My daughter’s birthday gift – a shared family experience

This past spring, my daughter turned 6.  Rather than get her a present, I wanted to do something more meaningful.  It was important to me that we do something special, and create a family memory.

About a month before her birthday, I explained to her that I wanted to think about something special we could do as our gift to her.   Her father (my ex- husband) has taken a stance with her over the years where he will buy her many things, so she does not want for anything.  When she makes her list for Santa every year, she literally gets everything that she puts on her list (at his house, not mine!  Takes the wonder and fun out of making that list, but I digress….)  My point is that material things are so plentiful in her life that they mean nothing, or rather, the magic of getting something that is really wanted is gone.

Over the previous nine months, my daughter has amassed a collection of crystals and gemstones.  I myself have used them in my healing practice, and have been drawn to them as well.  In any case, a friend of mine had told me about this cool place outside of Temecula, which is a gemstone mine.  You can sign up and spend a day mining for gems.   I gave her a choice of two excursions to pick from, and she didn’t even wait for me to finish the question before she was literally bouncing out of her skin with excitement to go crystal mining.

We spent the day sifting through the rubble of the mine, and had a BALL!  Of course, my little one dressed in her birthday finest, hat and all.

We amassed an amazing assortment of specimens….the best one being picked right off of the pile by none other my daughter.  She pulled a 3 inch long quartz point from the rubble and brought it right over.

At the end of the day, we had found quartz, black, pink and watermelon tourmaline, kunzite, and aquamarine.

 

At the end of the day, we had a fantastic birthday excursion, that we will remember for a long time.  Rather than spend money on a gift, I bought us tickets to attend this gemstone mining experience.  We created memories for our family, and look forward to doing it again.