My True Love Gave to Me
Stumped to find the perfect gift for your husband this year? Me too!!
Then I thought that since “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is such a classic song, I wanted to put a fun spin on it to surprise my husband this season!
Christmas is right around the corner and I always have the hardest time choosing the perfect gift for my husband! For a fun spin, I decided that this year that it would be SO EXCITING to have a 12 Days of Christmas countdown for my husband to get him in the Christmas spirit. {Who wouldn’t want 12 days worth of Christmas gifts?!?}
I partnered up with Dedra from Prettiful Designs to create these fun and fresh Christmas tags, cards, and poems. I just love the crisp Christmas colors and designs she created! YOU totally score on this too because we are giving you all of Dedra’s beautifully designed printables for FREE!! {squeal!} Check out her site to see all of her great designs:)
I wanted this Christmas Countdown to include lots of nice things, but not break the bank! Here’s a list of the gifts I bought to give to my husband that match up with the rhymes. There is a gorgeous paper you can print out to keep in your purse to take to the store as you stock up on items to give your favorite fella 🙂
Day One: Massage Oil
Day Two: app credit, phone bling, or new picture for screen
Day Three: 3 pairs of socks, new shoes, or Slippers
Day Four: 4 Sports Items {golf balls, tennis racket, bike lock}
Day Five: 5 Of His Favorite things {gum, candy, snacks, books, magazines}
Day Six: 6 Pack Soda
Day Seven: 7 Hot Chocolate
Day Eight: 8 Favorite Cookies
Day Nine: 9 songs on iTunes, or make a mix.
Day Ten: $10 Cold Stone
Day Eleven: 11 Small picture frames or wallet sized pictures
Day Twelve: Jacket OR Gift inside his jacket {or coat closet}
Be sure to have plenty of wrapping paper and ribbon. I wanted my wrapping paper to compliment the gift tag colors, and found some that went perfect at good old Walmart. I think that they turned out looking great! You could use any wrapping paper you have on hand, I think a simple brown or white craft paper could look nice too, although {in my opinion} the sparkly ribbon made these gifts really stand out 🙂
This countdown starts with a fun card that you can leave out to surprise your husband the night before. We have two versions- one to give to a husband, and one to give to a wife 🙂 That’s right all you fellas reading right now, this Christmas Countdown is something your wife would L.O.V.E.!!
Check out the gorgeous tags you can put on each present! This way your spouse will know exactly which present to open each day, and it makes a gorgeous display to see all 12 gifts set up at once. Just make sure they are up high if you’ve got sweet kiddos or energetic pets roaming around your home. {wink!}
Some of these gifts are ‘just for fun’ and others are a little more practical 🙂 My husband has been needing new ankle socks for a while now, so for Day 3 I wrapped him up a set that he will be very happy to get.
Day 5 is full of favorite snacks and treats, which are super easy to pick up on your next grocery store trip. My husband had tried some Jalapeno Beef Jerky on a golf trip that he was raving about. 3 stores later I finally found some at Target to surprise him with. Just for the record, it is REALLY good if you like just a bit of heat 🙂
The poem for Day 6 is ” Six geese a laying, oh my they are busy. For you though, my love, I picked something more fizzy!” Choose your spouse’s favorite soda pop and extend the gift a little by playing fun card games while you sip on them. 
Day 7 includes all the fixings for delicious hot chocolate. Add a candy cane stir stick to give it a little Christmas flair!
For Day 8 you may want to be a little bit creative. If your husband loves prepackaged cookies like Oreos, you are set. If he prefers something homemade you can make some, hide them in the freezer and just leave a note inside an empty wrapped box to look in the freezer for his cookies. Or you could have the plan to make them fresh that day for him. Whatever works with your time schedule 🙂
Day 10 is one of my favorites because it is a treat you BOTH can enjoy {and who doesn’t love a gift that gives right back!} Coldstone is one of our favorite places to get a special treat, but you could really choose any food related gift card for this gift.
Day 12 I reserved for my ‘BIG’ Christmas gift. The way I wrote the poem will make it easy for you to adapt and give your husband {or wife} anything you’d like. You can give them a jacket, or hide the gift in their jacket, or even in your coat closet:) I am not going to say what my husband will find on Day 12 this Christmas, just in case he reads this post before, but I think he is going to really, really like it!
Aaaaaaand {Drumroll, please!} Dedra from Prettiful Designs was so sweet she whipped up BLANK CARDS that you can fill in yourself:) Send that woman a little love with a comment:) She is a busy lady {and a published author- check out her darling book!} but did this just for you awesome readers:)
Get started on this amazing gift today, and make your Christmas the best one yet!
