This is the first of a 12 day run of posts all aimed at ensuring you have a few creative gift giving ideas to work with in the coming days leading up to the various holidays – including one of my favorites – Christmas.
12 days of gift giving ideas – 7 gifts each day for you to consider – summed up – 84 gifts that you can play with.
This focus for today is – 7 Gifts of Paying It Forward. This is the sort of gift that you could do anytime, and it is about delivering something unexpected coupled with greatly minimizing the ability of the person receiving the gift to feel compelled to return any favors/gifts.
- Pay Off Layaway – This idea was sponsored by this guy in my home state of Vermont, where he randomly walked in and cleared out the layway bills of everyone in line. I do not know how much this one costs, and you can play with this – perhaps it is just paying off a couple gifts for someone in line. Check out the link here, and note the football team he’s supporting:
- Buy A Dunkies – I have done this a few times here in Dallas, TX. I’m all for supporting the Dunkins coffee, especially in this state where there is a Starbucks on every corner about 3.5 miles. I do this when I’m in the drive through, that way I can avoid the awkward thank you. It is a fun ‘prank’ to randomly play.
- Donate to A Friend’s Cause – For some reason, I have been noticing a lot of friends working on causes and seeking donations in the past month. One guy in particular is doing some crazy – 500+ mile bike ride, had to throw down some cash, as I barely can comprehend the amount of mental focus required to handle that kind of training – let alone the days it will take to pull it off.
- Schedule a Mentoring Session – You likely work with someone that could use a hand, and likely someone that could use a hand with problem solving or just an active listener with your experience. Get on their calendar and give them an hour of complete focus – for no reason. Oh – wait – you could do this with someone in your family.
- Curate Content, Unannounced – You know someone in your life loves a particular topic, why not do some research for them that is from a few different sources, and pull it together into a slick looking Word document or even a PDF? For example, I have someone very close to me in my life that values incredible hockey talent, and he could tell you quite a bit about Mike Bossy, a legendary gunslinger that was scoring crazy amounts of goals before some kid out of Canada named Gretzky started getting hot. Well, I bet I could do something special by pulling up a few YouTube links, an old school SI article, and maybe even some stuff well off the beaten path as a custom-built gift for him. Kind of thoughtful too. Any subject works, ping me if you want a template / checklist to follow.
- Speak Truthful Compliments For A Day– Make it a point to vocalize a compliment to anyone you come across during your day, provided you genuinely feel it. It could be as simple as saying to someone at work – how much you appreciate their constantly positive demeanor each day. It could be your kids at home, and the awesome animation they just built out on their computer that they HAD to show you. It could be the guy at Krogers who is always juiced about his Miami Dolphins, and how they pulled off an upset for the ages…okay, maybe not. You get the idea though. Still stings.
- Buy Some Groceries – You can go in the crazy full line, or the 15 items or less line – depending upon how hardcore you want to roll. Pay for your stuff, and then pull down an extra $40 cash (I always use a debit card) or whatever amount you want to share with the person behind you. Grab the cashier and tell them privately, that you want them to put this cash towards the guy/gal behind you in line, and walk off. Make sure they got what you are asking them to do. You could do this at any store obviously, although I prefer the grocery stores – it tends to be a bit more emotional for some reason.
Okay, so there’s 7 gifts you can give away in this season of giving. I wonder what the next 7 will be about…
Hit me up if you have any requests!