Which gift to give when?

March 11, 2008 5:56 AM

Which of these gifts should I buy my wife for her birthday, and which for our anniversary? Alternatively, how can I make one a little more romantic?

I have two gift ideas for my wife and two events coming up relatively soon: her birthday and our first wedding anniversary. The two gifts are scrapbooking supplies and one of those necklace chains that are stiff and so hold their shape (anyone have a name for those?). The scrapbooking supplies were my idea, and the necklace was her suggestion.

Lately, I've been thinking about giving her the scrapbooking supplies for our anniversary because it's our paper anniversary, but I'm not sure it's a romantic enough gift for a first anniversary. On the other hand, what made me think of this gift originally is that she's been working on a scrapbook of our wedding/honeymoon recently. If I could make the scrapbooking idea a little more romantic, I'd probably go with that for the anniversary.

So I guess I'm basically looking for are suggestions on which gift to give when, and if you have any suggestions for making a scrapbooking gift into a romantic-enough-for-a-first-anniversary gift, I'd love to hear them.

posted by chndrcks to shopping (11 comments total)

You can make any gift romantic by adding a few extras: Chocolate, wine, massage...
posted by rikschell at 6:07 AM on March 11

Could you give her the scrapbooking supplies, but make a few pages for her as well? It might make the gift more personal/thoughtful if you take the effort to dig out some memorabilia/old photos and have a go yourself, maybe "how we met" or some other starter pages. Even if you're not the world's greatest scrapbooker, i'm sure she'd appreciate the sentiment, and could finish the book with all her cool new supplies.
posted by ukdanae at 6:14 AM on March 11 [2 favorites]

What about giving her something she can put in the scrapbook? A handwritten note or a transcribed poem? Is the scrapbook specifically for her to use on the wedding project or is this a second scrapbook for another topic like "our life together," "our first house," etc?
posted by Atom12 at 6:14 AM on March 11

Put the necklace into a new scrapbooking book surrounded by photos of you guys and maybe a little GC for a massage or romantic dinner.
posted by nougat at 6:19 AM on March 11

I love uk's and Atom12's suggestion, and would amplify by proposing you write a couple of short little "Predictions" lists--- e. g., "I predict in 5 years we'll be proud parents of a little baby. If a boy, I predict his name is... If a girl, I predict..."
You could "predict" your future milestones; "I predict we'll be living in a world where..."; "I predict your favorite new food/hobby/job will be...".
Then ask her for the same kind of list. Check back in a couple of years and see how it all turned out!
posted by Dizzy at 6:19 AM on March 11

I like the idea of scrapbooking your own page, that would be sweet.

But really, just knowing that it's a paper anniversary, and giving her some wedding/honeymoon related supplies, makes it sound pretty romantic to me.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:18 AM on March 11

The necklace is probably an omega chain.

Nthing the scrapbooking stuff for the "paper" anniversary, with a sweet note or something else to put in the scrapbook.
posted by desuetude at 7:27 AM on March 11

Paper? How about writing her a letter?
posted by Neiltupper at 8:04 AM on March 11

N-thing the idea for a handwritten letter as a "Reflections on our first (paper) anniversary" page for the scrapbook. I'd probably recommend making her a nice dinner (or taking her out if that's your thing) as well.
posted by JMOZ at 8:12 AM on March 11

Nthing the love note + scrapbook supplies for your anniversary. The most romantic thing my boyfriend ever gave me were little handwritten love-notes on different types of nice paper. You don't need to write a hugely long love letter, though; even if you wrote little notes or comments about the events in her scrapbook that she could paste in if she wanted would be adorable.
posted by lilac girl at 12:02 PM on March 11

You could also give her some pictures of the two of you together for the scrapbook, whether they're photographs or drawings that you've done (doesn't matter if you can draw, it'll be romantic even if they're stick figures with hearts). If you do photographs, see if you can dig up ones she hasn't seen in a while, so they seem fresh.

And nthing love notes or a full-blown love letter.
posted by bassjump at 6:09 PM on March 11