If there’s one thing I love about the blogging community, it is that everyone seems to love gift wrapping as much as I do! People don’t seem to understand my fascination, but I just love making a gift look beautiful for its recipient. It’s part of the whole experience to be able to receive something pretty and promptly tear through it to get to the goods.
Today is your last chance to sign up for the Christmas Gift Swap! If you would like to take part, drop me an email me ([email protected]) with your Full Name, Postal Address, Email address and if you have a preference for a local or international swap. As a lot of you guys are international, we’re going to keep it small – we are exchanging a Christmas Card and a gift should be small enough to fit in a small to medium sized envelope (for example; a small piece of art/drawing, stickers, small necklace etc)
1. LISTEN
So, this sounds pretty basic, but I know so many people who don’t do this. Listen to the people you care about; what do they like? What are their interests? And I don’t mean just around Christmas or birthdays, I mean all year round. If a loved one mentions that book they’ve been wanting to read or that hobby they’ve been wanting to get into, I open up the notebook app (or even a draft message) make a quick note in my phone. Something like “Tom - Carl Sagan book” and save it for later. The best thing about doing this is that it just looks like you are sending a text message so your target is none the wiser and you have a handy reminder for later.
Speaking of which…
2. Set Up Reminders
In your phone, on your computer, in your calendar. Put a reminder in for the most important people’s birthdays. Not just for the day itself, but a few weeks in advance. This way you will know that birthday is coming up and have ample time to plan what you want to buy for that special someone. Especially if you are like me and you do a lot of your shopping online, you will appreciate the extra time when there is a 2 week wait on shipping!
3. Use Online Searches
And I don’t mean Google; sites like Ebay and Amazon are a veritable treasure chest of items you’ve never even thought of! Whenever I am stuck for gift ideas I head over to Ebay and start searching topics that my recipient might enjoy. Try names of television programs, hobbies, favourite actors or even general items like ‘leather bag’ and see what comes up! I can’t count how many times this has saved me when I was out of inspiration!
No, you wont. You’ll forget and then when it comes time to buy her a gift you’ll be sitting there thinking ‘now what was that thing I saw back in June…?’ Bookmark that shit! And don’t let your bookmarks get lost in between links to funny pictures of cats… I have a ‘Buy’ Folder set up, with sub-folders for each of my family members/housemates/close friends. I save anything cool I see in these folders over the year, so when it approaches Christmas or Birthdays I can just open up the relevant folder and browse a ready made list of gift ideas. Just remember to name your bookmarks as what they actually are, (ie: ‘Owl Measuring cups from Anthropology’) instead of the default name so that if you come across a broken link when you come back, you can Google the item and try to find it elsewhere.
So there you have it. Nothing ground breaking or crazy, just some simple ideas that will hopefully help you get through this festive season.
Birthday’s tend to get a little less fun once you exit childhood, especially when you edge towards some of those scarier numbers (something I’m still a couple of years away from), but I never want to stop enjoying my birthday. Really, whats not to love? Friends, family, cake and presents! All my favourite things! I share my birthday with a friend at work so we have been enjoying each others company with morning tea’s, lunches, afternoon teas… *phew* I think I have put on about 5kg’s and the day isn’t even over!
Please stay tuned until tomorrow for this week’s recipe post - I can’t even think about food right now! :)