Last weekend I (Kim) was able to host my annual Three Favorite Things Gift Exchange. If you've never heard of this, it's simple: Each woman brings three of her absolute favorite things. I like to keep it simple, so I put a suggested $5 cap on each gift. Once everyone arrives, we take turns explaining what our gifts are and why we love them. The gifts are then taken into a different room, and each woman is assigned a random color. When your color is called, it's your turn to enter the gift room and choose one gift. The rotation continues until all the women have chosen three gifts.
It's such a special night, and I look forward to it every year. I love this event so much for so many reasons, but here are just a few:
I love where I live, St. Augustine, FL, and I love the brave entrepreneurs who open their own businesses here. I always choose my three favorite things from local businesses, many of whom are kind enough to give us giveaways that I can assign to random winners throughout the night.
In addition to the gifts, we also sponsor a local charity and take a collection that night. This year we chose Compassion International, and we raised close to $100.
The fellowship! It's always fun to get together as women, relax without kids, drink wine, and eat dessert.
The variety: We get so many different kinds of gifts: plants, coffee mugs, wine, snacks, jewelry, socks, books, journals, candles, ornaments and a million more.
The growth: When I started this three years ago, 12 ladies were able to show up. This year there were 31 women in my house!
The laughter. Usually this event takes place in December, and there is something about gathering moms in a room with a Christmas tree and hot cocoa that makes for laughs, laughs, and more laughs.
Live in St. Augustine and want to know more about the local businesses I love? Here are a few of them--swing by sometime and take a look for yourselves!
Gifts: Declaration and Co., Juniper Market, West to East, Two Sparrows, The Coconut Barrel, Rose and Pearl, Market Street Boutique, and The Red Pineapple
Drinks: The Hyppo Coffee Bar, Cultivate Tea and Spice, The Kookabura
Plants: Feather & Bloom
Eats: Fiction Donuts, The Cookie Camper, Crave, The Floridian
Questions, comments, or suggestions? Send them to kim323music@gmail.com.