What Couples Actually Get Each Other on Valentine's Day

Two themed illustrations of a cherub and a person sitting inside of an envelope amongst a collage of Valentine’s Day gifts including a heart-shaped box of Läderach chocolates, pink socks, and a wooden Fendrihan brush.

In this edition of The Gift, we’re making the case for Valentine’s Day gifts that are fitting for this stage of your love story. Perhaps it’s something pricey and extravagant, or maybe it’s as simple and no-frills as a boar-bristle nail brush.

This fall, when I drove from Maine to New York City for work, I swiped something innocuous from my partner for a photo shoot I had lined up: a nail scrubber.

“If you don’t come back with that thing,” he said, “don’t bother coming back.” That’s romance, baby!

If you are not 13 years (or more) into your own relationship, you may think I’m joking. That’s where you’d be wrong.

My partner is a fastidious, avid gardener — two somewhat conflicting proclivities — and he says the olivewood and boar-bristle nail brush I got him a few years back changed his life. He received a thoughtful gift, I received words of affirmation, and the steamy embers of our love were stoked.

Of course, our romance hasn’t been all nail brushes and thinly veiled threats. Over the years he’s given me diamond earrings, charging cables, a faux shearling ear-flap cap, and nothing at all. Which is all to say that love (or at least the kind I’ve experienced) goes through many stages.

To prove my own point, I informally polled some of my favorite couples for their own Valentine’s Day shopping plans. The results were unanimous. A real Valentine’s Day gift — the best Valentine’s Day gift — isn’t the sexiest, the priciest, or even the most unique. It’s the one that meets the moment of your love, wherever that may be today. Some inspiration, from various stages:

  • One of my besties, who has been with her college sweetheart for 26 years, picked up a mondo multi-pack of the famous Carbone spicy vodka sauce from Costco. It’s not as good as his famous Sunday gravy, but it has a certain charm: They now live in Miami, but it reminds them of their early years together in New York City.
  • A colleague who’s been with her husband for 22 years is getting him a travel coffee mug to slot into his packout toolbox. Her daughter is getting a trendy (and yes, overpriced) heart-covered henley. In return, her husband knows not to enter the home on February 14 without the biggest heart-shaped box of Russell Stover’s chocolates he can find at the drugstore.
  • My college friend has been with his husband for at least two decades, and the two of them — one of the most naturally well-suited, romantic, and lovely couples I know — usually don’t do anything at all. At most a surprise bouquet of flowers delivered to work, or a fancy box of chocolates from a unique Swiss chocolatier. Simple and classic.
  • A former colleague’s partner of 10 years just landed a new dream job as an upscale wallpaper designer — so my friend is getting him a very fancy passport cover. (I’m biased, but our favorite passport cover would hit that same note.)
  • As for my nail-brush-loving sweetheart, he’s getting the same old-school cherry cordials from a local candy store here in Maine that he loved so much last year, plus a trio of red and pink socks.

Oh, and a friend of mine who just started seeing someone she has a good feeling about? Well, she’s getting him nothing at all … except an evening together and the promise of new beginnings stretched before them. I can’t think of anything better.



from Wirecutter: Reviews for the Real World https://ift.tt/YLm9jQd
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