Recently, I've been religiously following this blog called Mr. Money Mustache, and he is slowly turning into my financial/living-a-wise-life idol. One of his blog posts talks about the Mother's Day tradition that his family does. Instead of going out and buying his wife flowers, chocolates, and stuffed teddy bears (that end up in the Goodwill bag a few months later), she has a specific part of the yard that they plant beautiful flowers in every Mother's Day, and it serves as a reminder of the holiday and the blessing it is for her to be a mom for the rest of the summer/growing season. It got me thinking....how can we give more MEANINGFUL and less WASTEFUL gifts in our lives?
I'll admit, I'm one of those super-fretful gift buyers...I'll stare at my computer screen agonizing for hours over what to get my husband for his birthday or what to buy for my best friend on her wedding day (Which I still haven't done yet. Sorry, Camille. I'll get around to it...and it'll probably be something better after this blog post/inspiration). After reading Mr. Money Mustache's post though, I have a resolution this year (and for the rest of my life) to not ever buy meaningless material things for people that don't further an on-going connection or memory with a friend or family member. Now, this post is not supposed to be one of those "10 Homemade Gifts That Will Astound Your Man!" sort of pinterest things, but rather an invitation to you to do something meaningful instead of going to Target and buying some cheesy plastic doodad that doesn't really help your relationship or the environment.
This past December for my husband's birthday, we were both super busy with finals and finalizing traveling plans to make it back to Utah for our school break, and so my usual fretful-gift-buying self didn't have time to be fretful. So, I just decided that we were going to have an evening of doing something together that he enjoyed, and we were going to do it frugally since we would have some major travel expenses coming up. I ended up ordering two sushi mats and some sea-weed sheets off of Amazon (for a total of about $8), and we spent the night laughing, making low-quality homemade videos, and eating some sub-par, first-attempt homemade Sushi, and it was one of my most favorite things that we have done together to date. The memories that we created that night far outweigh anything that I could have possibly purchased to "wow" him. So as we approach Mother's Day, Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Christmases, let's forget about consumerism and instead strive for memory-isms and relationship building-isms. For my birthday, I think I'm going to ask for an evening together spent getting my pots ready and planting some little herb seeds that will grow and make my cooking more pleasant all summer long. What have you done for holidays that is sweeter than giving physical gifts? Post below!!! :)
