This is what the hubby and I bought each other for Christmas--a gas fireplace. No holiday ties you wear once a year, no more jewelry I don't have any more fingers, toes and arms to wear, no vacations to places we're too busy to get to.
When you think about it, it's kind of a romantic, practical, good investment gift.
It will be romantic to sit by the fire with our wine, talking over the day's events.
(Or watch the hubby snore on a different couch, this one in front of the fireplace instead of the big screen TV).
It's practical because when we lost power for five miserable days, I was forced to go to the mall to keep warm. (Which got expensive, all that shopping.) This baby warms up quite a bit of the old cabin, and we can all snuggle down in the living room to sleep if the electricity goes off.
(We just have to fight over who gets to sleep on the couches, and who gets stuck on the hardwood floors.)
It's a good investment because people love a fireplace, especially one that doesn't require: being friends with Paul Bunyon for wood, a gazillion trips in and out stocking up firewood, vacuuming up all the chips, dirt, bugs (eek) and ashes, and repainting every year to get the smokey haze off all your white ceilings and colored walls, and off your furniture, carpet and drapes.
(Why were we the only *(&%! house on the block NOT to have a fireplace?? EVERYONE has one.)
Plus there is the humorous aspect. Son, now 12, was singing about the fireplace. (tune: Winter Wonderland) "...Later on, milk will expire, as we dream by the fire..." Don't ask me where the heck he got 'milk will expire' from "we'll conspire."
And it'll be nice to curl up by the fire with a good book.
