How are you, my friend?
I’m thinking of you and popping by with a quick hello on this weekday in October.
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I’m still basking in the memories from my trip to France earlier this month. I’m also still organizing and mailing out the souvenirs I bought!
Are you someone who still sends postcards and buys souvenirs for people you love when you are traveling?
In some ways, this is an old-fashioned tradition. After all, we can send digital photos from anywhere in the world and they will reach our family and friends within seconds. Why go to all that trouble to get local stamps and write postcards?
I’ll tell you why: because it is so darned WONDERFUL to open up the mailbox and see a postcard from 6,000 miles away with the handwriting on it of someone we love!
It feels good to know that our sister or our best friend was thinking of us and cared enough to write while traveling.
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And … souvenirs?
You may be thinking, “Who wants a snow globe or a key chain from someplace I visited that they may never have experienced?!
If that is what you are thinking, then I agree! Ha ha.
We can gift people with souvenirs from our trip that are meaningful to THEM and that reflect our relationship with them.
Here’s an example: My mom was super supportive of the trip my son, his dad, and I took to France. She helped financially and she also expressed a whole lotta enthusiasm.
She always lives these trips vicariously through us.
So, when we were traveling, she was on my mind a lot. AND, I wanted to buy her a souvenir that would be extra meaningful.
When I saw a linen store in Marseille and noticed a whole shelf of beautiful tablecloths, I just knew that was the perfect gift. We spend weeks at a time staying with my mom at her home in Ohio and that means a lot of family dinners. And, a lot of family dinners means a lot of tablecloths!
I just knew it would be so much fun to have dinners at her house using the tablecloth from Marseille and recalling the time my son was teaching there and how supportive my mom was of us all traveling together!
So, when you are thinking about buying souvenir gifts while traveling, try to think of things the person will actually use and how that gift connects them to YOU!
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But wait; there’s more!
Here’s one extra REALLY FUN step you can take to make your travel gift a super souvenir: Take a quick video of yourself buying the gift or talking about the meaning of the gift while you are still in that faraway place!
My son, his dad, and I created a video for my mom where we held up the tablecloth and talked about how excited we were to have some meals with her using it. In the background of the video, you can hear the bells from the church tower in Marseille!
You can video the clerk at the store where you bought the item. (With their permission, of course!) You can display it in some fun way or hold it up at a famous monument.
Use your imagination to think of a fun way to video this gift so when you send the gift to your loved one, you also include a vibrant, fun, in-the-moment message about the WHY of that gift!
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Make sure every gift you give has a little extra love attached, okay? I promise, these kinds of uplifting ideas will truly energize YOU, as well as the gift recipient!
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You are a gift in my life.
I love you and am cheering you on, always.
Write and tell me about the creative souvenir love YOU have sent or received. I love to hear!
Thanks for who you are. Thanks for all the love you give!
Seek celebration — even in the dark corners,
xo Sherry