It sounds so corny when I hear someone say how much they love GIVING gifts rather than RECEIVING them.  I’m always like, “Liar.”
…Until those times when I find the perfect gift for that special someone at just the right moment in time…

Like my favorite gift ever to my husband, Mike, was the t-shirt in this picture.  Certainly wasn’t the priciest gift ever, but in our first year as parents (and as HUGE Seinfeld fans), I’m pretty sure he’d agree it’s the best gift I ever gave him (Ya know, besides our daughter.)

My first Christmas in Colorado?  We couldn’t afford anything!  Mike was finishing up his degree, so I was bringing home majority of the bacon.  And after the bills were paid, there was very little bacon to spare.

I remember buying simple household items that we needed, like a watering can for our plants and a salt shaker, simply putting bows on these items,  and declaring them “Christmas presents.” I just recently noticed that we never took the bow off the watering can.

Many of my other “favorite gifts I’ve ever given” were things I made.  Like the crocheted blankets I made for both my mom and my sister a while back, or the gift baskets for my mother-in-law, Linda.   She was really getting into golf at the time, and Steven (her son) had just gotten married a few months earlier and moved out.  So I made two baskets: one was the “golf” basket, with a golf gift-cert and a buncha cute golfy presents, and the other was the “spa” basket, with a mani-pedi gift-cert and a buncha spa-isa presents. Both served as “kick your feet up and relax!” presents, since she no longer had to worry about taking care of anyone but herself!

Then a couple years ago, Mike and I bought “Hot-Sauce-of-the-Month” for my brother-in-law, Thomas.  He is notorious for loving hot-sauce/spicy stuff.  He’s the kind of guy who tries insanely spicy food that you have to sign a waiver before they let you order it.  It was basically a no-brainer gift, but still one of my faves.

And one more of my fave all-time gifts?  It was a RE-GIFT!  It was a hand-me-down.  But it’s still one of my favorite gifts I’ve ever given someone, and I wonder if it’s a gift she even remembers receiving… I gave my little cousin Bridget a mini-cassette recorder, what seems like a zillion years ago.  She was probably a “tween” at the time, and I knew she was way into journalism, and thought it would be a fun little gadget for her to have, you know, for interviewing all the stars in her life.

Whether she ever used it or not, I’m happy I gave it to her, because clearly writing has always been a big part of her soul, and I’m glad I encouraged that in a tiny way…

So what’s the best gift you’ve ever given someone??

My name is Suzanne Jacobetz, aka The Cursing Gourmet, and I am Bridget’s older (not necessarily wiser) cousin. I’m Generation X all the way and do not enjoy it when I hear 80s/90s rock on classic rock stations. I live in the mountains in Colorado with Mike, my husband of 10 years, 15+ miles from a grocery store. It’s a very quiet, peaceful life, or at least it used to be:  a year ago we had our first kiddo, a sweetie pie named Isabelle ❤️