Gifts to Enhance a Relationship
Creating a lively and satisfying relationship requires cultivating cooperation, communication, respect, and love in the same way you cultivate a garden — carefully, patiently, and with considerable effort at times. Gardens keep calling us back because they are beautiful, but also because they keep changing — growing wildly at times. They make us pay attention the same way a lively romance does. Keeping your relationship feeling fresh and colorful is a highly individual endeavor and the methods you use will need changing and revitalizing from time to time.
One of the most straightforward ways to change the pace of everyday life is to literally change the scene through a holiday or vacation. Sometimes, believe it or not, the vacation may even be one away from each other. Both vacations together and apart can be nourishing depending on timing and the individuals involved. A mini vacation might be as simple as a drive in the country, dinner out at a new or favorite restaurant, or maybe a picnic with real dishes, glasses, silverware, and cloth napkins. While for some people the cost of the event may play a part in what makes it special, the actual effort expended, such as preparing a special dinner at home, perhaps with a decorated theme, may be the real gift for some.
Another successful behavior is to give a gift from time to time for no particular reason. Gifts can be wrapped or unwrapped, expensive or not, practical or useless, meaningful or just funny, purchased or hand-made. Examples of traditional gifts include flowers, or one flower, a carefully picked handful of wildflowers or even sheaves of grain, or perhaps a potted plant or sapling that you both plant together. Less traditional gifts might include a drawing, a poem or song you write or find and maybe record, something sewn or built by hand, or even doing a chore the other person normally does. The pleasure of the moment can be enhanced with a scavenger or treasure map leading the person to your special gift. Another way to enliven and prolong the gifting moment is a game of draw with a variety of gifts available to choose.
Variety is of course important, however the real gift is the time and energy it takes to think of it in the first place. A fun game to play is for each person to think of all the possible gifts each might give and to write each one on a separate piece of paper. From time to time, especially when someone is feeling low, hold a drawing. The result can be a gift you really will give, or just one you wish you could give if you had the means. Many people believe hand-made gifts are the best because they are original, and are made with loving intentions. Others are captivated with some commercial item. With gift giving you can have fun and be creative.
And finally, or rather, in addition, saying something positive about the person is a special gift in itself. Sometimes even more profoundly received is to say something positive about the person to someone else within that person’s hearing. It becomes harder for a person to believe you are merely flattering when you are heard saying the words indirectly. The dictionary defines ‘gift’ as a thing given willingly to someone without payment. The gifts given in a loving relationship are extended beyond the dictionary definition to include: given with thoughtful intention, without obligation, and without expectation on the recipient’s part. In other words, gifts of the heart.