When birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays roll around, I’m often not thinking about what to get my boyfriend. We have just never really celebrated milestones like that with gifts.
Our first Christmas together we exchanged very small gifts. I gave him a candle, he gave me chocolate covered strawberries. And since then it’s always been that way. There have been no expectations of gifts on holidays, it’s just not really our thing.
In my past relationships, it was huge. I would be crafting, spending tons of money, racking my brain to find something my significant other liked.
But my relationship now is just easier. We don’t need things. If we are celebrating something, we’re usually going out and doing something together. Whether it’s travelling or trying something new, we prefer experiences over gifts. Even then, we don’t usually buy those things for each other. We plan and decide together what we want to do – after all, if it’s our anniversary or your birthday, why should I have all the say?
We also tend to sporadically buy each other things. I saw this on Amazon and thought of you. I thought this would really look good in our home and you would love it.
It works well for us and takes a lot of pressure off of our relationship. Giving gifts makes me more anxious than it does excited, so we have taken a different approach with showing each other how much we care.
