Before we really dig into this post, let’s just level-set here: it’s not like I don’t buy myself things year-round. I do. Probably far too often, but I find I always come up with a viable reason: I replaced a black sweater like this last month, this has a hole, this doesn’t fit, this isn’t my style, I need this for a blog post, etc. But there was something new about saying, “I’m going to spend $100 on myself for whatever I wanted for Christmas.”
I let go of the, have-to-have-a-reason, and said I’ve got $100 for anything I wanted. Could be 1 thing, could be 10 things. I settled on 3 things.
Have you heard of that 4 Christmas Gift Challenge? You gift something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read. I love that idea and kind of used it for my gifts to myself.
$33 – Something I wanted: Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook, which just came out and was also featured in the Cookbooks for Gifting post this year.
$35 – Something I needed: A good chef’s knife. As you would imagine, I do have a handful of really great knives and a few that I always come back to. I consistently find myself wishing I had another 7″ knife, so I bought myself this Zwilling JA Henckles after reading great reviews. This one is a Santoku knife, which is a Japanese chef’s knife. While they are typically used for vegetables, because they’re perfect for slicing, dicing and mincing, they can also be used for meat. Santoku’s are a great multi purpose knife to have in your collection, this one is my second!
$30 – Something to read: Cook’s Illustrated Magazine, which was $25, and Bon Appetit, which was $5 for the year. Bon Appetit has always been my fav, but figured I’d splurge and spend my last $25 on a new magazine. I love a good food magazine.
