12 Dates for Christmas

David is one of the hardest people to shop for.  EVER.  It's nearly impossible to surprise him with any gift because if he wants something, he'll either buy it for himself already or just tell you what it is that he wants.  And, trying to just buy him some sort of electronic gizmo?  Well, he has to Consumer Reports everything and that just takes the fun out of EVERYTHING.

Well, a couple of months ago while browsing Pinterest, I stumbled upon this and thought it would be a great thing to give to David.  I'm too impatient to wait for the beginning of each month for David to open up the envelope, so I made him open each one {wrapped in bags or boxes and mixed in with all of our gifts} on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.

Each time I was out without him grocery shopping/running errands, I would try to pick up a little gift card that could be used on our dates.  I didn't want every date just to be dinner out, but I also knew that with a baby under the age of one {for most of the year} who doesn't take a bottle, we would be sort of limited on some of the dates that we could do.

If you saw yesterday's post, you saw what I did for January.  Buffalo Wild Wings is one of our favorite date night activities.  In fact, it's the only date we've done so far since being out here.

Each one of the 12 envelopes follows this same pattern.  There's a cute little {Sanrio} sheet of paper with the month written on top and some sort of cutesie phrase describing our date plan.  Most include a gift card of some sort, except for one or two that are actually free dates {a hike and a museum trip - we can check out free passes from our library - how cool is that?}

I worked really hard at coming up with different, fun things to do and also tried to think about the time of year when we would do them.  I mean, really, who wants to go for a hike in August when it's 115 degrees?  Definitely not me!  Here's a list of our dates:

+ BW3, $25 gift card

+ Couples pedicure, gift card included

+ Trip to the movies, Fandango gift card 

+ Picnic/airplane watching, Jimmy John's gift card and a map to the local airpark

+ Hike, trail map included

+ Mini Golf & Arcade games, gift card for golf and arcade money

+ Museum

+ Staying home and making dinner*, grocery store gift card & Trivial Pursuit cards included

+ Wine tasting at local winery, gift card for 1 bottle included

+ Bowling, Gift card for several games included

+ PF Changs, $25 gift card 

+ Starbucks date, gift card included

And, here are a couple of my favorite descriptions:

* One of David's favorite things is to cook.  Unfortunately, it's not something he has a lot of time to do now.  {He is a sloooow cooker.}  When we were dating {and before kids came along}, he would cook dinner for me while I quizzed him with Trivial Pursuit cards.  Is he a nerd?  Yes.  But, I'm not and even I thought it was fun.  We haven't done it in forever, so I thought it would be fun for one of our dates!

I have to give a special thanks to my parents too because this gift is also sort of from them.  If it weren't for them offering to watch the girls, I know I would not be as willing to leave them and go spend some quality time with my husband.  So, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.

I'll do my best to blog after each of our dates as well.  I'm looking forward to each month and I love that this is a gift I get to enjoy myself as well!

Hope you all had a wonderful NYE!  We stayed in and feasted on, ahem, Buffalo Wild Wings.

Happy 2012 from the Valley of the Sun!