Holiday Gift Guide: Couples Gifts

While we’re nearing the end of the 2009 holiday gift guide, I still have some neat and budget-friendly ideas to share with you.  Today’s gift ideas focus on gifts for couples.  While of course it’s fun to receive a gift meant just for me, there’s something special about receiving a present my husband and I can enjoy together.

1.  Destination Dinners Before Ryan and I had kids, we liked to cook dinners together.  We stuck to pretty basic menus though.  But Destination Dinners has a fun idea to spice things up a bit in the kitchen.  These dinner kits provide all the hard to find spices, sauces, and dried ingredients for authentic international meals, along with cooking instructions, table setting ideas, destination trivia, and a grocery shopping list.  It makes branching out in the kitchen much easier and a fun experience.  We received the Seoul, Korea kit, which only required 5 fresh ingredients in addition the things provided and came in a fun, red suitcase box.  What a fun idea! Each Destination Dinner is priced between $25 and $30 and serves 4 to 10 people, making the kits perfect for a date night in or a dinner party.

2.  Table for Two In keeping with the cooking idea, Table for Two is a cookbook for couples.  Before kids came along, one of our biggest dinner struggles was the amount of food most recipes make.  It seemed most recipes serve many more than two people, so we were often left with absurd amounts of leftovers.  Table for Two, by Warren Caterson, provides over 235 recipes that are usually quick to make and leave you with minimal leftovers.  Plus, I love how well he explains the cooking directions!  I’m not amazing in the kitchen, but I definitely find his recipes to be easy to understand.  You can purchase Table for Two at local bookstores and on Amazon (priced at less than $12 right now!), or an autographed copy for $16.95 (free shipping!) here.

3.  The Gift Card Mall Come on, admit it.  You like receiving gift cards.  You can do what you want with a gift card, and sometimes even get more mileage from it than a traditional gift.  Ryan and I love receiving gift cards we can use as a couple, perhaps for a fun date.  One of my personal favorites?  Restaurant gift cards.  With a gift card, Ryan and I can go for a nice dinner out without thinking about the bill. What a treat!  The Gift Card Mall recently sent Ryan and I a card to Red Robin.  I am looking forward to using it for a fun burgers-and-fries kinda’ night out soon.  And really, gift cards are so convenient to give as the gift-giver too.  The Gift Card Mall has made gift card giving easy by providing gift card centers in many retailers like Safeway, as well as online.  And they offer cards to over 350 restaurants and retailers, giving you plenty of options.

The products reviewed above were provided to me by the companies.  The opinions shared within the review are mine and were not provided by the companies.