Illustration // Sharon Dennard

When my husband and I first started dating, we did what many young couples did. We took the love languages quiz to better understand how we like to show and receive affection. We sat at either end of my rock-hard Urban Outfitters couch in my studio apartment in Hollywood and took the quiz with seriousness and secrecy akin to the SATs.

Now, if you’ve ever taken the “official” love languages quiz at the back of the 1992 book by Gary Chapman, you know that the scales are tipped. “Would you prefer your partner write you a thoughtful and meaningful note just because, or a gift?”

The gift option always felt a tad bit judgmental. Like, “Oh, you would prefer a thing to an actual emotional connection? FOR SHAME.” So it was no surprise that when Evan and I shared the quiz results with one another, we both had gift-giving ranked 5th out of all five love languages.

We looked at each other’s results, and I blurted out, “Just so you know, I really like gifts!” Evan let out an exhale of relief, “Oh, thank god. Me too.” Sure enough, many gifts, and many years later, we retook the quiz. More secure in our relationship, our results looked much different. I had gift-giving number one, and Evan had it at number two.

The Quiz Results Circa 2016

Recently, with the rising consciousness of rampant consumerism, fast fashion, and wasteful purchasing, gift-giving has gotten a bad rap. “We don’t really do gifts.” It is a badge of pride for so many people out there – and if that’s genuinely how you feel, then go with god – but I’m here to say that gift-giving can be great. It can foster connection, create memories, and even change someone’s life.

(Dear reader: Gag. I know. That sounds so lame. But I honestly can’t think of any other way to say it, and I do believe it! So please accept my apology for this brief foray into cringe.)

So, with gift-giving season in full swing, I thought it only fitting to dedicate this month’s Dressed Out to one of my favorite gifts. May this change a little about how you feel about gifts and empower you to shout your love of gifts from the rooftops.

Enthralled with the Neiman's 1995 Christmas book that included such goodies as "His and Her's Name a Jet" (???) and a Judith Leiber pill case shaped like a penguin.

I must confess I fucking love a catalog. I know I’m not alone when I say this because when I went on eBay to try and purchase a vintage J Crew catalog for my cheeky lil’ photo above - I was floored to find out that the going rate for ones from the 90s can be as much as a few hundred bucks. (!!!!) So, if you happen to have a stack lying around… post those bad boys.

But I digress. Something about the holidays makes lust for the day of plentiful catalogs coming in the mail. The American Girl Doll catalog was, at one time, my roadmap for Christmas. I would sit down and seriously circle everything I could even dream of wanting and hand the catalog to my mother, fully knowing I’d gotten carried away.

J.C Penny, dELiA*s, Harry & David, and if I was really really lucky, I would come across my fancy cousin’s copy of the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book and peruse while dreaming of one day adding something like “His And Hers Shar Pei puppies” to my Christmas list.

May you be graced with His and Her shar pei puppies this year. ✨ 

This love was genetic. There was little my dad didn’t order from L.L. Bean. And this was the 90s, peak-Bean. Monogrammed luggage for our family road trips, slippers, that little bear in the coat they have every Christmas. It was easy to open the catalog and find him something for Christmas.

But one Christmas when I was ten, I found something in the L.L. Bean catalog for myself. A cherry red wool peacoat. It was classic, sophisticated, and, dare I say, chic. And most exciting of all, it came in my size. (Dear reader, as I've mentioned before, I have always been a big girl. At ten, I was 5’5 and a size 16.)

But it was pricey. Or at least what I perceived to be pricey at ten. Never mind that it was absolutely less than the entire American Girl Doll catalog I circled the year before. Something about it made me think – I won’t get that coat for Christmas. That’s a fancy adult coat.

My parents were very aloof about it, too. Because of my size, they were careful to make sure I wasn’t going around looking like a full-on adult. A fact which, at the time, I hated, but when I see so many other plus-size women talk about having to spend their youth looking like Carol from accounting, I’m grateful for their vigilance.

I kept an eagle eye on the mail. I watched out for my parents shuffling any bulky packages from the front porch to their ceramic studio, which, at Christmas time, turned into “Santa’s Workshop” and was off-limits to my brother and me. But nada. I was resigned to a no-coat Christmas.

"Every time I wore it, I felt cool and pretty. This is all you can ask for as a kid about to enter middle school."

But then, on Christmas morning, we walked into the living room to do our stockings, and there it was. Draped over a chair with a piece of paper over it. (So as not to crease the wool – my mom, ever a clothes queen.) I took the paper off, saw the red wool, and literally leaped into the air. Apparently, the coat arrived Christmas Eve afternoon – which nearly gave my mother a heart attack – a fact she still recounts to this day.

I loved that coat. (Of course, since it’s L.L. Bean, they still have it! But no longer in bright red. Kind of into this camel color, though…) Every time I wore it, I felt cool and pretty. This is all you can ask for as a kid about to enter middle school. And I wore it for years. Eventually, it got shuffled to the back of my closet as I opted for a cropped leopard faux fur coat with bracelet sleeves that I wore in my Edie Sedgwick era.

But recently, I pulled out that coat on a trip home to Houston. On the lapel - a small rhinestone handbag brooch. (Once a Purse Girl, always a Purse Girl.) I slipped it on, and it still fit. The perk of being an adult size at ten!

*The* Coat. It's too bad it's 80 degrees here in LA in December...

It’s funny how often I think about that coat. It’s not something I would typically think of as my style. It’s a little preppy, and there’s not a bit of faux fur on it. (If you know me, you know that cropped leopard coat was the first of many in a long line of leopard coats in my closet.) But something about that coat spoke to my imagination. A kind of chic working girl fantasy that, when I wore it, made me feel like Mary Tyler Moore. But more than that, I think it was my first “adult” gift. It wasn’t a toy, doll, or a game – it was an investment.

(Dear reader: I need to note that my mom insists that the coat was no more than $100 at the time. But again, in my imagination, it was basically Gucci.)

Oh, Mary. ❤️ Photo // USA Today

I still think of this coat as one of my all-time favorite gifts. Not just because it was cute. But what it meant – I was growing up.