Making date night happen…
How often do you date your spouse? I’m betting it’s not as regularly as you’d like? I know that because it used to be the same for me and my husband. Finding time for quality time together when life is so busy can be really hard! Especially when you have young kids at home.
My Hubby and I would consider ourselves lucky if we had a date night every three or four months! But then we discovered A Year of Dates and making date night happen became a whole lot easier.
Introducing a Year of Dates…
If you’re wishing you could date your other half more often but never seem to have the time, A Year of Dates might just be the answer you’re looking for. Not only have my Hubby and I managed a date night almost every month for the last year now, we’ve had a lot of fun too.
Quick and easy to make and with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, A Year of Dates is THE perfect Valentine’s gift! Want to know what a year of dates is and how it can help you to start dating your spouse more regularly? Keep reading!
How A Year of Dates works…
The concept behind A Year of Dates is simple but VERY effective. The idea is that you come up with twelve different dates for you to go on together and you assign each one to a month of the year. Then, come the beginning of each month, you simply make plans to make that date happen. Hire the babysitter. Book the table at the restaurant etc. etc. And that’s it! Pretty cool huh?! I told you it was simple!
It works because not only are you being intentional about the time you spend together but because your dates are planned in advance. No more worrying about what to do for date night. Or trying to find the time to make it happen. Instead of saying “we really should have another date night soon” and then never doing anything about it, there’s a date already in the diary!
Making your own year of dates…
Wanting to pick dates that were personal to us, I took the concept of a Year of Dates and created my own. And you can do it too! Here’s how I created mine.
First, I picked twelve dates based on things I knew we wanted to do in our local area. None were particularly expensive or extravagant and they were all pretty easy to organise. Most of which were activities or places we’d talked about doing but had never gotten around to doing.
Writing each month’s date in a word document, I printed them and stuck them to pieces of A5 card. Then, I put all of them into one envelope and gave them to my Hubby for his birthday. Which is in January – perfect timing right?! And do you know what, he loved it!
Different ways to do a year of dates…
Printing the dates out onto card isn’t the only way that you can do this. There are plenty of others. Here are just a few other ways you could do this too:
- Print out all the dates, month by month, onto one sheet of A4 paper.
- Have an envelope for each month. Give them to your spouse to open on the 1st of every month.
- Write a clue for each month so he has to guess what you’ll be doing instead of telling him.
- Write out each month’s date on a separate sheet of A4 and put them all in a ring binder with a front cover.
- Post each date to him so it lands on the doormat on the 1st of every month.
Need a few date ideas to get you started? Why not try some of these…
- Love watching movies together? Buy a gift card for your local cinema and put it in the envelope.
- Buy a voucher for your favourite restaurant – dinner prepaid!
- The same goes for your local cafe, buy a voucher, preload it and then spend the afternoon there.
- Get dressed up and go for cocktails at your local bar.
- Go dancing together.
- Do something fun like crazy golf, tenpin bowling or ice skating.
- Be a tourist in your own town.
…and for nights in:
- Spend a morning going through your cookbooks, pick a meal, buy the ingredients and cook together once the kids are in bed – this is probably one of our favourites!
- Make your favourite restaurant meal at home.
- Take a trip down memory lane – dig out all your old photos and go through them together.
- Make your own popcorn, download a movie and curl up on the sofa together.
- Watch a movie you saw when you were first dating.
Make your dates as simple or as extravagant as you like. You don’t have to leave the house every time, nor do you have to spend a fortune if you don’t want to. Do whatever works for you. What’s important is you have a date in the diary you can look forward to every month.
Don’t forget to make it happen!
Now your dates are in the diary, you just need to make them happen! Book the day off work if you need to. Buy the tickets. Ask the grandparents if they can have the kids. Make a note in your diary of what you need to do when. Check-in on your diary at the beginning of every month and make sure everything’s sorted.
Will there be occasions where life tries to get in the way? Of course there will! But don’t let that thwart your plans. If the weather lets you down or your babysitter cancels on you, still have your date night if you can. Just do something different. Pick a month with an indoors date and swap the months around. Whatever you do, DON’T cancel date night! If it helps, make a list of stay-at-home date ideas you can fall back on. Make your monthly date night a priority. Commit to spending the time together – no excuses!
Date your spouse with a Year of Dates…
If you’re looking to find a way to spend more time with your other half, or just get a regular date in the diary, A Year of Dates will help. It’s totally changed the way I date my husband and it’s made us closer than ever. And it will do the same for you too!
The best part is you can start it at any time of the year. It’s the perfect Valentine’s gift but also works as a birthday, Christmas or anniversary present too. My Hubby and I had great fun with it last year and we’ll definitely be doing it again this year. It’s taught us that one date night a month is doable no matter how busy life might be. You just need to get a little organised!
That’s it for this post! Have you tried A Year of Dates? Has this post inspired you to give it a go this year? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time…
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