Date in a Box: Last Minute Gift Idea for your Man
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At this time last year, Dustin and I were living the picture perfect life of “poor college students.” I was working part time, going through my mid-life crisis about not wanting to pursue a job in my chosen field and Dustin was working 30+hours at a rental car company while taking a full load of classes. We were paying bills, paying students loans and paying off a car, so our Christmas budget was definitely…tight. It was our first year hosting Christmas (my sister and her husband, along with some of our best friends in Idaho all came over for Christmas dinner) and most of our extra money was going towards the food. We decided that our gift budget for each other was 50 dollars and I was at a lost for the longest time on what I could give Dustin on Christmas day that would be useful and thoughtful.
At long last, about two weeks before Christmas, I finally had a thought! Dustin always is in charge of our date nights and often plans really sweet ones, but what if I gifted HIM date nights for Christmas? I went to work brainstorming different date nights that I could put together that would be cheap, affordable and would focus more on creating memories instead of spending money. It wasn’t easy, but at long last, I came up with three different date night ideas! I gathered items that went along with each date night, wrote out an itinerary for each date and wrapped each up in a box. I really loved being able to give him those dates in boxes last year, they weren’t expensive, but I put as much thought and love into each one as I could muster.
Now that Dustin and I have moved on from that college life to a big boy job and a blog that comfortably provides extra play money every month, our Christmas budget this year has a little more wiggle room. However, because we had so much fun on our dates from last year, I wanted to put together one date-in-a-box for him this year, as well! So, if you are at a loss for what to give your man this year for Christmas, here are 3 easy date nights you can put together. Two are more budget friendly, one is a little more spendy, but they all guarantee a fun night for the two of you to share and create memories.
Date In A Box One – Chopped Theme
Chopped is one of my favorite cooking shows to watch and I thought it would be fun to turn into a date! In Chopped, chefs are given mystery baskets of ingredients and have a certain time period to create dishes out of them. Dustin and I both love to dabble in the kitchen, so I thought this would translate into a fun date night at home!
What you’ll need:
I had my sister come with me to the store and pick out two mystery ingredients for the box. (She choose apple sauce and marshmallows). I also included some kitchen knives, a cutting board, and some oven mitts.
How the night will go;
Decide together how long you want to take to make each course (we decided on 45 minutes to make dinner and 30 minutes for dessert). We each had 10 additional dollars to spend on additional ingredients for our dishes, so we spent the first part of our night racing around our grocery store to get all of our ingredients. We came home and cooked our little hearts out, coming up with dinner recipes using applesauce and desserts using the marshmallows! After we were full, we snuggled and watched a movie about cooking (No Reservations) to end the night!
Date In A Box Two – Power Outage Theme
I really wanted to figure out a way to change up our typical Friday night dates that ended up in watching a movie. As much as I love snuggling with Dustin and watching a movie, we tend to resort to that a lot, so it was time to change it up. This date in a box revolved around having no power all night!
What You’ll Need:
I filled this box with a propane tank for our camp stove, lots of tea light candles and a few bigger ones, a flashlight and a book with scary stories!
How the Night will Go:
Dustin and I light the candles and placed them all around the kitchen and living room and then turned off all the lights. We cooked our dinner over our camp stove (hot dogs and chili) and ate it at the table in the candlelight. We then made a fort in the living room with blankets and pillows and took turns reading stories from the spooky storybook with the flashlight. After a couple stories, we switched to Harry Potter, because #harrypotterislife.
Date in a Box Three – Fancy Night Out
This is the date that I plan on giving Dustin this year for Christmas! Like I said, money isn’t as tight, so I was able to splurge a little, but I am looking forward to treating him this year after all the faith and support he’s put towards me and my blog this year. This date was super easy to throw together (I got everything I needed at Walmart) but has just as much potential for a sweet memory and gift for my husband.
What you’ll need:
This date night is all about getting super fancy for each other and going out to a nice dinner! So, I picked up some fancy things for Dustin to use to get ready for our date night. I first swung by the Christmas gift set aisle in Walmart and picked up the Stetson cologne and aftershave set in the Original/Caliber Scents. Dustin has been hinting for a while that he wanted some new cologne for Christmas, and the Stetson one smells so good! I love these fragrance gift sets, they are so easy to pick up for last minute gifts.
I also picked out a new watch for Dustin to wear on our date night. Dustin has a huge obsession with watches and collects them like I collect makeup, so I knew adding a new watch to the box for him to wear would make him feel extra snazzy.
The last thing I picked up was a gift card to one of our favorite restaurants! I know it would have been easy to say: “we’re going out to dinner” but I thought that actually putting the money aside to a designated gift card would show that I’m serious about going out on a fancy date!
Last but not least, I saw down and wrote out a few conversation starters to add to the box for dinner. Dustin and I have no problem carrying on a conversation, but I thought it would be nice to have some questions to dig deep into over dinner. These questions touched upon our goals for our family for the new year, what Dustin wants to do with his career and what our expectations are for each other!
Putting together a date in a box is a super easy, but thoughtful way to give your significant other a special gift this holiday season: the gift of making memories together. If you want to put specifically put together a fancy night out date box like the one I’m giving Dustin this year, I’ve got you covered with some coupons to get some discounts on those awesome fragrance sets (not an affiliate link). And, there are plenty of options of scents to choose from!
Be sure to check out these other great ideas on how to gift those awesome fragrance sets and let me know what kinds of date night ideas you have that could be gifted in a box below!
