Through The Tulips Words of 'Wiz'dom

I was on the phone with my brother last night while he was on his way home from work and one of us brought up the subject of Christmas. We haven’t spent the holidays together in two years and this year Marcel and I will spend two glorious months at home with my parents. He’s saved his vacation days all year so that it would be possible, and I can’t wait. Once we started talking about Christmas, the conversation turned to gift giving. I will be the first to admit that when we are home for the holidays, I tend to go a little overboard with the gift giving and Matt (my brother) said that one of his friends had just been given a really cool money clip with his initials and that he really liked it. I listened to him talk about it, and I made a mental note to check out engravable gifts to see if I could possibly get the money clip and add it to my brothers gift list for this upcoming Christmas.

I really love giving people things that I know they’ll like and even though gift cards can be nice from time to time, I have to say that I’d much rather give something a little more personal and I’ve seen personalized gifts that covers just about everything. My brother is also a huge fan of golf, so I’m seriously considering finding him something golf related that is personalized just for him. I know he’s going to love it and I’m going to love being home with everyone for the holidays.

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a huge fan of romance and love. I guess that’s why when I opened my email a little earlier from a friend to ask me what he could get his wife for their upcoming anniversary I wasn’t surprised. He mentioned that it was their 5th and that the traditional 5th anniversary gift was wood and he wasn’t real sure what to do.   He wanted ideas as to what he could do to go along with the dinner that he was cooking for her- all of her favorites, I might add.

Since his wife is my cousin, I know just how fun she is, so I told him he should have some fun with the wedding anniversary gifts. I sent him the picture that you see on your left and told him that I thought he should order it for her, but instead of wrapping it up and giving it to her on their anniversary that he should serve her dinner while he’s wearing it. He loved the idea, and said that he was going to go for it.

Oh how I wish I was a fly on the wall for that moment.

Things have been pretty busy around here the last couple of days and on top of everything else, I’ve started thinking about Christmas. Marcel and I will be home with the family this year for the holidays, and while I am scaling back in some areas, I’m not in others. Since our time home will be quite long, I want to have ideas for most of the gifts I want to buy ahead of time so that I can enjoy the time with family and friends without any other holiday pressures (aside from parties and get togethers with people I love). I’ve actually been thinking about a cute personalized gift for a few people and have several ideas. That’s all I’m going to say, since obviously some of them read this space and I don’t want them to know about their potential gift before Christmas rolls around.

I have SO many changes in the works right now- so expect to see more from me in the near future, along with a few surprises.

I was looking today at the roses that Marcel gave me a few days ago, and couldn’t help but be reminded that in less than a month we’ll be celebrating Valentine’s Day. February is usually an expensive month for us, since it also happens to be the month of our anniversary, and on February 2nd, we’ll be celebrating six years or matrimonial bliss. It’s also the month of my mother-in-laws birthday. Several years ago, Marcel and I spent Valentine’s Day with Hein and Desere. The four of us went to dinner, and although we don’t have plans for that as of yet, I do think it would be fun, so who knows?

One thing I’m sure of, is that my darling will more than likely give me flowers. What kind of flowers will be a mystery until that day, but he loves giving me flowers ‘just because’ but also on holidays. Occasionally, I even order flowers myself. I’ve found though, that over the years, that when I order flowers online that I look for coupon codes, such as Proflower code that will save either a percent off the total price of the order, or even a certain dollar amount off if you spend a certain amount. Either way you slice it, it means savings in your pocket, and who doesn’t want to save a little cash? Who knows, you may just have enough left over to buy a box of chocolates. I’m a huge fan of coupon codes and don’t buy anything online without first looking for the codes, including when I buy flowers.