When you think about the 'American Family' what comes to mind? Are you envisioning the typical 'Soccer Mom Family' with junior running off to play softball while little Sally takes a ballet lesson, and Mom dashes off to a spinning class as Dad plays a round of golf? Even when the entire family spends an evening at home they do so separately. Dad works on his laptop while junior plays video games with his new gaming system. Mom is on the cell phone while she does the laundry, and little Sally watches a DVD.
Perhaps you have heard of a concept called 'quality time', coined during the 1980's as families noticed that they were too busy to spend 'quantity time' together anymore. Now it seems that quality time is being sacrificed for 'let me entertain myself please time".
If you know a family who is growing apart instead of together you might want to consider buying them a year's worth of family fun gifts to put the 'quality' back in family time.
January is a great time to enjoy winter sports. Tickets to an ice rink for a family skate, or to the ski slopes for a day of ski rental is great for families with school-aged children. In February a gift certificate for a Valentine's Day brunch at a local restaurant will help fan the flames of family love.
March into spring with passes to a home show, a boat show, or a car show. April showers bring May flowers, so a gift certificate to a local plant nursery will give the family a chance to buy some spring seedlings for planting together. May is for music. Tickets to an outdoor concert will get the family out for some fresh air and they can move to the groove together.
June is steamy, so cool your favorite family off with tickets to a water park. July's fireworks are great fun to watch while enjoying a picnic dinner purchased with a gift certificate from a local deli. August is the perfect time for a boat cruise along a local river or lake. If there are no waterways near your family consider buying passes to a local 'ropes course' where counselors will assist the family in working as a team and building trust between family members.
September is the busiest of all months for most families, so how about treating your family to a pancake breakfast at the local flapjack house. Eating lots of sugar is a great way to start off a busy Saturday! October is haunted house month, and most of these spooky attractions sell gift certificates.
November always has family fare at the movie theater, so movie passes along with gift certificates to the concession stand make the perfect indoor outing as the winds of winter begin to blow. December is the time for homemade sweets and treats, so end the year by having the local grocery deliver a bag or two of ingredients for an afternoon of family cookie baking.
Remember, the family who plays together, stays together. Give a family you love a year's worth of playtime, and maybe, if you are lucky, they will invite you along to share in the fun!
Graduation, Father's Day, a Birthday. These are just a few of the many occasions we may need a gift for. Deciding what gift to buy is generally the difficult part. If your guy or gal enjoys a good game of poker, let's explore some gift possibilities. Do you know the person well or is it just a family friend or relative that you don't see very often. These factors will obviously affect how much you want to spend, so we will cover several different types of poker related gifts. Many of these will be economical and some categories will range from economical to ridiculously expensive. Hopefully you will be armed with some great ideas at the end. With a plethora of gifts available at the low end of the spectrum, you will want to at least try to get a good value for your money. An excellent and unique gift is a card guard. If you know the person at all you can attempt to somewhat personalized this item, due to the variety of card guards on the market. They range from 3 dimensional characters with goofy faces to very well designed brass coins with typical poker hands and jargon included. Price range for these items is $15 to $35 with most falling in the $15 range. Yet another great gift choice for an avid poker player is a set of plastic playing cards. Once only used by a few card players and card rooms in the know, these longer lasting plastic cards have seen a rise in popularity in direct parallel the poker boom. There are many quality brands of plastic playing cards easily available today. One of the oldest brands is Kem, while one of the newest is the Da Vinci brand. Arguably the most popular and best value is the Copag brand. This brand seems to provide a top quality card, with great durability and feel, for $15 to $20 per two deck set. Additionally these two deck sets come with plastic case that is perfect for storage and transport. Poker gifts can't be discussed without mentioning poker chips. If you are considering chips as a gift, you will most likely want to buy a complete set which will include a case of some sort and possibly many other accessories such as cards, dealer buttons, or dice. Many options exist to personalize the poker chip set. Gold foil hot stamping and custom labels are two great options for the chips themselves. Also many poker chip cases can be engraved. Poker chip sets run the gamut on pricing ranging from $30 to $1500. Say your poker guy already has a great setup and you are looking for something to enhance his home games or tournaments. You may want to consider some poker software or a tournament clock to help mange and organize the games. One of the best products on the market for this is the Poker Genie. The Genie handles everything from chip distribution to tournament length.
Both Rachel Campbell & Matthew Sagehouse are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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