How to Plan your Year of Dates Present

This year, my husband asked me to gift him A Year of Dates again. If you missed last year's present, read it here.

I am sharing with you how I am planning my gift to him this year. I obviously cannot share specifics since he does read my blog. I will be posting throughout the next year about what dates we are doing so you can use them for your gift next year!

*some links used are affiliate links*

Matching Months to Dates

Pretty obvious, but it is harder than you think! I used my Date Ideas Board on Pinterest to provide some inspiration.

I have a handy, dandy printable that I used to help me plan. It has a column for the month, the date that I chose {use pencil - lots of erasing and moving around}, as well as cost for the entire date and what I am willing to contribute. I am always sure to include a BIG date in there. Big date = most expensive. I always pay the full amount for that one, because some months, I opted to not pay for the entire date and that month we just budgeted in some of the money needed. For the rest of the dates, I mixed in some cheap and free dates as well.

I also have added columns so that you can note what gift item you will include {gift card, voucher, cash, etc} and a column to help you remember if it is completed or not.

Click here to download planning page

I am cheating a little this year and reusing one that was extremely popular and re-gifting dates we didn't get to do, so I feel confident I can share them with you. 

Spa Date - I opened up the Schramm Spa for one night only. I gave him a choice of 6 options, he got to choose 2. {can't have it all} I found recipes online for facials, foot scrubs, bath salts, massage oil and a lavender face mask. When he made his choice about what we would like and made his 'appointment', I gathered my materials and made what I needed to make. I was rather inexpensive because it is done at home and all of my treatments were made at home as well. This was by far his favorite date. 

Hiking Bushkill Falls - we didn't get to do this date because of the timing. The height of the season this year fell later and it just didn't land on a weekend we could get up there. Going for a walk or hike is a perfect date. You get exercise, beautiful views and best part for us is we could take our baby girl along. You can find hiking trails near you and pack a picnic to take along. 

Drive-in Movie - We still have a couple if drive in movie theaters near us. It seems like such a great experience. You can see if there is one near you. If not, many movie theaters are starting to convert to full service theaters. This would be a great "dinner & a movie" all at once. 

For ideas, you can follow my Date Ideas Board on Pinterest, check out Groupon or Living Social {just be aware of the expiration dates} and be sure to think about some things you did when you first started dating and throw those in there too. These traditional things took up most of my dates for our first year.

Writing out your dates or Printing them out

I have to admit, this was my most difficult task. I wanted to say something meaningful but everything came out not-so-cute quirky or it didn't make sense. Since I hand-wrote each month's date so I went through a lot of paper. Surprisingly, this is the one thing I got the most comments on from my last post - how handwriting the notes really adds something special to the gift. I have always believed in handwriting notes when it is especially sentimental or meaningful.

This year I started to type out each date idea. This way I can have my wording available and then hand write on the pages I chose to use. 

Some tips to help you: 

Title page: Explain why you are gifting this to him. In our case, my husband's love language is time spent together so this is my expression of love.  Here is a glimpse of last year's.

Month descriptions: Give brief instructions on how it is to work. This is also where you can make it sweet or add any cryptic messages you may want to add {wink,wink}.

Assembling it all together

Use any envelope you would like. I used these larger ones because I had some gifts that wouldn't fit in a small envelope. This year, I may use the small envelope - haven't decided.

Here are the labels that I used for the large envelopes. I have included ones for smaller envelopes. Print, cut and paste onto the envelope.

Click to download the large labels or small labels

Put in a box and you are ready! Happy Holidays!

I also have created a Year of Dates for Kids!

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