This year celebrations looked very different to those held in previous years. Financially things have changed and our current work environments or lack of have made us reassess how we chose to celebrate. We haven’t felt the joy of being able to have our families around us to share the love and celebrate another year and we also haven’t been able to justify spending what we usually would on gifts for each other either.
Truth be told I’m not a gift person. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it more than anything and am so grateful, but it’s not my love language. If you write me a note with a beautiful message that for me speaks volumes. I just want to be loved and appreciated so when our birthdays were coming around and the usual questions of “what do you want for your birthday?” arose I literally said “Nothing, how about we don’t do gifts this year?”
Luke was paranoid because he thought I would say that and then still buy him a gift for his which would result in him feeling guilty. He was trying to decipher if I was just playing mind games with him… but honestly, I just wanted my family around me and to have some cake because it’s definitely not a birthday without some!
He surprised me with a candle and flowers which are my absolute favourite – and that is huge for him too because he doesn’t believe in gifting flowers because according to him “they just die and end up in the green bin” (he’s a practical man and a money man so his thought pattern flows a little different to mine). I’m a ‘will this bring someone joy?’ kind of girl.
For Luke’s birthday I wanted to exercise my creativity a little and think outside the box. Mentally this has been an extremely taxing year on him, and we were in the thick of it at the time of his birthday. In previous years when he was really down and out of work I took him to see a clairvoyant. Let me tell you before he met me he was so closed off from the spiritual world and I am not one to force my beliefs and opinions on others but with Luke, I have. I needed to open his mind – and I did this because I love and care about him and I knew deep in my heart it would help him. With a lot of resistance I didn’t cancel his appointment and he came along. I knew a small part of him was curious and it served it’s purpose and gave him hope.
1st gift was a reading:
Given that we were in lockdown and had 2 mini humans at home a skype appointment was going to be hard to manage but there is another clairvoyant I follow online who has a different style and approach and she has various packages which are quite inexpensive. Once you send through your details she emails you a file with your reading all typed out. There is no phone conversation at all. I love her style because it’s something you can refer back to and you can be very direct about what you would like to know by asking specific questions. For anyone curious her business page is: https://www.facebook.com/kismetawaits/
2nd gift was a Gratitude Journal:
I LOVE Kmart. Personally I have all of their little stationery books. A Journal, Life Admin Journal (with to do lists etc.) and Gratitude Journal. Luke is not a stationery man. He doesn’t document his thoughts let alone right a list of what he needs to get done daily. I know the power of gratitude and how it can change your mindset and even though he still hasn’t used it (I’ll work on that) I believed it was something he needed not something he wanted. Kmart have recently changed the colour of their Gratitude Journal to blush instead of Blue. I simply covered the book in the kids artwork to add a personal touch and to encourage him to look at it and possibly write something in it too! https://www.kmart.com.au/product/gratitude-journal/3082823?reviews=true
3rd and final gift was our wedding vows framed:
We were so fortunate to get married this year and aside from all of the headaches and drama of what was happening in the world it was one of the happiest days of our lives and it worked our perfectly and exactly as it was meant to. Funnily enough Luke wanted to write our own vows (if you know him you would understand he doesn’t come across sentimental or from the heart or the deep and meaningful type). His were written and submitted to our celebrant before I even had a chance to write mine which seriously warmed my heart. Thankfully he loved what I had written and mentioned that it would be nice to frame them so I documented that in my brain and thought this would be a beautiful gesture. I have a lot of craft supplies and some beautiful handmade paper. I purchased a frame from Officeworks, edited the fonts and sizing in a Word document and printed them on the handmade paper and ta-dah!
I could have spent hundreds buying him something fishing related or clothes or an experience but I’m a big believer in “it’s the thought that counts” and gifts like these are from my heart and something I hoped was meaningful to him. If you don’t have the finances to gift something of a particular dollar value maybe looking for inspiration from Pinterest or shopping on Etsy for something more personalised is the way to go.
BEAUTIQUELY ME 