When I was younger, I used to buy myself birthday gifts. I would do one gift for every year I was old, plus a bonus gift for the new year I was starting. As I got older, it got a little more expensive and a little harder to come up with the gifts. I stopped altogether around my 41st birthday.

My 50th birthday was last year, and to be honest, it was a bit of a dud, for a lot of reasons. So I decided I was going to do my 51st birthday up right! I’m going away on a mini personal retreat, and I decided to resurrect my old tradition with the gifts.

Now 51 is a lot of little gifts to buy, and I wanted to have some sort of a surprise. I mentioned this idea to a friend and she jumped on the chance to pick out gifts for me. I gave her some cash and a budget for small gifts and have set her free with a list of things I like.

I have absolutely no idea what gifts she’s going to pick out for me. And I know she’s enlisted the help of some other friends as well. It’s going to be so much fun to open all of these random little gifts on my birthday this year!