A Fun Birthday Gift Idea

I’m kind of giggling thinking about your staff putting this together for you!
“Our boss is Joanna Goddard, she literally knows about everything under the sun. NO PRESSURE.”
Nice job team! I think you nailed it. :)

Love this! What amazing colleagues.

A friend did something similar for his wife’s 27th birthday – 27 gifts over 27 days. The grand finale gift on her birthday was two kittens. At the time – so sweet and fun! Now – still sweet and fun! But, also, they’ve had two cats for the last ten years. Haha.

Whenever I am at a loss for a way to be extra thoughtful/creative/nice/caring, I ask myself what a certain friend would do. After reading this the first thing I did was text her to see if she wanted to get lunch. It is amazing how when someone puts in a little extra time and effort how much extra love can be added in our hearts. I also turned 39 in January, and this friend also brought the sparkler candles, and after we lit them my 5 year old said that they seemed really dangerous.

What a sweet birthday, Joanna! Happy birthday :)

So fun! My family has a tradition that on your birthday, everyone in the family writes a list of things they love about that person – if you’re younger, the number of things will be equivalent to the age you’re turning (ex: on my 21st birthday, everyone wrote 21 things), but if you’re older, usually we do half or a third of that person’s age. We take that person out for a birthday dinner, and it’s the sweetest gift to be given to a person: truth and encouragement are spoken over you. You’re reminded of the parts of you that you had forgotten, and your strengths that you thought were overshadowed by your weaknesses. It’s been sweetest in the midst of hard seasons in my life – when I’ve feel like an utter human failure, yet I have people believing in me and for me, even when I’m struggling to do so for myself.

that is such a sweet way to celebrate! But only 4 slices of pie for your whole office group??

Did this for my mother-in-law when she turned 60. We live on the opposite coast, so we bought 60 gifts and individually gift wrapped them all. She still talks about it, at almost 80. And we didn’t actually “buy” everything. Some things were made, such as the wire picture frame, or a scarf that I knitted, a wind up toy, my husband’s certificate of kung-fu belt completion (inside joke)… just so this doesn’t sound super materialistic! Also, we used random gift wraps, to keep costs down, including newspapers, old New Yorkers (another inside thing), kitchen parchment paper, old tissue paper, and even the knitted scarf. HBD, Jo (belated).

Love this so much! I want to do this for my husband, next year! :)

This is the sweetest and most thoughtful idea!!!
Love it and I’m sure well deserved!
Happy Birthday:)

I love this idea! Maybe we’ll do it my daughter’s 10th birthday party, mixing her favorite foods with her favorite activities. It’s getting harder and harder to come up with a fun theme that’s not too cutesy as she gets older. Thanks for sharing!

My familia has a tradition of celebrating birthdays with an EARLY morning wake up sing along and “cake” and presents and pictures.
It started when my sister and I were little and my parents would do it with us. My dad would have the video camera ready and my mom a cake with a candle and the other sister would have the presents and we would be woken up before school, 0600 or earlier, lights on, flash in your face, and happy birthday / Feliz Cumpleaños being sung in Spanish and then in English and all on camera. It was annoying but we loved it and looked forward to it every year.

I now keep the tradition alive with my babies. My daughter is 19, my son 16 (soon to be 17) and I have two step daughters who are 11 and 9. I have done it with my kids since their 1st birthday and have photos and videos of each of them and now with social media the best is the candid shots of everyone waking up red eyed and messy hair. I don’t bake so I buy cupcakes or a cookie or a donut, last year my daughter got baklava- I admit I have forgotten to buy something the night before and have resorted to a candle on a granola bar or on toast. The point is, the WHOLE familia, cat too, wakes up early , alarms are set, and we go and sing. If someone is away, now thanks to technology, we’ll FaceTime the person in. The point is to all be there. The fun thing too is that when my kids got older, they started doing it to me so I also get an early wake up and so everyone in the house gets it… and when we blended families the tradition rolled onto them.
I like to think that my babies and stepbabies will continue this tradition with their families. It just shows that no matter what we are doing and what is going on, we all woke up to celebrate YOU first thing and come together.

When my mom turned 50, she didn’t want anyone to know, she didn’t want gifts or a party. I was a broke university student, and couldn’t afford to buy a meaningful “thing” for her milestone. I snuck her old-school address book and wrote a letter to every single person (pre-email days!). I asked them all to send a card and well wishes. For a week or two on either side of her birthday she received multiple cards in the mail every day. “How did she know” “I haven’t been in touch with him for 20 years!” . She got cards from so many people in her life- those important enough to be in the address book :). It led to some phone calls and reconnections. She was surprised and confused, and slightly irritated that somehow all these people found out, but in the end, she was so pleased by all the cards and notes. It was fun to hear her reminisce about all her friends.

That’s so awesome, Joanna! I’m glad you showered with so many good things by so many caring people! I did something similar when my husband turned 30. He’s a September baby, so I gave him a gift for each day of the month. It took a bit of planning & creativity to make it work. Some days were small gifts (like his favorite chips & salsa), but bigger gifts (like tickets to a soccer game) were sprinkled throughout the month. It was also fun to give him gifts that would “lead to” a later gift (he was gifted binoculars a couple days before the soccer game) without him really knowing what the initial gift was for yet :)

I love this idea. My brother’s girlfriend did something similar for Christmas a few years ago. She spelled out “Christmas” with gifts that started with each letter and somehow related to a memory from the year or an inside joke. It gives someone a whole bunch of things to enjoy, but can still be budget friendly, which I think is such a great idea.

Husband is turning 40 in March and he’s already depressed about it. I think I’ll get him 39 fun things, like chocolates, cookies, and nicknacks, and make the 40th gift a plane ticket for a weekend getaway. Thanks for sharing!

My husband did this exact thing for my 31st! A table of 31 things. He said he tried to get a baskin robbins (31 flavors) box to put it in, but they wouldn’t give him one, haha!