I love buying gifts for people, but I can be a terrible gift recipient. Throughout the year I look for the perfect gift to buy or make for each person, and get excited when I find each item. However, when it came to Brad and me figuring out what we wanted from each other, we could never think of an item. Throughout the year, if there are items that we need or want, we will generally buy it ourselves (unless it is overly expensive). So when the holidays come around, it tends to be higher priced items that come to mind when we’re thinking of gifts.

Thus, the joint gift was born.

Many times, this joint gift is something that we want for the house, but outside the scope of something we’d buy on any given Saturday while out and about. We’ve been doing our joint gift to each other for the past few years, and I’m super excited about what we’re gifting each other this year (more details to come, but instead of an item this year’s joint gift is a pretty awesome activity).

Our joint gift to each other began in 2015. I had some Visa gift cards and we were talking about how we wanted to add a SONOS sound bar to give our living room a nice sound while enjoying a movie together, or to play music while we hang out in the kitchen. We decided to use those gift cards and then count the remainder as our gift to each other.

One year we bought ourselves a new bed (and then ended up spending 5 hours building it on Christmas Eve). I still laugh when I thought it would be about a 30 minute activity and asked Brad if he wanted to go out to breakfast before we started. Fortunately, he knew that it might take a bit longer and suggested that we get going on the build. Not only do we have a nice new bed, we also had a day full of working together to put it all together (for us, this is actually enjoyable, lol).

Last year, I shared about how I picked up some scaffolding while down in Oregon. While this may seem like more of a gift for Brad, it is also a gift for me because it helps him keep our trees trimmed so I can enjoy our view of the Olympics. Every once in a while, I think of other projects we could use the scaffolding to complete (like painting our vaulted ceiling in the living room).

We also love planning activities as gifts to each other. Brad’s birthday gift this year was our trip down to San Francisco, and last year when we booked the Fiesta Bowl in December we decided that it could be a Christmas gift to each other as well.

It isn’t so much about the specific gift, but rather picking out something that we can both enjoy and use throughout the year. Some years we have still bought a couple stocking stuffer items, and others it has only been the joint gift.

A joint gift with your spouse or significant other doesn’t need to be a large, expensive item. It could be setting aside time to go to a restaurant that has been on your wishlist for a while, or getting tickets to a concert or event. The key is finding something special for the two of you.

Have you ever considered doing a joint gift? What sort of items did you gift each other?