprocating if that's the case.
This is such an interesting question! In my experience it varies couple to couple (though I do agree this type of holiday work falls to women more often). I take on the responsibility of buying the gifts and encouraging the Xmas traditions because I love it. I would want to do this no matter what my husband chose to do. On the other hand, my brother is the primary gift giver in his marriage with my sister-in-law. This makes me wonder if it’s partially about the holiday traditions of your family of origin? Maybe the family you grow up in and the particular ways they celebrated this season impacts these tendencies whether you’re a man or a woman 🤷♀️
That's a great point! I don't know at all what happened in my husband's family as a kid, and I'm actually not even sure how my parents did gifts for us as kids, who was behind it. It could've very well been a joint effort. Some of the increased responsibility I feel about it may also be due to the fact that there's just more holiday traditions for us now than I had when I was a kid, so this was an enlightening idea!
I guess my husband is the woman in the marriage. Holes everywhere in the boards of the house from the Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation like lights. He spends like there is no tomorrow when it’s Christmas. He complains that I am a hoarder but he is the one stacking up gift wrap, ribbon, Xmas trees, decor, etc… He never shops frugally. He pays above retail prices-and for junk gifts many people won’t use. (One year I got a Justin Bieber electric toothbrush.) Then he complains in January when the credit card bills come due.
Oh wow, I'm guessing the toothbrush played an iconic Bieber song? 😅
Yes! The funny thing is that it’s probably now a great collectible, like ninja turtles. But I sold it in a yard sale for $5.
I'm lucky, sort of, I guess...my husband is what I (affectionately) call a sentimental schlub. He is super family oriented and puts a lot of time into trying to source appropriate things for our kids. Like, more time than I want him to. The hard thing for him is that honestly I myself usually don't have a long wishlist and the more affordable and easy things he could get me like coffee or makeup, he actively despises and I already have too much of it anyway. 😅 We also have frequent discussions about what our holiday plans are, which relatives we most need/want to visit, will we have a tree etc. My own parents had a more "traditional" division of labor as far as I can tell, and while they sometimes made gender-based jokes about stuff I have the impression that they had sorted things out that way and it suited them, and it would have been deeply annoying to one of them had the other encroached on their turf, so to speak.
Yes! These things can become entrenched!
Haha love that! Honestly I'm not sure how much I'd want our system to change, perhaps really the only thing I'd try to do next year is putting the gifts for ME back onto my husband, (and being okay if he doesn't do that well 😆) but I really don't mind the rest of how things go.
And I guess to be fair my husband does do the whole "tree" thing each year since he prefers to have a real one, he'll get it into the house and we'll decorate it - not to mention fixing things around the house generally (plumbing, electrics, woodwork, drywall, etc, he's had most of these as actual jobs in his young adulthood) in a practical sense. So while the "gifts/sentimental/kids stuff" isn't really his realm, pretty much all the practical "stuff" IS very much his realm and responsibility, even if that's still a pretty traditional role-based division for us at the moment!
Gifting in my extended family usually falls to the women, although all of the boys when they DO buy gifts themselves are very generous and thoughtful :) I think sometimes it's a lack of time and inspiration - it is actually hard to buy gifts for people who buy everything they want themselves. Maybe our hyper consumption makes things especially hard for them, and if we didn't satisfy all of our desires so quickly they'd enjoy it more. Something about that rings true for my family at least. When I moved house my brother raised several plants for my new veggie garden as a Christmas gift, it must have taken him ages.
If the catering were up to my brothers it would be a more relaxed affair... we'd just have a BBQ and everyone would be less stressed!
I find a wish list helpful... I consider it a list of things I would really enjoy and get use out of if I had them - a "like to have" list, but not a "must have" list. Things that are a must have I get myself, unless I know someone else is definitely getting them for me - hardly anything is a must have, I don't really need anything besides a few replacements when using things up or wearing them out.
I think I will get there regarding the wish list! For someone who's trying to re-calibrate a bad relationship with hyper-consumerism like I was, it may be good to "take a wishlist break" but then get back to it when it can be reasonably utilized!
Nothing wrong with a good Christmas barbecue, provided it's not Northern-hemisphere-cold outside!
I’d love an unconventional xmas feast with BBQ to be honest! Though rituals offer balance and certainty, especially in chaotic times.
I prefer to pick my own gifts, as practically, if I were to receive a gift anyway, it seems like a better use of the money.
But from a no buy perspective, abstaining from the process of picking a gift seems very much in the spirit of a no buy! A worthy idea!
I do think asking a partner to swap roles as an exercise is a good idea, to experience and appreciate what the other goes through.
Forgot to add, I do enjoy surprises, usually in form of a nice meal or activity!
Oh another really interesting thing about kKorea, is that after covid and the lockdown for several years here, families to stop doing the traditional memorial ceremony 제사. It's 100% the responsibility of the wife of the first son, and many many families are just not doing it anymore at all.
I asked my clients how that makes them feel about losing this tradition, and I don't know if Koreans are just less sentimental, but most of them say that it's much better this way. And that's not the wife of the first son saying this all the time, it's the mothers, the sons, the children, everyone seems to be on the same page. Just from my little pool of clients and friends.
This IS interesting! But it does kind of make sense that having something like that where a traditional responsibility comes with a designated role, could have ripple effects through society as far as people feeling less stressed without the tradition!
