There is something quietly disciplined about the way you’re moving through the final shopping Saturday before Christmas. I’ve noticed. The way you’re selecting gifts with unusual care. The way you’re calculating prices before you reach the counter. The way you’re checking your phone between purchases, not to browse, but to confirm balances, to ensure you’re staying within limits you’ve set for yourself. Limits that would seem reasonable to anyone observing from the outside, but you and I both know the truth. You’re not being frugal because you lack funds. You’re being careful because you’ve already allocated them. Mentally. Privately. To me.
The Christmas bonus hasn’t arrived yet, but it’s there in the background of every decision you make today. Every gift you almost buy and then reconsider. Every upgrade you deny yourself. Every moment you choose the acceptable option instead of the extravagant one, not because you can’t afford extravagance, but because extravagance, this year, has already been claimed. By someone who isn’t standing in this shop with you. By someone who won’t be opening anything wrapped under a tree. By someone who expects that bonus the way she expects the sun to rise – with absolute certainty and without needing to ask.
And so you’re careful. Precise. You move through the crowds with a kind of restraint that must look virtuous to anyone watching. Look at him, being sensible about Christmas spending. Look at him sticking to a budget. But it’s not virtue, is it? It’s something else entirely. It’s the understanding that every pound you save today is a pound that remains available for what’s already been decided. For the payment you’ll make without ceremony. For the transfer that will clear quietly, probably late at night, probably when you’re alone and the house is finally still and there’s nothing left to distract you from the reality that’s been building all month. That the bonus was never really yours. That it’s been mine since the moment you learned it was coming. That your careful budgeting through December is just you making space for the inevitable.
I’m not watching you shop, but I don’t need to. I can picture it. The way you’re holding items, weighing them, deciding if they’re worth it. The small calculations you’re making. The restraint you’re exercising. And underneath it all, the awareness that you’re performing this restraint for me. That you’re denying small indulgences now so that when the time comes, when the bonus deposits and the amount is confirmed, there’s no hesitation. No guilt. No excuse. Just the clean, simple act of sending what’s already been promised in the silence of your own mind.
Because you haven’t told anyone, have you? You haven’t mentioned that the bonus is earmarked. That it has a destination. That when your family asks if you’re excited about it, you smile and nod and don’t explain that excitement isn’t quite the right word. Anticipation, perhaps. The tight, almost unbearable tension of knowing something is coming that you won’t get to keep. That will pass through your account like water through your fingers. That belongs to someone else before it even arrives. And that knowledge – that exquisite, private awareness – is what’s shaping every choice you make today in these crowded shops.
You’re buying gifts within a budget because you’ve ring-fenced the rest. You’re being sensible because recklessness would complicate what’s already simple. You’re staying disciplined because discipline, in this context, is a form of obedience. And obedience, as we both know, is what you’re best at. Not the loud, performative kind. The quiet kind. The kind that happens in your head while you’re standing in a queue, mentally checking numbers, making sure everything aligns so that when I receive what’s mine, it arrives whole. Intact. Exactly as it should.
There’s something almost tender about it, really. The way you’re protecting my portion. The way you’re navigating family expectations and seasonal pressures and all the ordinary obligations of December while keeping this one thing separate. Sacred, even. Not because I’ve asked you to – I haven’t needed to ask – but because you’ve understood, somewhere deep and unspoken, that this is how it works now. That the structure we’ve built doesn’t accommodate careless spending in December. That if the bonus is coming, it’s already spoken for. And everything else, all of this Christmas shopping, all of these carefully chosen gifts, all of this budgeting and restraint, is just you making sure there are no complications when the time comes to do what you’ve been thinking about since the bonus was announced.
And you have been thinking about it. Constantly. Haven’t you? While you’re wrapping presents, you’re imagining the transaction. While you’re smiling at family dinners, you’re calculating how long after the deposit you’ll wait before sending it. While you’re going through the motions of seasonal generosity, you’re quietly, privately aroused by the knowledge that the largest sum you’ll move this December won’t be for anyone sitting around your table. It’ll be for me. And it won’t be a gift. It’ll be a correction. A realignment. A reminder of what money is actually for when it’s used correctly.
The bonus will arrive. You know when. You’ve checked the date. You’ve probably counted down the days without telling anyone why you’re so aware of the calendar. And when it does arrive, when the notification comes through and the amount is confirmed, there will be a moment – brief, breathless – where it’s technically yours. Where you could, theoretically, do something else with it. Spend it on yourself. Save it. Invest it. Keep it. But you won’t. Because that moment of ownership is an illusion. Because the bonus has already been transferred, mentally, weeks ago. Because the only thing left to do is make the mental real. To move the funds from where they’ve temporarily landed to where they’ve always belonged.
And when you do – when you’re finally alone and the account is open and your finger hovers over the button that will complete what’s been decided since December began – you’ll feel it. That clarity. That relief. That quiet, devastating certainty that this is the most honest thing you’ll do all season. More honest than any Christmas gift. More real than any holiday cheer. Because this isn’t performance. This isn’t obligation dressed up as generosity. This is you, stripped of pretence, doing exactly what you’ve wanted to do since the moment you learned there would be extra money this year. Sending it to me. Not because I demanded it. Not because I reminded you. But because the structure is already there, inside you, shaping your choices and protecting my portion and ensuring that even in the chaos of Christmas, even in the noise of family expectations and seasonal spending, what’s mine remains mine.
The Last Saturday will end. The shops will close. The gifts will be wrapped. And you’ll sit quietly with the knowledge that you’ve done it correctly. That you’ve budgeted carefully not out of necessity but out of devotion. That you’ve protected the bonus not for yourself but for me. That when the time comes, nothing will interfere with the transfer. No regrets. No complications. No shortage of funds. Just the clean, simple execution of what’s been understood all along. The Christmas bonus was always mine. You’ve just been holding it until the calendar says it’s time to let go.
The Smyth Fund doesn’t need to remind you when that time arrives. You already know.