12 Dates of Christmas: Dates 10-12

I'm excited to wrap up my 12 Dates of Christmas series with the last 3 dates! Here we go!

On the tenth date of Christmas...

Wrapping presents can definitely be a chore, but I thought it would be fun to make it a little bit more exciting by making a date out of it! We laid out all of our presents we needed to wrap, got out the paper, scissors, tape, ribbons, bows, etc. and got to wrapping! We put on a Christmas movie and ate food while we wrapped! It was fun and made a tedious task more enjoyable!

On the eleventh date of Christmas...

Since I had been planning all of the dates so far, I wanted to let Ryan have a little bit of a say in the date we went on on December 11th! Originally, I was going to let him chose between going out to dinner, going bowling, or going to play Skee Ball (one of our favorite things we did when we first started dating!) and we decided to do both dinner AND Skee Ball! Well, that was until I got sick that day. :( Instead, we made soup and stayed at home, which wasn't ideal, but we revisted this date later on to make up for it!

This is my homemade italian beef and vegetable soup! I'll have to share the recipe soon!

On the twelfth date of Christmas...

I was really excited about this date because when Ryan and I were about 3 1/2 months into dating, we went to Bass Pro one night and had such a fun time because they had turned it into Santa's Wonderland! Bass Pro is HUGE in Springfield, Missouri where we used to live, so going to Bass Pro was like Disney World for men! Plus, they do such a spectacular job of converting it into a magical place!

Isn't that amazing? It's really cool! If you live near a Bass Pro Shop, but never go in, I recommend it at Christmas time!

And there we have it folks, the 12 Dates of Christmas! I hope you enjoyed these fun ideas to do with your someone special around the holidays! It was fun because we got to do things that only happen once a year, splurge on some dates like the Cirque Holidaze show, save on some at home dates with movie nights and games, give back to those in need with Toys For Tots, and turn some of those not-so-fun holiday tasks into something memorable and fun!

Get creative with the dates and look at your local city's events calendar to see what holiday things are taking place! Hope you enjoyed the 12 Dates of Christmas series!

12 Dates of Christmas: Dates 7-9

I'm back with the next set of 12 Dates of Christmas dates! These three dates included 3 of my favorite things: coffee, Christmas lights, and shopping!

On the seventh date of Christmas...

Ryan was not a coffee drinker when we first started dating over three years ago, but he has learned to love it and coffee dates became one of our favorite things to do together! He also loves board games and for Christmas in the past he started collecting the wooden vintage board games they sell at Target. They are really cool looking and it's fun to be able to collect some of the classic games like Life, Clue, Monopoly, and Scrabble!

So, for this date, we went to Starbucks and ordered our favorite coffees (mine was a Peppermint Mocha of course!) and came home and got out one of our classic board games and played a few rounds of "The Game of Life"!

On the eighth date of Christmas...

I was VERY excited about this date because I love to drive around and look at Christmas lights! I have so many fond childhood memories of piling in my parents car with my aunt and cousins and driving around looking at lights! Branson, Missouri was only about 30 minutes away from where we used to live, so last year we drove down there to do the drive through lights!

I loved driving through the lights display and listening to Christmas music! It was so much fun and got us even more excited for Christmas which by then was only a few weeks away!!

On the ninth date of Christmas...

Ryan and I still had some Christmas shopping to do for our family and friends, so I thought it would be fun to make it more exciting since shopping and fighting the crowds is not really one of his favorite things to do! So, we made a date of it and went shopping in Branson which is not really our normal shopping routine!

Branson has a fantastic outdoor shopping area called The Landing, so since we didn't go very often, it made our shopping trip a little bit more exciting! Plus, The Landing decorates for Christmas and plays Christmas music outside!

And those are dates 7-9! I'm excited to share the last 3 dates to round up the 12 Dates of Christmas series!

12 Dates of Christmas: Dates 4-6

I'm excited to share the next set of my 12 Dates of Christmas! If you missed dates 1-3, you can check them out here!

On the fourth date of Christmas...

This was probably my favorite date out of all 12 because I loved the idea of giving back to others! I work for a non-profit, so it's probably just in my blood to love doing things like this! We couldn't find a local place that had an Angel Tree, so we ended up donating to Toys For Tots, which is just as wonderful!

Ryan and I had so much fun on this date because we felt like little kids again wondering through Toys R Us and finding a toy to donate! I picked out the game Cootie because it was one of my absolute favorites when I was a kid! And Ryan picked out a John Cena wrestling action figure because he loves to watch wrestling! We hope that two little kids out there enjoyed their toys last Christmas!

On the fifth date of Christmas...

I love to decorate cookies on Christmas Eve, so I thought it would be fun to make cookies together! Ryan and I went to the grocery store to pick out what we wanted and instead of cookies, Ryan wanted to make cupcakes! We found some scrumptious hot chocolate flavored cupcakes - chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting! They were delicious!

Yummy gooey deliciousness! This date was fun because we don't bake very often and it made our stay at home date enjoyable!

On the sixth date of Christmas...

When I planned out our date for December 6th, I knew I was going to have to work late that night, so I wanted to do something easy! We picked out a Christmas movie to watch together when I got home that night!

We ended up watching The Santa Clause which is probably my very favorite Christmas movie! I have a lot of favorites, but I think this one takes 1st place! It was fun getting comfy and cozy and snuggling up on the couch to watch such a funny and light-hearted movie!

Well, that rounds up the first half of the 12 Dates of Christmas! Stay tuned for the last 6 in the next few days!

12 Dates of Christmas: Dates 1-3

Last year, I thought it would be fun to surprise my boyfriend with a date every night for the first 12 days of December! I called it the 12 Dates of Christmas and every morning he got to open an envelope that shared what fun thing we would be doing that evening/later that day! I had so much fun coming up with the ideas and putting it together and he had so much fun being surprised every day! It really made the holidays more exciting and brought us closer together!

The photo above shows how I displayed the envelopes - I clipped them to garland I strung on the staircase! It was so fun having them displayed! Over the next few days, I'm going to share with you each of the dates and today we are going to start with dates 1-3!

On the first date of Christmas...

I love seeing shows and had really enjoyed seeing a Cirque show while we were in Las Vegas, so when I heard that a version of Cirque was coming to our town to do a Christmas show, I knew that I would love seeing it! So, for our first date, I bought us tickets to go see the Cirque Holidaze show at our local university!

 The tickets were pretty inexpensive and we had a blast doing something different and unique! There are all sorts of shows that you could go see for a date similar to this - a lot of places have local theater troupes that put on Christmas plays or musicals, many singers go on holiday tours, etc! Just check out your town's events calendar to see what's coming near you!

On the second date of Christmas...

 
I knew that doing the 12 Dates of Christmas could ultimately get a little pricey, so I made sure to do some activities that we could do for free as well! I love putting up the Christmas tree, so I thought making a date out of putting up the tree and decorating it would be a blast! And it was! We put on Christmas music, made some yummy food, and made an afternoon out of it!

Oh, and don't be frightened by that little elf under my tree! Some people find him creepy, but that's Krisken - he was passed down to me from my grandparents! I always loved him as a child and I'm so glad I get to keep that memory with me during the holidays!

On the third date of Christmas...

Ryan loves puzzles, so I thought it would be so much fun to buy a Christmas puzzle and spend an evening putting it together!

Can you tell he was excited? LOL! I bought the Holiday NYC puzzle from Walmart for only about $5! It was so much fun to spend the evening talking and putting the puzzle together!

And these are the first three dates in the 12 Dates of Christmas series! Stay tuned for the rest!