The date night jar is a pretty popular project on Pinterest. And with good reason. Ryan and I aren't the most spontaneous people and we're also not that good at thinking of good date night ideas. (Especially things that you can do in the winter!) So we fall into the rut of movie or TV nights at home and eating out at the same restaurants.
The last time I got really fed up with this rut, I started making a list of date night ideas. I scoured websites and copied their date night lists. And you know what happened to these lists? They sat unused on my computer.
That's why I think the date night jar is such a good idea. It's a physical list that sits on a table and reminds you that you haven't planned a date night for this weekend. And if we don't plan a date night, it doesn't happen.
Like many of the other date night jars (see two of my inspirations here and here), I color coded the sticks. I plan to add a 4th color for more expensive dates, but for right now we have:
Blue - at home dates
Dark Pink - free or almost free
Light Pink - costs money
I tried to incorporate things that we didn't do very often and things that we've never done. Here are some of my dates:
Blue:
-Make a 5 year plan
-Plan a vacation
-Play 20 questions
-Mute a TV show and make up the dialogue
-Rearrange a room
-Cook breakfast and eat it in bed
-Map out our dream home
Dark Pink:
-Play tennis
-Thrift store shopping
-Star gazing
-Window shopping downtown
-Farmer's market
-Go for a hike
-Drive to nowhere (flip a coin for directions)
Light Pink:
-Paint pottery (maybe make some new mugs!)
-Berry picking
-Eat breakfast out (IHOP doesn't count!)
-Bookstore and coffee
And the best part with using a jar, is that if we don't feel like doing that particular date that week, we can stick it back in and pull out another idea!