Birthday gift for Spouse

HI All,

There is still A LOT of time before DH's birthday. Its his first birthday after our wedding , its a milestone birthday too. So I really want to go overboard. I would have a nice surprise party planned for him , but then most probably we ll be in India on a vacatioin at that time
My family isnt much into celebrating elaborate birthdays (not adults atleast) and the shouting 'SURPRISE'. Not sure about his..?? Also , I cant go pick a cake or anything coz he ll be with me all the time, once we board the flight..
I am kind of lost right now. Any ideas would be welcome.

 

thanks a lot brb_va for the huge number of likes given by you across all my threads...infact thanks for reading all my threads Bow Bow

 

thanks for liking my treasure hunt surprise IndhuRamesh Bow

 

Re: Need Gift ideas for my DH Birthday

My Suggestion is to present a hand made gift, absolutely made by you.

 

Hi All,

Back to share the surprises i gave my husband for his birthday few days back...

this time,i had no time at all and hence had nothing decided even 2 weeks before his birthday..so took help from our IL friends

thanks a lot my friends.!!!!!!!your ideas were great!!!!!!

These are the list of gifts i had decided upon...

(1)signatures of all relatives::we stay away from our hometown and this i thought would really be liked by DH
(2)Recorded voice of my DD singing "Happy Birthday Appa"
(3)body massage::this is the only thing i had decided already..hehee
(4)A special kolam on his birthday
(5)collage photos of DD,me and DH(childhood pics)..i somehow missed my pics :-( so decided to make with DD and DH's
(6)surprise dinner


GIFTS PREPARATION IN DETAIL
-------------------------------------

My hubby was actually not in town on his birthday....usually if he is not in town,i somehow plan to send him a surprise gift(to the place where he stays without asking him for address) but this time i dint send any..because whenever i send,he ll say that he would have been surprised if i had not sent the gift...:rant...so on his birthday,i just called and wished.. ;-)

Made personalised birthday greeting cards(with collage of all his solo snaps from childhood till now)from a website called zoomin.com....its a set of 6 for Rs250..all 6 will look same...

Got signatures from my ILs,parents,sister,BIL,DD and ofcourse i too signed and also from his relatives(they are many in number) and few of my side relatives with whom he has good contact through mail/courier...oh god this task was really a big one!!!!!...then i arranged the signatures such that 1 greeting card would contain signatures of his family(i.e me,DD,ILs,myparents,sis and BIL),the 2nd card would contain signatures from all his cousin bros and sisters...3rd card from all elders in the family...also on the cover wrote "Happy Birthday from family,from Bros and Sis, etc etc"...by this i used 4 cards out of the 6....

So now i was left out with 2 cards...On one,i wrote "Free Body Massage Coupon" (on the cover) and inside the card ,i wrote something like you have received a free body massage coupon on the occassion of your birthday with the date and timings...
On the last card ,i wrote "Free Lunch/Dinner invite" and inside the card i wrote like "you have been invited forlunch/dinner with your loved ones..etc etc..." and specified few conditions as well (1)You will be blindfolded till you reach the table (2)You will not ask the name of the hotel/restaurant(my DH has the habit of constantly asking where we will go ,so made a condition like this) (3)This coupon will expire in a week'stime...etc etc..

In the same zoomin website,i ordered for zigzag cards in which we can put fotos(close to 15) on all the zig zag areas...we can design the same..its a small pocket sized one which costs 100Rs......So the first photo was a childhood pic of my DH followed by a similar looking/pose by my DD..for eg::if my DH is dressed like krishna,i posted a similar looking i mean my DD dressed like lord krishna as the next pic..like this i made some 12 pictures...i the remaining space,i attached the snaps where my DD and DH alone are available..On the front side,i printed "Happy Birthday Appa",something like a gift from my daughter..

On DH's birthdate,i made a padi kolam...wanted to make a very big and cute one but it rained sobadly the whole night,i couldnt draw infact scared to draw as the drizzling dint stop...but made this kolam for his birthday and took snaps...the most shocking/surprising part is,the rangoli dint fade,not even a line in that whole day..i was surprised..so took a picture of kolam at around 8 in the night as well..took a printout of this rangoli(morning and night) and kept it as another gift :-D
here is the rangoli i made for his birthday
http://www.indusladies.com/forums/r...alyana-padi-kolams-share-117.html#post2437109

Recorded my DD's voice....that sweet lady gave various modulations of the birthday song that i couldnt pick just a single one instead kept all..heheh..thought i ll put all in his car USB and play it once he starts his car in the morning ;-)

