Giving

I wrote a post addressing my feelings about being a SAHM right now, but I'm not going to publish it yet. It feels like one of those that needs to...percolate a bit.

Instead, I'll tell you about my husband's Christmas gift to me this year.

A little background on our gift-giving history though, first.

I think, despite what the quiz results say, that my husband's love language is gifts. He loves getting them (perhaps more so because he's difficult to buy for) and, when he puts his mind to it, is phenomenal at giving them.

My senior year of college we spent across the pond from each other; I was writing my thesis in California and he was helping his dad with renovations on what would become a B&B in northern France. During his first visit to see me in California, he went to a local florist and arranged to have a bouquet of flowers delivered to me in my dorm on each of my deadlines for the thesis. Flower delivery is always a treat, but it felt especially luxurious displaying them in a dorm room!

On our first anniversary, he commissioned an artist friend to paint a picture of a beach in France that is important to us. The artist painted from a photo and then added Chris and I into the picture. It's absolutely gorgeous and was just the perfect gift.

Each of our homes together has had a perfect place to
display the picture. Here, it's in our kitchen. 

For my 30th birthday, which I celebrated just a month after moving to Minnesota, he arranged for my mom, sister and nephew to come and surprise me. That in itself was totally awesome, but he also enlisted the help of a friend/colleague to send me a bouquet of one each of 30 different varieties of roses.

Each rose had a tag identifying its variety

This year for Christmas we were technically exchanging trips, his ice fishing trip for my visit to my sister. Neither of us had big wish lists (well, ok, he always has wish lists but they consist of things like boats and four-wheelers) and we agreed to keep it to the travel. I knew perfectly well, however, that he would ignore this agreement like always and so I went ahead and bought a gift anyhow. Glad I did because he came up with something pretty great again.

On Christmas morning he presented me with a letter, written in a "Night Before Christmas" style. It explained that my gift was 12 Weeks of Jaida-Mas. For the first twelve weekends of the year, he had planned a different activity for me. The intent was to a) give me some sorely needed time to myself as well as several dates with him and each of the older kids on their own, and b) provided some distraction to get through the next several miserable months of winter.

From there, the kids retrieved 12 numbered pieces of paper that had been hung on the tree, each of which explained a different activity he had planned (or piggy-backed in some cases, like this first week). They loved being part of the process and it was all very cleverly planned and executed. Kudos honey, you nailed it this year.

This past weekend was a previously planned outing with my BFF and her little girl to see Cinderella at the Children's Theatre. It was an unbelievable production and we had such a fabulous time (thankfully the temperatures didn't plummet to inhuman depths until Sunday so we weren't braving more than the typical winter weather). Can't wait for Week 2, a special outing with my oldest boy.