What’s the very best gift you can give yourself this holiday season? The gift of skipping overspending, overcommitting to time at the mall, and overthinking how to give that perfect thing to everyone on your list. Check out these five gifts that will help you do just that:
Walks We Will Take Poster
Get you and your lucky giftee out the door together. Gather a list including places you already love, some you’ve only heard about, and maybe even some you’ll have to pack a bag to reach. You decide! The fresh air and exercise will do you both good and checking those boxes will give you a sense of accomplishment that lasts all year. Bonus gifting points if you are ready to get a few on the calendar right away.
Personalized Motivational Screensaver
What’s better than logging on and having your desktop come to life with your favorite photo? Having a few encouraging words captioning those photos to get you prepped to nail whatever project you’ve sat down to, of course! It’s so simple, you may want to make a whole slideshow. People, animals, and places they love all make great subjects. You can even grab photos and save them from their social media posts. Add some quotes and a few whimsical effects from your favorite simple photo editing software, save them with a title that includes “screen saver,” and you have a gift you can send to anyone in the world that is sure to bring a smile.
Modern Day Mixtape
The days of hours spent pressing “play/record,” pausing, rewinding, and repeating over and over and over just to get the timing perfect on the mixtape for that special someone may be gone, but that doesn’t diminish the value of making a killer playlist. Maybe it’s your favorite workout tunes, music from their favorite vacation spot, or songs from the year you met. Listening to music can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, and pain as well as improve sleep quality, mood, mental alertness, and memory. So make the list and share it. A gift of music is a gift of health!
Framed Favorite Recipe
If you use an actual recipe card, you can find a thousand possible frames at the thrift store, or maybe even in your garage! And if you take a photo and print it, you have even more options since you can print it any size. Whether it’s a recipe handed down through generations or one you and your roommate love to make on Friday nights, the things we cook together and for each other are full of love. This treasure will preserve both the recipe and the memories.
Favorite Workouts Cards
Use a workout you love or search for training on whatever activity your loved one likes to do. A few suggestions to get started are one card for upper body, one for lower, a full body card, and a card just for cardio. Include one more card with your favorite stretches. Pinterest may be your best friend for planning this one. Print the lists of moves out on some index cards, tie them together with ribbon and you’ve got a gift that will remind them fitness doesn’t have to be complicated or mysterious – it can be simple and accessible and for anyone who is willing to just start moving. Encourage your loved one to check with their doctor to be sure the moves are right for them and then make a date to try them out together!
This season, give the kind of gifts that say, “I love you and it means the world to me that you take care of yourself” while you tell yourself the very same thing.
Erika Taylor is a community wellness instigator at Taylored Fitness, the original online wellness mentoring system. Taylored Fitness believes that everyone can discover small changes in order to make themselves and their communities more vibrant, and that it is only possible to do our best work in the world if we make a daily commitment to our health. Visit facebook.com/erika.taylor.303 or email erika@tayloredfitness.com.
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