My best friend’s golden birthday is coming up, and because I’ve known her for so long, it feels like I’ve gone through all the typical gift ideas. I’ve done the favorite singer merch, cute picture frames or mugs of us together, planned activities we like to do together and a bunch of inside joke gifts. However, I wanted to do something different because a golden birthday only happens once.
That’s when I came up with a crazy-sounding idea that just might work: 20 gifts for the 20 days of November leading up to her birthday. We don’t go to the same college, but I was seeing her right before the start of November, which honestly worked out perfectly for my plan. The one gift a day is also similar to me being with her each day even though we can’t physically celebrate together.
Now for the tough part: coming up with the 20 gifts. I knew I didn’t want everything to be too big because I needed to easily bring them to her, and it works out that she prefers little inside joke things over huge, in-your-face presents.
I separated the gift ideas into three categories: gifts that are actually useful, special custom gifts and gifts that can be put in an envelope. For example, some of her favorite snacks were ones I classified as “useful,” and a mini Star Wars lego set or a 1:43 scale version of her favorite F1 car were things I classified as “special or custom.” The envelope category had things like small poems I thought she would like, a birthday card and things like a URL to a joint Spotify playlist.
The hardest part was gathering, wrapping and labeling these things. I just included a little post-it on the inside with a couple words on it for each wrapped item, especially for the ones that were more of an inside joke. What I liked most about this idea was how customizable it was but also that it’s fun for both of us. There are some gifts that I literally laugh about when I think of her opening them, and there is the added bonus of getting her daily reactions to them.
So, even if this idea only works for a more special occasion or birthday, if the person you’re trying to figure out a gift for loves gifts with a lot more thought behind them, I think this works out perfectly.