DH and I are all over the place really. Some years it might be a nice bit of art or ceramics, and other years it might just be a good book, and some years it's something we asked for or that the other has proposed, and others it's a surprise.
I offered to pay for a trip for the two of us to go to an art exhibition out of town and stay overnight, but we don't have time to get to this exhibition before it closes. So I've just bought him one serious book we're both interested in and a frivilous one that covers a few of his interests.
There are no particular expectations on either side of one thing or another and I'm sure plenty of times gifts have been at opposite ends of the scale but I can't actually remember.