Gift for Dad: Xmas, bday, or Father's Day

For my Dad this Christmas I gave him: A Year of Father-Daughter Dates!

My dad is so hard to buy for. He’s not the kinda guy who likes to receive pjs or slippers so it makes it really hard to figure out what to get him. However, this year I wanted to do something really special for him.

I decided to give my dad the gift of time-with ME! He loves spending time with his first born daughter so I thought this would be a great way to show my dad how much he means to me.

First of all a year of dates can get very expensive, so I got creative. I mixed in some great planned, pre-paid dates that I bought but added in several father-daughter dates that are absolutely FREE. My dad loves going to museums and at my local library they offer free passes so I included dates to these fun local places. Once a month you can get free passes to great museums here in Boston at local libraries as long as you book earlier (usually the month before). 

So I organized an explanation for each date for each month in a word document, printed them out, and got a nice box and envelopes to put all the dates in. I also created a word document and created 12 boxes and typed the name of the month in each box to print and put on each envelope.

Here is the note I included in the box to explain the dates to my dad:

Merry Christmas Dad,

For Christmas this year I want to give you the gift of father daughter time- just you and me. Here are 12 envelopes, one for each month over the next year. Each envelope contains a pre-planned, (mostly) pre-paid father-daughter date.   All 12 dates are different.

Let’s look at a calendar and decide on our days of fun ahead of time.  So right from the beginning of the month, we’ll have a fun day on the calendar to look forward to. 
I love you Daddio and can’t wait to spend all this extra time with you!

Starbucks Date

Movie Date

 Here’s a breakdown of all the dates with my dad:

1.     January- Starbucks Date, included $25 gift card

2.     February-Movie Date, included $25 gift card to the movies

3.     March-Tickets to a live show at his favorite theater: Oliver at Trinity Rep in Providence Rhode Island

4.     April-Tickets to Paint Nite. A night of painting a famous painting and drinks at a local bar

5.     May-Museum of Science- FREE from Library

6.     June-Run along Charles River together-FREE

7.     July-Block Island trip, we will plan a weekend to go to one of his favorite places. I’ll buy the ferry tickets

8.     August-Bike ride in Boston, I’ll pay for us to rent bikes

9.     September-John F. Kennedy Museum-FREE from library

10.  October-Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum- FREE from library

11.   November- Four Seasons Date- grab lunch and tea at the restaurant in the hotel (1 of my dad's favorite spots) on me

12.   December- Musuem of Fine Arts- FREE from library.

Tickets to Oliver

September: JFK Museum

My Daddio really loved this gift! It was so easy to do and packed a big punch! I think it would be perfect for a birthday or Father's Day present!

All the dates in their envelopes

Helpful Tips if you want to do something like this for your dad: Be creative, many of these dates are free! Also, livingsocial and groupon are perfect places to purchases good deals on date ideas!

**This gift for my dad was inspired by my first wedding anniversary gift for my husband which I will include in my next post!**

New Year, New Blog. Plus Valentine's Day Gift Ideas

Hi there!

I am so excited to finally enter my first ever blog post. I've been wanting to write a blog for a while now to share my teaching, party planning, fitness motivation, outfit inspiration, and gift ideas with others. I am also really pumped to start reading other blogs to get the creative juices flowing.

I thought I start my first blog by sharing one of my recent Christmas gift ideas that may be helpful for you out there who are struggling to come up with an idea for your significant others for Valentine's Day.

For my hubby this Xmas I did: 12 Days of Christmas! 

This year for Christmas I couldn't think of anything to get my husband Ray. What do you get someone that has everything, right? So I thought I'd get creative. I saw this idea on Pinterest to do 12 Days of Christmas. The 12 days before Christmas you begin giving your hubby a gift a day leading up to Christmas. I knew I wanted to make sure he had a gift to open on Christmas Day so I made sure the 12th day was the 25th. I tried to mix in inexpensive gifts with some pricey ones to not break the bank as 12 individual gifts can get a little crazy. I found these really cute gift tags on Pinterest here. I printed out the tags along with a little card explaining how the gifts were going to work and attached those tags as I wrapped up his gifts.

The tag

The card

Here's what the little card said:

"The 12 days of Christmas is the song that I sing, for the next twelve days, a present I will bring. Today is the day when you may start. Unwrap one a day with love from my heart. Having you as a husband is a dream come true. This is my way of showing you: Merry Christmas to YOU!"

So I gave my hubs the card on the first day of Christmas along with his first gift: tickets to a burlesque version of the Nutcracker called “The Slutcracker” playing at our favorite local theater.

I’ve never seen him so excited about going to a live show before!

Here’s the list of all the gifts I got him:

1.     Tickets to the Burlesque show

2.     2 thermal long sleeved shirts

3.     His favorite underwear

4.     Nice ski socks

5.     Beanie ski hat

6.     2 TV series on DVD

7.     Tickets to Ice Bar in Boston (bar made out of ice)

8.     Flannel shirt

9.     Headphones for ski helmet

10.   Folding Poker table and set (got a really good deal at Home Goods for $40)

11.   Tickets to Medieval Feast in Boston (live show and dinner)

12.   Ski poles he really wanted

You could do this for Valentine’s Day if you wanted! Give your significant other a gift a day starting on February 1st!

I was also inspired to maybe try this 14 Days of Valentines idea for my husband this Valentine's Day, which is a nice inexpensive but creative idea: click here

Here's another great inexpensive idea to make an "All About You" basket to include your honey's favorite things along with 101 reasons you love them, click here:

The idea is to be creative with the gifts, you don’t have to go crazy and spend a whole lot of money but you can make your significant other feel really special!

Thanks so much for checking out my first blog post! :)