Gifts that Keep on Giving

I know you've seen them already: the little memes popping up on social media, scaring you to death with how few weeks remain between here and Christmas. I know!!! It's still September, for crying out loud. Why are we talking about Christmas?

Well.

Because it's just a dozen weeks away. Gulp.

I've actually been working on some gift ideas for a post that will come out later, in a much more appropriate time frame to discuss such things! Someone asked me for a post like that last year, but I didn't have the time I needed to put together a good one, so I started early {months ago} this year and have been adding to it as I get inspired.

Meanwhile, I thought I would throw this idea out to you, because it's something Ryan and I have begun to do, and it's working well for us. Maybe it would work well for you, too!

When I was single, I dreamed of my someday when I could buy gifts for a husband, wrap them up, and put them under a tree. It was one of those dreams that I felt would somehow make marriage more complete for me.

And then, of course, we got all crazy and got married 23 days before Christmas, which threw off our entire Christmas season - in a most delightful way. We barely got the house decorated and pulled off purchasing gifts for our family. I had no time to lovingly dream up perfect gifts for Ryan. Oh, we did gifts that first Christmas. Don't get me wrong. And they had their own brand of loveliness that I really will always cherish. But I still felt like my offerings were rushed and lacked the Bekah-ness I wanted to pour over them.

The idea came to us during our second anniversary getaway. We'd gone to Chicago for a long weekend, and part of our adventures included our first ever trip to IKEA.That was where we met Mo. {If you're new here, you don't know that Mo is our couch. If you've been around a while, you know Mo.} We fell in love with Mo and felt his presence in our home would be the crowning touch of perfection for our lounging and entertaining needs.

Problem. Money. {Isn't it always for most of us?}

Even though, in the world of couches, Mo was pretty affordable, we didn't exactly have all that cash just hanging out waiting to be spent. So we decided he would be our Christmas present to each other. We would skip buying all the little gifts, determining we didn't really need a bunch of little things and were probably buying each other gifts more to give gifts than because we needed them.

We came home, put our existing couch and loveseat up for sale, combined the money we made from them with the money we would have spent on each other, and Mo came home to live with us a couple of months later.

We love our Mo. I thought of it the other night, when we had Ryan's dad and step-mom over for dinner. When we migrated to the living room after dessert, we had so much room to just hang out and talk. I thought of it last week, when we had our niece and nephews for the day and the first request Jenna had upon entering the living room was for me to pull out the couch and make it a bed. I think of it every Sunday when we come home from church, change into our jam-jams and pull Mo out into a bed and crash for naps and TV watching all day. I thought of it for the two weeks I lived on it, day and night, following gallbladder surgery.

Mo was a great gift. A great, practical gift that has made our home more functional every single day for almost two years now.

So last year, we did it again. No, we didn't buy a new couch. Quite the opposite actually. Christmas arrived about a month after we started our new clean eating and workout program, and our gift to each other that year was a new set of weights. {Complete with a little holder to keep them stored neatly, because you know how we are with our OCD!!}

Coming into that adventure, I owned one set of purple five pound weights, and that was it. So we took our money and gifted each other with a nice, heavy-duty set of weights so we could do our workouts at home and make them count.

And we're still using them. We pull them out for every video workout and even though we have improved our fitness, those things don't get any lighter with the passing of time! When I look at the HUGE changes we've made in our eating and fitness over the last year, I see what a great gift we gave in the establishing of a "home gym." It was more than a set of weights. It was an improved life that has served us well in just feeling better about ourselves and loving the time we have together more.

We haven't figured out our Christmas gift for each other this year yet, but I love what we've started. And these are just a couple of ideas. There are always more.

In case you need to get your creative juices going....

* Buy a set of Fitbits {or comparable brands} and let them inspire you to become more active! {This was actually my birthday present from Ryan - at my request - and he has one he got through work. It has been a HUGE help to me in monitoring my activity, especially on the days when I write and tend not to move around much.}
* Go on a trip together and enjoy the memories you make. {We do this for our birthdays and I look forward to that annual trip!}
* Buy something for your house that you can enjoy together. {TV, fancy coffee pot, outdoor furniture, etc.}
* Splurge on something that allows life to be a little simpler for you. {Amazon Prime membership, GPS upgrade or installation for your car, etc.}
* Treat each other to bikes or kayaks or a state park membership if that's your thing: something that allows you to have an adventure together.
* Buy season tickets to something you love: sporting events, concert series, plays/musicals and be each other's year-long dates.
* Treat each other to something you know the OTHER wants to do, but do both activities together. {Maybe she'd love a massage and he wants to zipline, but you both do both things.} {If you pick that, zipline first. HA!}
* Make over a space in your home. Use the money to buy new paint or window treatments or flooring or whatever so you can have an updated, functional space you can enjoy together.
* Speaking of upgrades, if you've been married a while, you might be so over the things you got as wedding gifts that are wearing out. Pool your resources and upgrade to something new that you both love!

Happy gifting the gifts that keep on giving!