I’m not sure if I have written it here on the blog but I love gifting and also receiving experience gifts for holidays. My husband and I have always focused on doing things together for big events vs. giving gifts and this love and tradition we try to pass on to our kiddos as well.

This Christmas, I was super excited to gift my Mom and Grandma with a trip to the Sound of Music Sing-along experience at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle. If you’ve never been, it’s a little like the Rocky Horror Picture Show experience but with less shocking outfits and no sexual innuendoes. People shouting at the plot lines (my favorite was when Captain VonTrapp told sweet Maria to turn around upon meeting her and an audience member yelled “# me too.” Perfect.) and an entire theatre singing along with every single song (usually I’m the weird one in the crowd knowing every single lyric….here? just normal). It was a wonderful day and a shared memory with three generations of us Weber women that I will cherish for years to come.

My sweet BraveGIRL turned 16 this January and I am continuously trying to pump the importance of personal development into both her and WonderGIRL as they grow and learn and form their identities in their teenage years. Bringing them to the Made for More documentary by Rachel Hollis (I promise I’ll stop referencing her in every post) was a great opportunity to start conversations around strong women, confidence, not being impacted by comparison to others, and other solid messages that I would love for them to adopt in their daily lives. We had a super fun dinner beforehand and they loved the movie, but my favorite moments was our discussion in the car afterward where they shared their take-aways an we got to have an open and honest discussion.

My favorite part for them to hear was how Rachel combats the old adage that “everything happens for a reason.” This common encouragement can really dismiss someone’s trauma and especially a young child who can’t even begin to think abstractly as to why something horrible has happened to them. Rachel encourages people instead to find a purpose or a meaning out of an experience. Not gonna lie – I got a little teary sitting in between these two 16 year olds, with a world and a life ahead of them, getting inspired to have a healthy view of their past and an actual encouraging way to move into their future. My two girls’ traumas definitely did not happen to them for any sort of positive reason but my biggest hope is that they can use the strength and resiliency they grew during these experiences to cruise through other smaller life stressors and maybe even use it to impact/inspire others who have gone through things similar.

I know many of you love gifting experience gifts too – what’s been your favorite to give????