First Christmas Married: Gift Ideas for Your Spouse

Your first Christmas as a married couple only happens once, and it tends to arrive in the middle of thank-you notes and a stretched budget. The best first Christmas married gift marks the year you have just had together and starts something you will repeat. It does not have to be expensive. Our top pick is a song about your first year of marriage, because it holds the wedding, the new home and the small daily things in one place you can play every December.

Hear a Songbond song before you decide

This one was made for another family. Yours would carry your spouse's name and your stories.

12 first Christmas married gift ideas

1. A song about your first year married ($39.90). The proposal, the wedding day mishap everyone still laughs about, the first night in your own place. Share them, and Songbond turns them into an original song, ready within 24 hours.
2. A first Christmas married ornament. With both names and your wedding date. It becomes the first piece of a collection you add to every year. Usually $15 to $40.
3. Your vows, framed. Print both sets of vows side by side, or copy theirs out in your own handwriting. Usually $30 to $80 to print and frame.
4. The wedding album you have not ordered yet. Plenty of couples mean to do it and never get there. Choose the photos, order it and wrap it. Usually $150 to $500.
5. Preserved wedding flowers. If the bouquet was dried or pressed, have it framed. If not, a florist can recreate it in dried flowers from your photos. Usually $80 to $300.
6. A Christmas Eve box. Matching pajamas, a movie, cocoa and a card game. Start it this year and do it every year after. Usually $40 to $80.
7. A bottle for your first anniversary. A good wine or whiskey in a wooden box, with a letter from each of you sealed inside, opened next year. Usually $40 to $100.
8. Your first dance song on vinyl. Framed with the sleeve, or played on a small turntable on Christmas morning. Usually $25 to $60 for the record.
9. Art for your first home together. A print or painting you choose as a couple, for the wall that is still bare. Usually $60 to $250.
10. A trip back to the honeymoon, or the one you skipped. Even two nights counts. Put the booking in an envelope under the tree.
11. Something you will use together every day. A heavy Dutch oven, a good duvet, two great coffee mugs. The dull gifts of a first year are often the ones you touch most. Usually $80 to $250.
12. A cookbook from both families. Collect recipes from both sides, the stuffing, the pie, the Sunday sauce, and have them printed as one book for your new kitchen. Usually $30 to $60 to print.

How to choose for your first year

Look at what this year has been like. If the wedding is still fresh, gifts that hold it close make sense. If you have settled into ordinary life, gifts that make the everyday better, or start a tradition, often mean more.

• If you are still living on the wedding high: the vows, the album or the flowers.
• If you are building a home: the art, the cookbook or the Dutch oven.
• If you want something that grows with you: the ornament, the Christmas Eve box or the song.

Start one tradition this year

The first Christmas married is when traditions begin, whether you plan them or not. Pick one small thing and do it on purpose. Read the same short story out loud on Christmas Eve. Take a photo in the same spot every year. Write each other a one-page letter about the year and keep the letters in the same box. It does not matter which one you choose. What matters is that in twenty years you can pull out the box, or the photos, and see every Christmas lined up in a row, starting with this one.

Make a song for your first Christmas married

Create a song for your first Christmas as a married couple. It is ready within 24 hours, and express delivery gets it to you in about an hour.

Also in the Journal: songs for your first Christmas as a couple and first anniversary songs.