We’ve all been there.
The shake weights. The toilet seat with a nightlight. The t-shirt that says, “I’m not a gynecologist, but I’ll take a look”.
Coming up with innovative Christmas presents when you’ve been with your partner for a while can be a challenge akin to turning down a makeout session with Chris Hemsworth. So, I’d like to suggest a gift that’s a little more costly, but will never, ever end up buried at the bottom of a sack headed for the local gay thrift store.
Corfu, Greece
Travel.
An all-gay river cruise or land tour can give you and your partner something to look forward to for months. It can rekindle your relationship. And you get to bask in your incredible generosity while knowing that this gift benefits you just as much as it does them.
How about a cruise through the Adriatic Sea in Europe?
Or down the romantic Danube?
Or on the exotic Amazon, with a trek to Machu Picchu?
Many river cruises visiting Budapest do a night cruise past the incredible riverfront palaces
When I give my husband the gift of a trip, I combine his birthday, our anniversary and Christmas, so I’m knocking out three holidays with one present. I call it “gift amortization”. (Just not to his face.)
Then, each holiday, I give him some little thing for the trip: a travel guide, a travel power strip, a sleep mask so he doesn’t have to see the “comfy” clothes I put on for overnight flights. (I call that one the relationship saver.)
Travel gives you incredible memories. And photos you can you can use as screensavers to invoke envy in perfect strangers. And traveling with an all-gay group gives you the opportunity to make new friends and have free places to stay around the world – a big bonus when those friends live in cities where hotel prices are equivalent to a Bentley payment.
This Christmas, I’m giving my husband a summer river cruise down the Rhine in Europe, from Amsterdam to Prague. It’s a gay cruise, of course, so everyone on the boat will be a ‘mo. The great thing about river cruises is that the group is small – river ships generally hold 200 or less – so you can really get to know people.
And since river cruise ships essentially dock right downtown, you walk off the ship and you’re right in the middle of the city. None of the two-hour bus ride BS you encounter on ocean cruises, where you dock in some industrial port a hundred miles from nowhere.
Giving a trip isn’t, of course, in everyone’s budget. But if you want to win brownie points, or you have a special birthday or anniversary coming up, consider my “amortization” concept. Your partner might even turn a blind eye to those dinosaur slippers you insist on wearing on the plane.
Eric Poole is Director of Marketing for Brand g Vacations, the leader in all-LGBT river cruises and land tours. http://www.brandgvacations.com