PLAN EXECUTION
--------------------- ;-)
My husband reached home after his official trip(6 days after his birthday)...As soon as he reached,i transfered my DD's voice to his mobile and set it as his ringtone(his car was at his workplace and also i came to know that he would not bring it for another 3-4 days..so dropped the plan of transfering to his car USB)..when he was reading newspaper,i kept the gifts(each gift seperately wrapped up and all together one big wrap) and kept his phone on top of the gifts in our room...i gave a call from my mobile..he came to our room listening to the voice...but it actually took time for him to recognise what DD was singing as she sang in a modulated tone..it was a big comedy...he took all the gifts...he opened and saw each and every gift and was very happy......he was happy to see all the signatures mainly.. ...my MIL too was very happy with the signature gift idea(special thanks to the IL friend who suggested this )

2 days later was sunday and thank god he dint have office that day....so planned for the massage...in Kottaikkal Arya Vaidya salai(he has back problems..so dint want to take risk by getting appointments in any other unknown spa/massage centres)...it was around 650Rs for the full body massage....i felt he badly wanted a massage ,that too with body pain because of frequent travelling....after he came,he said it was too good and thanked me for giving me that gift:banana

Later in the evening,i arranged for a birthday surprise in Pizza Corner(just 1 table decoration with balloons with a small cup cake)...DH/ILs basically are not pizza lovers but this time i had no time to look for other places,so arranged in pizza corner which is near my house...i initially thought i ll blindfold DH and take him by 2 W and make my ILs reach there before we could come..i mean basically to give him a surprise(initially tell him that only we 2 along with DD will go for dinner)...thought of removing his blindfold and show cake,arrangements and my ILs...but this dint work out due to some reasons....but i told him that we ll go for dinner..could not do blindfolding...also told him to adjust with pizza...already informed my ILs that we are going to celebrate....as soon as we entered,the manager told me that no arrangements are made as we reserved only for a single table...i thought total flop...then we went to the first floor where they ll arrange birthday parties....i asked the manager to get the cake alone immediately...so me and DH were deciding what to order..the pizza corner guy came and placed 2 bunch of balloons..immdiately DH asked"are these your work?"...and then that guy came and placed the cake...small brownie cake..i had already taken few candles from home...so placed the candles on top of the cake...but what i dint know was in pizza corner they play the happy birthday song while cutting the cake...so the manager came and asked whether she could play the music...my DH actually felt very shy and asked not to but i insisted and the song was played and the cake was cut...so took snaps,had dinner and came out...

The total cost of this whole birthday surprise plan(including dinner) was less than 2000Rs

So this was how my DH's birthday surprise was planned and arranged this year:-D

 

hey ! how do you manage to do this every year ! no wonder there is a sticky for your post !!! really admire the way you do it inspite of being busy....

even if i try to do some surprises i guess my ideas were very limited...but now seeing your posts...there are loads of them !

even if certain things didnt work out, i think most part of it was amazing !!!

btw, you mentioned something abt massage...i think i would like to gift this for my hubby next year....but can u let me know the branches in Bangalore ? if u can PM me that would be great, swaran...i tried to google, but looks like that website is not working, or i have got to the wrong one !

even love coupons sound great...so many fantastic ideas from so many ILs as well....let me see if i can do something next year, and will post it here....my DH's birthday is in January....so have lots and lots of time to prepare!!

and as usual, your rangolis were great !!! even Mother Nature was celebrating along with you by not spoiling the creation !!

nice to read your post !!

 

Swaran,
Nice to read your post. Really lucky they are and vice versa. Keep rocking Swarna.kalakureenbga as usual.

 

Superb.....lwill get some inspiration from you......:thumbsup

 

Dear outofthebox,
thanks a lot for your generous comments Bow
glad you liked my surprises :-D
looks like you have loads of time,plan well and surprise your hubby ...the joy of planning and hiding the surprise is just tooo good ;-)

massage actually i went to the kottaikal authorised centre in devasandra main road...they actually have massaging people but there they dont have steaming alone..so he recommended another branch which is near kalyan nagar,somewhere at the backside of Bigbazaar...if you want ,i ll pm the mobile number...that was called Ayushman ayurvaidya(or sorry not sure of the name) as i dint visit this place...

btw i really liked your comment about my rangoli..actually i did want to include such lines/romantic in the printout i took but just dropped in the last moment as i failed for proper words..hehehe

thanks a lot priesh for the lovely feedback!!!!

 

thanks a lot cutekid