What Does It Mean To Gift Experiences?

What Does It Mean To Gift Experiences?

More often, you will hear family and friends say they are gifting experiences for the holidays or prefer receiving experiences over trinkets. You will likely have questions about what this means, why people do it, and how to do it.

What Is It?

Chances are that at one point in your life, you have given or received a homemade “coupon book” containing things like doing someone’s chores, giving a makeover, and other things you can do for one another. Giving an experience takes on much of the same idea but includes some individual thought and will usually cost more. For instance, if your significant other wants an experience instead of a gift this holiday, you can search “winter lights near me” and plan a date around walking through holiday displays for an experience you will both fondly remember.

Why Do It?

For many families with small children, the thought of another holiday filled with inexpensive trinkets and used wrapping materials scattered all over the house can be as exhausting as finding all those things in the first place. Gifts often break or get forgotten in days, leading to stress and clutter in the home. Taking your budget for all the gifts given between immediate family members and applying it to a family activity instead can give you a chance to bond over shared experiences without having to clean up all that packaging. 

How Is It Done?

It can be intimidating to start any tradition around the holidays, especially if you and your family prefer Christmas or birthday celebrations a particular way. You can still have the same traditions while giving experiences by wrapping up tickets, specialty clothing, or accessories related to the experience.

Gifting an experience means building memories with your loved ones instead of struggling to find the best item to give each person and risk disappointing them. It can also mean less clutter and a smaller budget, two sources of post-holiday stress.

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