Christmas 2012 (208)

After nineteen and a half years of marriage, it’s gotten hard to buy gifts for my husband.

I mean, there’s always the knife he wants or the newest game he hasn’t bought yet. But it’s hard to find that something really really special. Find something? Who am I kidding? Knowing what that something special is—that’s the almost impossible part.

To me, the best gift is something from the heart. Yes, I used to do the “coupons”: free backrub, free foot massage, etc. etc. After twenty years, that gets old, too. I’ve done the events: monster truck shows, etc.

So what do you buy someone you know as well as you know yourself? Someone who has everything they could possibly want or need?

(Same thing goes for my grandmother!!! And other impossible-to-buy for family.)

I believe the best gift is an event. It’s funny, I was asking a friend back in June what in the world to get my husband for his birthday, and she said the best gifts are memories.

Memories.

The best gift I can remember ever getting as a child was when my sister and I opened our presents that Christmas morning (I couldn’t tell you anything about what they were), then my grandfather wanted us to come outside because he had something to show us. My grandfather was a carpenter, and he’d been building another storage building! We already had two, and he had an outdoor kitchen (he loved to garden), but he needed another one. Come to find out, we go outside that cold Christmas morning to find a huge ribbon on the building we thought was supposed to be another storage building. It was a playhouse! That memory still brings tears to my eyes (I lost my grandfather shortly after, and the house has since been sold).

As we grow older, we still love those surprises. And I know there’s something, something out there that can and will surprise my husband. And it’s going to be just as much fun planning that special memory as it is making that special memory.