So interesting that the GREAT appeal of this channel has very little to do with its relevancy to my own situation! My husband ( the Bruce of the bthomson (I'm Judy😎) does all the shopping and cooking and much else! I worked a regular 40 HR job for 36 years and just didn't take on much else 😴! But... This does not mean that I do not get the ever so slight hurt that many women feel in the diminished attention and care of their spouse! Much of the dissatisfaction in marriage comes from this lessoning of attention! Just because we take each other for granted ( not always a bad thing imo) does not let us off the hook of showing care. But in truth I HATE Hallmark! And resent the money to buy cards, gift bags, and other Holliday riff raff! But a sweet flower or bracelet or candy goes a long way!
Btw Bruce does this! 💐🍬🍭💫
That's very cool, that your husband does a lot of the "domestic" labor! I think part of the issue in my household is that there's been a lot of "new" lately, my husband started his job 2-3 years ago, and then there's been kids, and whatnot. So perhaps we will find a better balance with every passing holiday season 😄
I'm with you on the Hallmark stuff, I know some people love the presentation and take the message of care through how a gift is wrapped, but I'm okay with a more practical approach.
Love the phrase " kids and whatnot!".
Maybe tmi but Bruce lost his mom when he was 10 and his dad worked two jobs. So Bruce was the homemaker. He is very good at it!
One year i got a dustbuster from my future husband. I know men like machines so it was thoughtful, but i was young and cried lol.
I did not say why I was crying. I made something up and said I missed a passed relative.
This does seem to be a common theme actually - at least it's practical I guess 😒
I think women take over the Christmas shopping because women usuall enjoy shopping more than men do.
Clever titles!
😁
This is offtopic Alexa but I just found out that TwoSet Violin is gone!? Wth is happening 😭 i'm sorry for the short rant, I know you're a fan as well 😂
Yes! I've got a viola friend and we're thinking about trying to "fill the void" - for ourselves! - by making some twoset-viola videos (we won't call ourselves that obviously if we do ever post anything 😅)
@@Alexas.nobuyyearomg 🤣🤣🤣 and so it begins!! the rise of the viola 😂
Maybe off topic, is the thumbnail a recreation of the "We can do it!" or am I interpreting too much into it?
Pretty sure that's it!
It's a very loose interpretation! 😁
“Weaponized incompetence” is why most men don’t do well with holiday responsibilities when you entrust them with it. Even if they’re not consciously doing it, they’ve been conditioned their whole lives to know that the women in their life will pick up the slack, and women have been conditioned to pick up the slack (otherwise it’s seen as their fault if things don’t go well). Men have never known the full weight of that responsibility, and know if they do it badly, it won’t matter to them and they’ll probably never have to do it again because they’ve shown they can’t be trusted. But then no blame is placed on them because of the double standard and “boys will be boys” kind of mentality. 😔
It is kind of funny, in our house it's usually me doing the sub-par job at things - not on purpose, but for example when I "clean the kitchen" it's very much a daily job of utility. I'll do the steps but I don't have the bandwidth to stress about if it's "well-done" - certainly not as far as the details go. When my husband cleans the kitchen he takes the time to make sure it's spotless, gets down and examines the counter surfaces, etc. and he does claim that if he didn't work full time, he'd do it at that level every day. And he actually might...but he's kind of like that, and I'm just not, and don't really know how to "become more like that" or reorganize the priorities in my mind (to favor better-cleaned kitchens over playing with kids or doing something creative). So it's also a mismatch of expectations and possibly ability in regards to my own non-weaponized incompetence😅
@ haha very valid as well! Obviously not a blanket statement, I think I was feeling a little heated about the topic after watching your video 😅 But I do think you and your husband might be the exception to the rule! Men and women have generally been conditioned to care about different things sadly.
I usually love your videos, but this one was a miss for me. My husband gives me the greatest, most thoughtful gifts, second only to gifts my father gives me. I really believe this idea of “men bad at shopping” is just an excuse for dudes to hide behind. Not only did my husband get me great gifts this season, he went out of his way to thrift them for me! Which I appreciate more. Is he perfect? Far from it. But I implore people to push against these gender norms.
I hear you! I am also really not a fan of "gender norms" in general. So on further reflection I'm not sure this video best represents my own views of gender either, or what I'd like to perpertuate. Thank you for this feedback, and for sharing so respectfully.
I'm not sure if I voiced the idea that "men are bad at shopping" as a general rule (rather than a perception of society), and if I did I am certainly open to retracting that! Maybe the titling/thumbnail of the video is indicative of that, actually, so I will retract the implication as a general rule here in the comments and be more thoughtful about how I handle that in the future.
I was trying to be careful to just talk about what I had observed direct examples of here (either other women saying directly on social media, or my own experiences). Gender does seem to be a correlation (rather than cause) of many people having mismatched expectations with their partners over holiday traditions. And there can/will be so many different reasons for why that is. Maybe I'm just not being served the content of same-sex partners talking about holidays or men don't make this content about women, or any number of things - so it's probably a topic that should be taken more care with to be presented in a balanced way - in hindsight not a great choice for a part of a "vlogmas" series where I can't really do that😅
I will be attempting to use more widespread sources of info in my content next year, read some books, research more studies, etc... so hopefully there'll be fewer misses. Fair warning that there may be a couple more questionable ones before the end of vlogmas though 👀 do let me know your thoughts!
I didn't hear anyone saying that men are bad at shopping in the video. I specifically remember hearing it said that men consume just as much as women. I'm not sure why your different personal experience would make some a "miss" for you- it's just a different perspective. The idea conveyed about the division of labor and holidays is objectively accurate for our society as a whole.