Thoughtful Birthday Gifting with Golden Coil
Good morning, friends! Today, we’re going to talk about birthdays: how to keep track of them, and how to reach out in thoughtful ways. Depending on your family of origin and cultural background, birthdays might be a really big deal or they may be a bit more casual. Whether your style is simple or elaborate, we are here to offer our best tips and considerations for celebrating the important people in your life.
Why Remember Birthdays?
If you’ve ever read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, you’ll likely remember his suggestion to note and reach out on birthdays. How have you felt in the past when you received unexpected mail, a gift, a message, or a call on your birthday? It’s safe to say we all love being remembered and recognized. Those small gestures mean a lot, and build deep, lasting friendships.
Simplest Methods
If you’re juggling a lot of responsibilities and don’t have all the brain space in the world, birthdays might be a source of stress. If you don’t have a streamlined process, you might find yourself remembering sporadically or dropping the ball altogether. Our suggestion is to keep ALL birthdays recorded in one place that you will check routinely.
If you are going to keep birthdays in your planner (our top suggestion, of course!), we highly recommend the “Reminders” layout. You’ll find this under the “Calendaring” section of our +Pages tab. You can add one of these pages to the beginning of your planner. You’ll be able to fill it out in one sitting when you first get your planner, and check it once monthly. If you prefer a traditional method like a handwritten letter, or a card with cash, do the month’s worth of birthdays in one batch and mail them together. Or, if you plan to reach out the day-of, transfer the birthdays for the month into your weekly (or daily) layouts.
Another very streamlined method is to create a google calendar exclusively for birthdays and upload an .ics file for those events to be printed into your planner. That way, your important peoples’ birthdays will automatically show up on your monthly and your weekly (or daily) layout, cueing you to call/text the day of, or plan for a special gift ahead of time.
If the digital world is your jam, find a birthday app that will send you reminders a week before the upcoming birthday, and you can write them in your planner when that notification arrives!
Thoughtful Gifting Suggestions
While we can’t speak for everyone, in western society, many of us have lives that are highly saturated with things. While gifting is a wonderful way to show that you care and to express your love, sometimes getting creative with gifting (or gifting experiences rather than things) is better for your wallet, better for the relationship, and better for the recipient. Here are a few of our top suggestions for thoughtful gifting:
For Friends/Family Members:
A handwritten note sent by mail
A card with cash for them to spend how they’d like
A gift card to their favorite drink or coffee shop
A gift card to their favorite restaurant
A bouquet of flowers (best bought locally or gathered from your garden!)
A phone call or FaceTime
A text with a funny GIF
A “coupon” for free babysitting or pet-sitting
A fishing trip together
A massage
A pedicure
Lunch out together
A night out to the movies together
Homemade baked goods
For Children:
A trip to the zoo
A picnic at the park
A popcorn and movie night
A Disney+ (or other) subscription
A museum membership
A waterpark/theme park pass
A backyard campfire or campout
A contribution to their savings account
A contribution toward an extra-curricular activity
We’re certain that you could double this list with ideas of your own, and are hopeful that some of these tips and considerations help you to organize your birthdays and celebrate in ways that work for you!