So this year, after knowing my husband for nine years, I completely ran out of gifts and celebration ideas for his birthday :/ This was a moment of silence for me and for the first time ever I had to take help from internet because letting go was not an option!
Partially, because I really wanted to celebrate his birthday with or without a BIG idea and partially because I generally appreciate how men pull off their families together and they must not be ignored on their special days. Lastly, he gets really hurt if I don’t do anything special. lol, so yeah!
Anyhow, before penning down this year’s birthday celebration and gift ideas, for all the females out here on how to make your men happy, it is important that you understand why I ran out of ideas at first place. The only reason behind this is that he doesn’t like to shop for himself and ever since we are married, I take care of his wardrobe, shoes, ties, perfumes, deodorants, razors and anything and everything which a man generally needs.
Since I have the sole onus of replenishing his stuff, I usually think of things he needs and when I come to a conclusion that his needs are totally taken care of, thinking of any special gift becomes bizarre 🙁
So what do you do under such circumstances when you know he already has everything 😕
You ask him politely and if there is no satisfactory answer, you keep looking for ideas. Right? Or you try to figure out what his hobbies are or what makes him happy. If the hobby is affordable, you may like to make an investment in that arena as well. Lastly, you can just ask for funky and romantic ideas and try to make the birthday memorable one. This year, I went for the last option. Because his hobbies are sky-rocketing expensive and extremely tech-savvy. He is a photographer and loves to buy both vintage and contemporary cameras and lenses. Since, I know jack about photography, I try to stay away from giving any such surprise which may leave a bad taste to his mouth later!
On a Facebook group, I got some hints on giving five gifts to your loved one based upon the five senses we have i.e. sight, taste, touch, smell, and hear. I really liked that idea and tried to imitate it.
- So for Touch, I got him a sweater and a jacket!
- A couple of perfumes topped up the chart in the Smell category.
- For Taste, a chocolate did the trick (we are slightly towards the obese side these days so we settled for just one bar instead of the whole bunch) – Btw, it was my daughter who finished the bar in two minutes but was generous enough to share one bite with her baba and mama :o)
- For Sight, my plan was either to put two movie tickets in an envelope or insert the day plan (sight-seeing and long drive). Since, no good movie was airing in the cinema so I wrote a small note regarding our day plan in that Sight envelope. Details later!
- For Hear, I had to depend on him for shopping top-of-the-line headphones (he is always youtubing) or the bluetooth speakers (where your mobile rests and music plays on the speakers). He couldn’t find something of his like or taste although I gave him a week’s time. Please note that he didn’t know what theme I was following. Hence, I couldn’t get him anything under this head because he was too lazy to search/shop :'(
Mine one looked like this…( you may send virtual claps my way – this was quite an effort my friends :))
He loved this whole idea and this made my day 🙂
I personally like going out for breakfast than dinners or lunches for birthday celebrations. Firstly, you get a whole day to make further plans. Secondly, lunches and dinners are too over-rated and lastly, they do not coincide with my daughter’s feeding/sleeping time so I have to alter celebration plans accordingly. Hence, for this year’s birthday, we opted for a scrumptious breakfast at our favorite hangout place.
With time, I have started believing in spending quality time with the loved ones rather than indulging into noisy and crowded parties. This is purely my take on celebrating birthday and doesn’t need to be accepted worldwide. Plus, I have had experiences inviting friends and family over but then again, by the time the party even starts, I get too tired to enjoy it myself doing chores all day. Hence, I have decided to invest in ideas which make me at peace.
For sight-seeing/long drive venture, I picked Bahria town which is at the outskirts of Lahore with some sight-seeing places. With the new ring road in place, the drive is now extremely pleasing to the eyes, the distance is perfect (neither too far, nor too close from home) and the places are worth visiting.
My plan was to spend the sunset time at the Eiffel tower, Lahore. Here is the evening photograph of the place!
