Christmas Gifts for Him: Experience Gifts of a Lifetime

Which of the following sounds like a unique Christmas gift that your husband, dad, brother, boyfriend, or other man in your life would enjoy?

He tips his visor against the glinting sun, adjusts his cleats on the green, and with a PGA professional whispering trade secrets over his shoulder, he finally masters his swing with this golf lesson with a PGA pro.

Roll the crystal stem of a champagne flute between your fingers, glimpse out at the scrolling city skyline, and clink a toast with him on a champagne cruise.

Brace yourself for years of play-by-play recollections after you send him out to the local racetrack, professional teams suiting him up and strapping him into a bona fide Sprint Cup stock car for the ride, quite literally, of his life—as a race-car driver for a day.

Lounge away the morning with breakfast in a pillow-top bed, imagining your husband as he chips wildly in a world-class sand trap, over a weekend at a high-end golf resort like The Homestead.

Through the hum of the engine, over the rolling quilt of the earth, the certified pilot instructs your husband on maneuvering the air currents ten-thousand feet up, during his first flight—a flying lesson lifting him one notch closer to his dream of flying on his own.

These? Are experience gifts (a.k.a. adventure gifts or gift experiences), and they will rock (perhaps literally) his world—and maybe yours, too. Instead of a new watch ticking off the seconds, make him forget time itself. Instead of a pocketknife, send him packing on a white-water rafting trip through the Coloradoan (or Oregonian or Washingtonian or…) wilderness.

What you see is just a tiny fraction of what you get. These experiences last lifetimes, fulfill dreams, craft a particular brand of fade-resistant memories. They are Christmases not to be forgotten.

For what you’d spend on a box set of Clint Eastwood movies all the way up to the grand adventure of his lifetime, for the bookish types inclined toward terrors and architecture and the thrill-seekers hunting down buddies on the paintball field, there’s something out there for your guy–and it doesn’t involve watching Clint make surly faces on grainy film for the next month.

And, of course, they aren’t just for men. At Cloud9Living.com, you’ll find thousands of gifts sorted by medium (water and snow, spa, golf, etc.) and by city for your perusal. San Diego photo safari, anyone?