Category: Birthdays

Unique Gifts for the Love of Your Life

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i_love_you.jpgThe romantic love of my life was born on Halloween so it’s fast approaching. Every year it’s so hard to identify a gift that illustrates how much he means to me… How when he came into my life it debunked (much to my then dismay) all my firmly held beliefs about relationships… How much he taught me by encouraging me rely to on him and that ultimately helped me believe in romantic love again. And when we eventually got married, I never looked back.

There are a few gift lists my hubby has inspired, like this one on baseball and this one on football. But below is a list of intimate gift ideas when you want to give a piece of yourself, and more importantly, when the recipient is ready (and dare I say worthy) to receive such a prize. So it’s fair to say he is the muse for this one as well, but for entirely different reasons. Happy birthday my darling, I’m grateful for the day you were born and that I get to celebrate each passing year with you.

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Halloween Gifts: The Most Boo-tiful Time of Year

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It’s no secret, I love skulls. In fact, my aunt–the cool one I wrote this post about–surprised me with a cutting board the other week that had a sugar scull carved into the front an its almost too pretty to use.

Halloween is a special time of year for me because it’s when I can indulge my bizarre passion for skulls and its also the birthday of my beloved husband so when I’ve had birthday parties and dinners for him I go a little nutty with the thematic elements. Here are a few picks for Halloween-y gifts and party accents you that are more hip than haunted house (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

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Home Entertainment Gifts: Sick and Rainy Day Helpers

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20121002-165327.jpgIt’s week two of having sick kids in the house and as any working mom who is trying to multi-task, playing mommy-nurse, tele-commuting, doctor appointments, and making sure everyone (yourself included) doesn’t go insane in the process is a tall order. These are devices and services that will make your sick days, rainy days and even family movie nights so much easier to navigate so if you know a new-mom, mommy-to-be (or Dad) or know of a home-bound family in need of some respite, these are my recommendations to bring-on a smile (or induce a nap).

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Fan Girl Love: Pop Star Gifts

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The Voice and X-Factors debuted their season this week and presumably Idol will soon follow. Other than the singing, what do they all have in common? Former pop star queens making up part of the the judging panels (did anyone notice Britney get announced AFTER Simon last night as the “headliner” and X-F clearly became the Britney Show)–and as a fan I’m hoping they deliver and rule the roost. I’m speaking of course of all of them: Christina Aguilera, Demi Lovato, Britney Spears and Mariah Carey (and perhaps one more TBD). Now full disclosure, a couple years back my husband got this thirtysomething tickets to see Ms. Spears in concert during her Circus Tour so I never lost and all of my teeny-booper mojo– I also feel her Blackout album may be her most brilliant one. Ever. And Ms. Mariah…don’t even get me started. Love her. So I am not a pop hater. Not at all. This list is in reverence and hopefully useful for you and your pop loving recipients.

This is really more of a sidebar, but if you can get your hands on David Cook’s cover of Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” you’ll be glad you did. Trust.

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Mustache Themed Gifts

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My daughter is obsessed with mustaches. Yep, those handlebar, thick mustaches that we used to use to play disguise. Who knew they would become a fashion statement, but here it is 2012 and it is. Yesterday, she went to a birthday party and as I was picking up gifts for that event, I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw so many cute mustache items all over the Upper West Side–I had pulled together a little mustache giftie to surprise my girlie just because (and socked a few away for another day for good measure)!

When she returned from her party last night she said: Mom, you should do a post on mustache themed gifts… And right she was, so here it is.

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Gifts for Fashionistas

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With NY Fashion Week approaching it felt appropriate to start dreaming up gifts inspired by and that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to give to my Louboutin wearing Birkin toting friends (both of them). But regardless of who you hang with, I have always felt fashion epitomizes fun, fantasy, reinvention and escapism and if one interpretation doesn’t do it for you, there’s always another collection or another season right behind. So enjoy…or hang tight, there will be more to come soon enough or even better, chime in with a spin of your own.

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Discount Gift Card Shopping Sites

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20120818-230926.jpgOk, don’t take this the wrong way…but I’m a sucker for a deal. Case and point, I spent about an hour trolling the aisles at DSW earlier this afternoon. So how psyched was I when I found out there are sites to buy discounted GIFT CARDS…yep, you read that correctly. Gift cards. Apparently it’s a whole amazing exchange system that I won’t go into (but I do link off to resources that will tell you more if you’re interested) which can result in some serious savings if you do your research right.

The other part of the process, which I’m not going to focus on because its not the bent of my blog but file under “nice to know” is that you can sell those gift cards you’re never going to use on most of these sites and get cashola back in your possession for stuff you really want. Ok, moving on…

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Summer’s Top Rated Toys Ages 0-13: August 2012

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20120813-232546.jpgAs promised, here are more top toy picks culled from Amazon. This time I selected five gems in each age group based on customer ratings (my sorting was 4+ stars–many with 5–and most had to have at least 100 reviews). I also tried make sure not to duplicate any products featured back in July–but feel free to check out that post again here. I’ve also included some personal gifts i gave to my own kids this month that did not make the top five list, but did make my family very happy. Enjoy!

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7 Unique Gifts for Baseball Fanatics

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20120813-001232.jpgI come from a long line of baseball fans… OK fanatics. And couple my tri-state location (some of my family is in Connecticut, I am a New Yorker) with an Italian lineage and you end up with Yankee fans… Shhh, my son is the rebel Met fan. My grandmother, may she rest in peace, used to religiously watch games and would pray for the players. I remember her telling me about going to a book signing for Daryl Strawberry (when he was a Yankee) and when she got up to speak to him, she said: “I’ve been praying for you.” Graciously, he replied: “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll take all the prayers I can get.”

When my husband and I got married, he made a few things very clear: loved me, the kids, his family and the NY Yankees and no one could say anything bad about any of us. His love of baseball goes very deep, and I wish he could have known my grandmother to be able to share this passion together and she would have loved to see her great-grandson get in on the action. So as I watch the Yankees play Toronto (actually I’m watching my husband watch the Yankees play Toronto), I put together this unique list of gifts for the baseball fanatic.

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Gifts for Dads

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My son in his grandfathers’ glasses, winter 2011

Today my Dad would have been 76 years old. It’s hard to imagine him a day older than 61, his age when he passed, and he seemed more like 45 when he reached 60. He was a dapper dresser, loved his cigars, played soccer from the time he was a boy and loved to fish and garden. He believed in self-reflection, creative expression and was a devout patron of the arts. He was always a good father, but became a great Dad as I got older. I miss him everyday and wish he could see his grandchildren and the life I have today, as I think he would be proud, satisfied and experience joys not yet revealed to him when his life was cut short.

This list include gifts I think he would have wanted, and that I would have wanted to give him, had time and circumstance been different. I’ve also often said “dead people don’t have birthdays” so I’m about to contradict myself when I say Happy birthday Daddy. I love you. I hope this makes you smile wherever you are.

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