by Francesca Serritella
My mom’s birthday is a month away, and I’m wracking my brain about what to get her—but really, it’s my favorite thing to obsess over. Here’s a Classic Column, which might be new to you as it never ran in the Inquirer, about birthday shopping for my favorite person.
When it comes to giving a gift to your mother, kids get a pass for a long time. But when your mother has a milestone birthday like sixty, a macaroni necklace will not do.
It was time for me to get my mother a grown-up gift.
This is not to say that I haven’t gotten her nice things in the past, but this year I wanted it to be really special. Maybe because I know that my mom is single, I wanted to get her a gift as nice as a husband would get.
Not one of her husbands—a really good husband.
I got in my head that it had to be jewelry.
I’d never bought a piece of fine jewelry before. First, I studied. For months leading up to her birthday, every moment of procrastination was spent searching the websites of jewelers and department stores for every item within my budget.
Since I couldn’t afford ninety percent of their inventory, this took less time than you might think.
After obsessively zeroing in on a few favorite options, I decided to make a trip to Cartier. Embarrassingly, I’d dressed up for the occasion. I wore a shirtdress that I thought said, “I use ‘summer’ as a verb.”
Click to read the full column on Francesca’s WebsiteCopyright © Francesca Serritella | www.francescaserritella.com | @FrancescaSerritellaauthor | @fserritella