Thank you. These are awesome and perfectly match our color scheme for Christmas this year!
[…] got the idea off of The Dating Divas and rolled with it. I’m too excited to wait to give presents, so he’s already on day […]
I can’t get the links to work. Is it because it’s from last year? I was wanting to use this for Christmas. Thank you.
Hi Lourdes! The printable link is working fine on our end. Perhaps you need to clear your cache? It is a pdf and should open right up when you click on the link. Hope that helps!
Hello,
I absolutely love this idea and love the design of the cards, but i wanted to change a few things and can’t seem to figure out how! If anyone could help me out it would be greatly appreciated! Thank you and Merry Christmas!
Hi Tyler! We are happy to hear that you love the printable! Unfortunately, the printables are not editable files. Sorry about that! If you want to order a custom set you can always contact the designer! Her info is linked up in the post. Hope that help!
I used this in 2014 for the first time – and now its 2015 and using again!
Just wanted to say thanks for posting these printables! I had the idea to do this for my husband this year and I googled the printables and your site came up. Love it! Glad I happened across you all.
Hi Ginny! Aw yay! We’re so glad you found us, too!! We’ve got ALL sorts of gift ideas for your man… keep reading and enjoy! xoxo
I know this post is from last year but I found it today & I’m so excited!! He is deploying soon. This is perfect to make his holiday a special one!! Thank you 🙂
Hi Cheree! Oh wow, thank you SO much for your service… as a retired military wife myself, I have the upmost respect and appreciation for you and your family. We hope you love the printables and thank you for reading!! XOXO
I’m using the labels for my husband! Doing the 12 days for him this year, they are perfect I love them!
I was just wondering if I could get blank labels without “day” on them. For Day 9 this year I am writing 9 memories – 2015 will be our 9th Christmas together! SO I was hoping to make a memory book using the blank labels! If that is possible? Thank you!
Hi Whitney! Thanks for reading and for your comment! Unfortunately, we cannot edit the pdf’s but if you want to contact the designer, Dedra, {her info is in the post} and see if she can make a custom design for you that is definitely an option! Good luck and Merry Christmas!
Do you have a listing of all the sayings for the 12 days?
Louis, if you click the first pink download button you can download and view all of the countdown cards and sayings for free. 🙂 I hope that helps and that you are able to do this fun Christmas countdown.P.S we are also going to be doing a Valentine’s countdown so keep a look out for that! XO
So my husband is a truck driver, so it’s always hard to figure out what to do for him. Last year I did a 365 day jar {mine ended up being a box cuz it was last minute & I couldn’t not do it!} but he absolutely loved it and enjoys being able to open a note every day at work. This year I wasn’t sure how I would top it! But I absolutely LOVE this idea because I can get it ready early and wrap everything and send everything with him to work so that on each day he can open his presents! Thank you for such a wonderful idea. My last day is actually going to be Christmas Eve which leads to his Christmas Eve Date Box. I’m putting a “year of dates” binder full of The Dating Divas dates for us & the kids in his box along with our first date which will be the Snowed In Intimate Date. I thought it would be perfect for Christmas! I LOVE LOVE LOVE The Dating Divas! Thanks for the amazing ideas!! We’ve really been slacking in our relationship lately on trying to do stuff together with his job but I feel like all of your wonderful ideas will really help bring us together and not be SO bored with the little time we do have together and hopefully spice things up for us!
Jessica, SO glad you are enjoying our ideas! It really means a lot to us and we appreciate your kind words! Thanks for being a part of the Diva family and we are excited for you to share all those dates with your hubby this year! XO
I told love this and am so excited to use it for my husband, the only thing that would make it better is if you could print them double-sided but the way they’re arranged it’s not possible. Otherwise I totally love it and think my husband will to!
Savannah, that is a great idea and we will definitely keep that in mind if we do a re-design! 🙂 So glad you like the idea! XO
I’ve been thinking about doing a 12 days gift idea for the last few weeks and I’m so glad I found this template to work off of! One question, what is the best way you suggest to print. Did you simply re-load the paper to print the rhymes on the back side or did you tape them together? Thanks!
Hi Michelle! So I have printed it both ways and I think my favorite way is to take some heavy cardstock and just glue the prints to either side. It kind of gives it some bulk and a little frame. But turning the paper over and printing on the other side does work too! I hope that helps!