I thought I had the perfect Christmas gift, and I did, I just wasn’t aware which gift I was getting that was perfect.

I had lined things up just right, or so I thought. Now that it’s cold, I would make my husband a bathrobe. I had not sewn much this year, but I knew I could handle it. I would make his robe match my bathrobe, which was black with a red stripe, by making it red with a black stripe. How cute! The robe was made of polartec as soft as anything, and by working diligenly in the morning before he woke up, I got it put together without him having a clue he was getting a Real Hand Made gfit for Christmas. I was so excited.

Meanwhile, he had mentioned that he’d always wanted a lava lamp. “What do I get for Papa?” my daughter asked me.

The lure of the lava lamps -- the red one is his, the green one belongs to our son -- mezmerizes.

“I don’t know,” I told her, “but let me check at WalMart to see if they’ve got some cheapo lava lamps. He said he liked those.” Sure enough, they did, and I snagged one. This was good.

Little did I know that the lava lamp was about to steal the robe’s thunder.

It wasn’t too bad at first. He thanked me nicely for the robe and set up the lamp. It was warm in the house today so he took the robe off and I hung it up. Meanwhile the lamp was heating up. He went back to check it regualrly. About an hour later, as it was finally swelling, getting ready to bubble, he called everyone over. “The lava lamp, it’s working!” he told us. This was real news. His sons also cheered the lamps cheapo wax bubbles. Okay, so the lamp is cute. But …

Next I found him on the web, reading up on the lava lamp. It turns out lava lamps were  invented by a guy from Singapore (no surprise) patented in England, and sold to an American company for merchandising. The birthdate of the lava lamp was very close to our own, in the 60′s.

“I always wanted one but I could never afford it as a kid,” he said, looking at it with admiring eyes.  “Look at it go!”

Finally I had to confront him. “You know, I thought the robe was a pretty big deal too.”

He laughed. “The robe is nice, but you know how we men are, we love our toys.”

I had forgotten that. I console myself now with the belief that when the cold wind blows he will put the robe on and think about his caring and dutiful wife and her labors. But I doubt it will ever have the emotional glow of the lava lamp, that long desired item from childhood that finally came to his home. After all, just about evey guy has a bathrobe. But how many have a lava lamp?

Well, they did say for better or for worse, and the truth is, this isn’t that bad. Now I’m going off to the Joe Review to see if he got what he wanted for Christmas.