We have some family birthdays and weddings this summer and we always try and give a great deal of thought to what would make great gifts. In some cases people provide lists and you can get them the latest best seller or a new CD by their favourite artist. I find that as people I know age they tend to do this less and less and gift giving gets more difficult. With age of course people tend to have accumulated more stuff so they don’t really want another thing in their home. That is why whenever possible we try and give an experience. For instance we done a gift cards exchange and given music festival passes to family. So far everyone has enjoyed these experience gifts . These gifts can be joined if there is a couple in the group, maybe several people get them a gift certificate for a cooking class or a balloon ride. Overall I think the recipient gets more out of the money you spent in an experience rather than another thing and it means one less thing to get rid of at a garage sale some day.
What kinds of experiences have you given as gifts?
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I do the same thing. Just this past year, I made up a book for my sister in law filled with gift certificates for different experiences. I even tied into a travelling around the world theme. She absolutely loved it. Way better than a gift that just ends up on the shelf.