With 10% unemployment and economy as bad as we have seen in our lifetimes many of us have started cutting back. The Christmas tree this year may be a little more bare than at any time in recent memory. So what should you do?

We think it's time to make a list and check it twice.

For each year that we have been married we have always believed that Christmas was too commercialized. So rather than playing into the business of Christmas, we decided to rebel against it. Our way of rebelling is simple, we each spend $100 on each other just to have some feel of how Christmas felt our whole lives. We also decided to give each other 10 additional presents. But these presents didn't cost us anything on Christmas...though I guess you could make the case for what they cost in the future.

THE CHRISTMAS PLAN:

The rules were simple. We had to give each other a list of things that we wanted to do during the course of the next year. It would be 10 items and our spouse had to do what we wanted to do on our list. It could be anything, and the other person had to do it with a big old smile on their face.

The purpose of this was two fold, first it created automatic date nights at least once or twice a month and forced us to get out of our normal routine. The second, obviously it saved our credit cards from getting charged up.

THE FOLLOW THROUGH:

We knew that creating the lists would be easy, we also knew that following through would be hard. So we set up a calendar that we looked at most every day. At the bottom of the calendar was our list. In addition we had email reminders. It was important that we followed through and we did.

So what kinds of things were on this list? What do we ask for? Can it be anything?

Yes. It can be anything, but always keep your budget in mind and what kind of things that you usually do during the course of the year. Here is a sample of the things on our lists...

* Keep in mind these are once a year...unless otherwise noted:

• Give blood at least once a year. Sound like fun? Maybe not...but it really does end up being fun because it's not a selfish act. We opted to do September 11th each year.
• Queen for a day, 3 times.  As an example I'd go get her coffee in the morning, get her car washed...do what she wants done.
• Go dancing (we like Country music...so whatever type) once a month. We would usually hit dance lessons even though we could dance.
• One time..."Stay out late doing everything I want to do." My wife goes to bed at 8:30pm and is up at 4:30-5:30am every day. So even though she would do it whenever I wanted...it was nice to have in writing.
• Make my favorite cake once, whenever I asked for it.
• Go to a hockey game. Believe it or not...that was hers.
• Go listen to music once during the year. (jazz or whatever)
• Learn how to make my favorite meal (from her mom) and cook it for me when I asked for it.
• Go to a museum. Yeah...that's not mine.
• Go to a bull riding event. (not mine again, but cool) Again...we like country music.
• Go to a chili cook-off.
• Go take salsa lessons.
• Go to a movie once a quarter. She's not a big movie fan.
• Try 6- new restaurants during the year.
• Try 6-dive restaurants a year. They don't count as the above new. They are places we might see, but never go to because of their location or whatever.
• Go to the driving range together.
• Go to a play twice a year.

Those are just some of the things on our list that we have done over the years. You obviously will have others. But believe it or not, it'll add some spark to your marriage as well. Give it try, you have nothing $$$ to lose.

On a side note, not meant for everyone...but we also had 5 additional things on our lists. These were fun, sexy things that REALLY add a spark to our marriage. Because of rules I can't really list them...though I will a couple. But use your imagination.

• I get to pick her outfit out twice a year. She dresses conservative sexy...not with me. No...I didn't make her slutty. But I did make her hot!
• A couples massage
• Try new things....candle was, latex?

Hmmm...guess I can't list the other things...oh well, I have faith that you have a few!