last year, k and i spent our very first christmas together as a couple, and were so excited to start some of our own traditions. one of the traditions (and perhaps my favorite) was what we decided to do for our christmas gifts to each other. instead of spending lots of money on one big thing or just a couple things, we decided to each get one another 5 small gifts, each with a $10ish price limit. to make it a little bit more fun and challenging, the gifts had to come from 5 different categories; last year they were: one handmade gift, one gift purchased outside of tucson, one recycled or reused gift, one gift that could be shared, and one gift as a donation to a charitable organization in the other’s name.

this year, we’re continuing the tradition but doing things a little differently. some of the categories are staying the same, and we’re adding a couple of new ones. here are this years:

1. a handmade gift. last year i attempted to diy a chess board with our faces as the game pieces for k’s handmade gift, but i sort of ran out of time and ended up gifting it to him halfway completed. oops. this year i’m determined to make up for it; this is actually the only gift i have planned so far and i’m pretty excited about it!

2. a local gift. last year we did a gift that had to be un-local, so this year we are switching it up and doing a gift that must in some way come from omaha. i have a few ideas for this already but not sure which direction to take yet.

3. a gift you can read.  i’ve seen another gift idea going around on pinterest where each person receives four gifts: something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read. we thought about doing this version, too, but kevin wasn’t quite as excited about the “something to wear” as i was. we decided to instead just adopt the “something to read” portion.

4. a date. we’re adapting the “something to share” from last year to be an inexpensive date or experience that we can have together. we joke that being married, pretty much anything one or the other of us gets ends up being shared in some way, so instead of k buying nintendo games for us to “share” and pretending that i’ll like it just as much as him, we chose to gift each other a date instead. one added rule for this one: there must be something physical to represent the date that the other person can open for christmas.

5. a donation in the other person’s name.  we really enjoyed this one last year, so i think it’ll be one that stays. i have a great idea for this one that i hope works out!

i really love this tradition that we’ve started, because it’s so much more about the thoughtfulness and love behind each gift than the gifts themselves. i’ll be sure to do a post after christmas to share what we each came up with!

are you doing anything unique for gifts this year, or do you have any favorite christmas traditions in your family? a big one in my family (and probably lots of families) was opening one small gift on christmas eve after mass. my parents & sister will be here in omaha this year, so i’m looking forward to celebrating this tradition with them AND kevin for the first time!