Flowers are, and have always been, the perfect Valentine’s Day gift. A cliché, you say? You won’t be saying it when you see the look on your Valentine’s face as you present them with a lovely selection from the myriad wonderful arrangements available to choose from.

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Every year I hold my breath in anxious anticipation as my husband opens his Christmas Gift … or birthday gift … or anniversary gift. Unfortunately, more often than not my anticipation turns into disappointment as he stares at my gift with a confused look on his face. No matter how hard I try to find something unique and different, I always seem to come up a bit short – or at least I did. Then I discovered the secrets to buying the perfect gift.

If you too, have a hard gift buyer on this year’s Christmas list, use some of the gift giving strategies below to find something they will love – and you will love giving them.

Forget the Agendas

I used to come up with these great gifts for my husband only to get a quiet “thanks hon” after he opened it. Why? Because many of my gifts had an agenda (my agenda) attached. Let me explain: one year I decided that we needed to spend more time together so I bought him (or shall I say us) a membership to the local botanical gardens. Now, don’t get me wrong, the man loves to stroll through the gardens. He has actually made it a plan several years ago to visit during each season so he could explore every nook and cranny during a variety of weather conditions ands seasonal changes. The problem with the gift was that he was forced to go “with me.” As he explained later, my gift was no so much one to give him something he wanted, but to force us to spend “quality time together.” A better idea would have to purchased him tickets to some of the lectures and workshops held at the gardens so he could learn more about what he was interested in.
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I absolutely love Black Friday shopping. I’m a planner so I simply adore scouring the ads for those big sales all afternoon on Thanksgiving Day, while everyone else is watching football. Then there is the game plan for my shopping trip the next morning – ohhh – I get excited just thinking about drawing up my plan of attack.

I begin by determining which stores open when ( Toys r’ Us opens their doors at midnight; Kohl’s 3 am and WalMart 6 am). Now, once I know who’s opening when and what they have on sale that I have to have, it’s time to prioritize my shopping list in order of the stores I will be hitting first.

Oh, and I couldn’t call myself a true Black Friday shopper if I didn’t include the websites of my favorite online stores too so that I can order merchandise while standing in the long lines of more traditional outlets.
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