One of the many
One of the many things I love about my husband:
When we first married, we celebrated Happy Tuesdays. Happy Tuesdays began when Craig started bringing me home a gift every Tuesday after he was done seeing clients. I think the first gift was the Josh Gracin CD. I also remember getting Phantom of the Opera DVD, too.
The only real reason Tuesdays were important was because new CDs and DVDs are released on Tuesdays. So, Craig would swing by Target on his way home, and pick up one of the new releases.
Because I love Craig so much, I returned the Happy Tuesday gesture and began giving him gifts. Initially, mine started out as tangible, “he’ll love this!” gifts, but it quickly turned into gifts from the heart. One time, I donated money to the Red Cross in his name and left the print out on his keyboard for him to see. It was right after the Tsunami and I desperately wanted to help, but money was (and remains) tight, so I donated money and made it Craig’s Happy Tuesday gift. He was moved by the gesture, but I’m sure he secretly hoped my next gift would be one that was truly “for him.” Well, the next week, I donated extra money to our church and gave him a card that read “Happy Tuesday, Honey! Money I thought about using to buy you a gift has instead been donated to our church! Love you!”
This series of events reminds me a lot of how things were in college. Every special event, I would get this wild idea of something I wanted to do for Craig. For his birthday one year, I decided to make a slide show of our life together and set it to music. Back then, putting together a slide show was a lot of work b/c no one had digital cameras and I had to scan every picture and resize it to fit the power point slide. I also had a lot of trouble inserting the music once I finally finished with the slides. Long story short- he got part of his present about a year AFTER his birthday (the slide show without the music).
On several occassions, I also decided to “make” him other gifts….a photo album, a picture frame, etc. I would trek with Walmart with the girls, buy all of the necessary craft supplies, and then get back to the dorm and start with the project, but I’d get distracted and basically, Craig never really got his gifts. He does, however, have a pile of cards with “IOUs” written inside the left cover of the card.
Throughout all of this, Craig has been a real trooper. Despite my crazy idea of what a “great gift” would be for him, he always kept up with his REAL gift giving…and thats one of the many things I love about him.
Nowadays, we’ve agreed that we have much more than we could ever need in a lifetime, so when a special event rolls around, rather than running out to buy something we don’t need just to be able to give each other a gift, instead- we agree on a dollar amount and put money into one of our several “funds.” For birthdays, we put money into the furniture fund (for when we have a house and want a new bedroom set). Craig was a little hesitant at first, but when he enjoyed the rewards of his patience (delayed gratification) when we bought our 46″ HDTV last fall, he has since decided he really likes this “savings thing.”
Muuuuahhhh…..love you baby!
