Those suggestions sort of took on a life of their own as the guys on my bowling team laughed about them. Last week, the guy I made the suggestions to told me I needed to write them down. So, I did. I came up with a list of 35 things and I plan to give it to him tonight. He'll die laughing when he reads them.
Humorous or not, I think the ideas have merit. Most aren't original, but then again, what is?
Here's the list:
1. Pull out your high school yearbooks, look for pictures of each other, reminisce about your life before each other and talk about what you envisioned your family life to be like one day.
2. Prepare a mix CD of her favorite tunes, open a bottle of wine, turn down the lights, and dance with her in the living room as her favorite songs fill the air.
3. Write her a love letter telling her how lucky are to have her in your life.
4. Write her a poem that mentions everything you love about her. It can’t start with or include the phrase, “Roses are red, violets are blue.”
5. Go to the old market, rent a horse and buggy and go for a ride. Part way through, pull out her favorite poem and read it to her. Note: This only works if it is above 70 degrees—which isn’t likely in February. So, save this one for later in the year.
6. Send her a sing-o-gram. Make sure you wrote the lyrics of the song. And make sure the dude who sings the lyrics is uglier than you are or just perform the sing-o-gram for her yourself.
7. Watch her favorite movie with her and cry at all the lovey dovey stuff.
8. Give her a foot massage.
9. Take one of her grandmother’s old pieces of jewelry in and get it repaired—then present it to her on Valentine’s Day.
10. Buy a box of Valentine’s Day cards that kids always get and write something you love about her on each one and leave them all over the house—in her car, in the bathroom, in her purse, etc. so she’ll find them throughout the day. (Minimum of 25 cards.)
11. Cook her favorite meal (it’s okay to get a little help from someone if you need it).
12. Take her out to eat at the place you took her on your first date.
13. Write her a letter detailing everything you can remember about your first date.
14. Write her a letter detailing the moment you knew you were going to marry her.
15. Send her red roses—one for each year you’ve been married.
16. Bring her breakfast in bed.
17. Go through your wedding photo album and share stories about the people and the moment captured in each photo.
18. Have your wedding video converted to digital format, then do a voice over detailing everything you remember about each moment. Tell her how much you couldn’t wait for the minister to pronounce you man and wife.
19. Get down on one knee and tell her you’d do it all again.
20. Prepare a photo album with snippets of your life together and write a paragraph under each photo about how magical those memories are to you.
21. Sit down and talk about having a dream vacation for your second honeymoon. Then make it happen.
22. Write new wedding vows and recite them to her.
23. Buy a copy of the book, Love in the Time of Cholera
and write your name and phone number on the first blank page. Then watch the movie Serendipity with her. After it is over, hand her a gift wrapped copy of the book and as she opens the package, makes sure she sees your name and number and then tell her she’s still the one.
and write your name and phone number on the first blank page. Then watch the movie Serendipity with her. After it is over, hand her a gift wrapped copy of the book and as she opens the package, makes sure she sees your name and number and then tell her she’s still the one. 24. Call a radio station and dedicate her favorite song to her.
25. Carve your initials and hers in a tree in your front or back yard. Then carve a heart around it. (Tip: if she’s a tree hugger, don’t do this one—she might freak out.)
26. Name a star after her. Then write a poem about how your love for her is out of this world.
and begin to work your way through it.28. Create a time capsule of your life together and bury it somewhere with plans to open it on another Valentine’s Day ten or twenty years into the future.
29. Find out what her favorite book was when she was growing up. Then find a first edition and present it to her.
30. Reminisce about your song (every couple should have a song)—how you picked it, why the song suits you as a couple, etc.
31. If you don’t already have a song, spend some choosing one.
32. If she’s a NASCAR fan, watch the Daytona 500 together. What could be more romantic than “boogity, boogity, boogity” and bump drafting?
33. Make a video using pictures and videos of your life together, doing voiceovers that describe how much each event means to you.
34. Ask to see her bucket list. Make one of her highest items on the list happen.
35. Ask her about her favorite outdoor hideaway spot when she was a girl, then promise to take her there for a picnic lunch when the weather clears up.
