This post brought to you by Groupon Gift Shop. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Kayla Aimee Writes.
When I think back on my childhood the memories that I cherish most are always experiences, like when my grandmother surprised me and pulled me out of school to go shopping or when my dad and I would ride bikes along the river. So every year when the holidays roll around I try to make sure that a few of the gifts we give involve the gift of family time, of going on an adventure and creating new memories together.
Since I am a huge proponent of giving experience-based gifts AND I love wrapping presents, this holiday partnership with Groupon has been so much fun for me. This year I purchased a Groupon for a hayride Christmas light show because my four year old really loves Christmas lights. Okay, and also me. I love Christmas lights, y’all. But I was really stumped on how to wrap that.
Every year my mother comes over to help trim the tree so what I decided to do was take the top of one our ornaments, roll up the printed out groupon and slip it inside. Then as we put the ornaments on the tree I was all “Hey! Is there something in that ornament?!” because Scarlette is four and needs some BIG HINTS. I think when she is older it would be fun to hide an ornament with a special experience gift inside for her to find.
Then we bundled her up, grabbed our coffee (and hot chocolate) and headed off to see the lights!
(I have to note that everyone kept lining up to ENTER the hayride in the EXIT part of the line and it drove me absolutely batty.)
Scarlette’s favorite part was riding the ponies.
My least favorite part was the camels. Yes, there were camels. No, I don’t know why. For the baby Jesus, maybe? Maybe they escaped from the nativity but at one point when the hayride was stopped these large, shadowy figures started charging towards us in the darkness. I was peering at them all “WHAT ARE THOSE?!” and the little boy in front of me was screaming “AHHH! DINOSAURS!” and then all of the sudden we realized they were camels and I can not lie, I was a little bit frightened. I mean, when you are not expecting camels to be running full speed at you in the dark it can be a little bit disconcerting.
After that we met Santa Clause, which we did not really intend to do but we went in this little shed to see what was inside and it turned out to be Santa. And then Scarlette was all “SANTA. WHOA, YOUR FLOOR IS REALLY DIRTY.” That is a true story.
She refused to sit on his lap but cautiously held his hand before asking if she could play in the snow again. It wasn’t actually snowing but they were blowing snow off of the roof of the shed. It really should have tipped me off that Santa might be inside. That and the sign out front that said “This way to the North Pole.” But really my mother and I were just looking for somewhere to warm up for a minute because it was FREEZING. We had a great time with Scarlette though.
I ended up purchasing a few other Groupon gifts for the season too. I picked up a tour of a local historic brewery to give my husband and put it in this cool mug I found. I bet there is an official word for it. I don’t know it but I bet there is one.
And Scarlette got a Groupon for gymnastics classes. I wrapped up a hand-me-down leotard from our friend Cora (which Scarlette was more excited about than the classes at first because she loves Cora) and then I hung an ornament featuring the Ten Lords A Leaping. It was a bit too subtle for my preschooler to pick up on but I felt very clever.
I also snagged a massage for my best friend who just had a baby NATURALLY. One that weighed EIGHT POUNDS. And I didn’t wrap that up for her or anything, I just told her over the phone because she needs that like, ASAP.
And that is my groupon gifting this season! It was so much fun to pick out memorable gifts for our family and friends and to get creative with our gift giving ideas!
