What to get grandparents for Christmas?

[athena1277]

It's not too soon for this, is it? I'm trying to get ahead on Christmas shopping, or at least know what I want to buy. Both DH's parents and mine have all that they need and really want. I've done some of the personalized things the last few years, but an running out of ideas. Here's what we have done in the past:

 

Kids' hand-prints on garden stone

Kid's hand-prints on plate (at one of those paint it yourself places)

Nice, bound photo book of things the kids have done over the year

 

What other ideas do you have? It doesn't have to be personalized. And if it would be easy to ship, it would be even better.

 

Thanks!

[2_girls_mommy]

How about a calendar with pictures of the kids? You can have those made at picture stores? Or a mug with their pictures on it? I am thinking today too....

[Dayle in Guatemala]

They are a little bit of money, but, they are beautiful and could be an awesome keepsake

 

Photo Blankets

 

And, this site offers free shipping the US.

[BMW]

Photos will go out to one set of grandparents... a photo book to my dad who came for a visit and had a great time with us this past summer... and other photos in a brag book for grandma to do whatever she wants with and a frame or two.

 

Other grandparents... they have just about everything they want. I know the likes of mil, so I pick kitchen towels in her favorite colors... This year I am going to try to make stockings for Grammy and Poppa for their hearth, in her favorite jewel tones... think I'll put some neat pearls on them... try to personalize them... we'll see how that goes!!! I will give them at our family holiday party mid-Dec. We'll probably give them a card with a gift certificate for one of their favorite places to eat, too.

[mlktwins]

We got the grandparents, aunts and uncles photo calendars 2 years ago. We didn't do them last year and everyone wanted to know where there calendar was. We are doing them again this year.

 

DH's parents also love gift cards to their favorite restaurants and asked for new L.L. Bean slippers to keep at our new house for when they come over (which is often).

 

My dad is getting a gift of a full house cleaning by a cleaning service.

[HayesW]

I do photos of my children. The grandparents love them, and can put them in frames or a book. They ship easily and are great!

[LibraryLover]

I gave my mother a GC to a gourmet shop one year and she loved that. GC to bookstores or theaters might also be nice. Is there a living museum such as Plimoth Plantation or the like near you? My father is a huge history buff & really enjoys those types of places. What about a GC for a hair salons? Foot massage? I tend towards consumables.

[JFSinIL]

This will be the third year I have made a photo book with a years worth of photos of not only us, but the other 5 kids my in-laws have, too. They LOVE getting another volume of photos....Grandma is known to carry it around and show off her kids/grandkids!

 

Your post reminds me that it is time to contact my bil and sils and ask for some updated photos for The Book. :001_smile:

 

Updated photobooks are always great for grandparents! They WANT that stuff!

[KatieJ]

As a grandma here, I love getting a calendar of my grandkids ..I was sad the year they didn't give me one!

 

Photo books would be wonderful too. My friends are always asking to see pictures of my grands.

 

I also love the key chain with pictures on it.

Last year I got a spiral notebook with their picture on it, and a little cloth bag for library books with their photo.

 

Restaurant gift cards are really nice too. As PP said, consumables, my house is full.

[AnneJ]

My MIL has asked for flavored coffee this year. She's normally impossible to buy for so I'm glad that she suggested something this year.

 

Or what about homemade mixes--soup mix, cookie mix, seasoning packets, etc?

[JoyfulMama]

My parents live in an RV. They don't have a lot of space, including wall space. So the last couple years we have sent them some sort of flower arrangement for Christmas. They don't spend the holiday with any close friends or family, as they don't want to be in the cold. So this gives them something pretty, that gets tossed. My mom seems to enjoy this better than a gift card for dinner at a chain restaurant, as they can enjoy it for about a week rather than an hour.

[MamaAkins]

We did a picture calendar through snapfish last year that came out very cute! It took a little time for us to figure out which pictures to use and to get them uploaded, but considering that we used the same calendar for two sets of grandparents and one set of great-grandparents, it was pretty time and price effective!

[happykate]

We've done the photo calendars and they were a big hit. We may do that again this year now that I think about it! But the biggest hit ever was what I came up with "on the fly" 2 years ago.

 

I just used an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of white cardstock and painted one of each of the kids' hands a different color and put one handprint each on the paper. Then I wrote their names and ages next to their hands and printed "We Love You" across the middle of the page. You could print it on in a cute font before the hands if you wanted. I hope this makes sense. It was really simple, but for some reason is hard to translate into words! Anyway after they were done I bought inexpensive, but attractive frames (I used the kind that make whatever's inside look like it's floating in the glass) at Michael's or somewhere and voila! Merry Christmas!

 

I'm not sure why they were such a huge hit, but they elicited tears from 2 of the 4 grands and from their great-grandmother. It's one of those things that I wish I hadn't already done! :)

[lisamarie]

This year we're doing photo coffee mugs through snapfish. I ordered them last weekend when they were having their 50% off sale. I generally lean toward picture gifts of some sort--photo albums, framed pictures, photo calendars, mugs, etc. My sister and I go in on it together for all the grandparents/great grandparents since we're the ones with the grandkids and we take a picture of them all together and pick out a gift.

 

One year we bought a picture frame that lets you record 5 messages, so we had each of the 4 kids say something and then they all said together "We love you Grandma and Grandpa!" That was 3 years ago and it is really cute to hear what our kids sounded like back then.

[elise1mds]

My grandmother refuses to drink water from the tap. She was constantly buying gallons of water. My mom finally talked her into letting her get one of those water filters you install on the tap. My birthday gift to her now is new filters because she can't get them locally. I once got her a paper shredder because she needed one. DVDs of old movies ("Gone With the Wind" was her favorite movie when she was young, for example) or CDs of her favorite music (religious) are also some of her favorites. She always says she never needs anything but then talks about things that don't work well whenever I go to visit. She loves flowers, so sometimes I'll get her a bouquet of flowers. I know none of these are personalized gifts. I did a calendar last year and this year I'm making refrigerator magnets with images of flowers and butterflies (the kids' choices) because the kids LOVE to mess with her fridge magnets whenever they visit and I figured hey, why not? I'll probably get her something else small to go with that, though. She's recently had to go gluten-free, so I'll probably get her some gluten-free mixes because her small grocery store doesn't have them and she doesn't often have a ride to the 30-minute drive to the nearest big grocery store (i.e. Wal-Mart).

[OnTheBrink]

Land's End has tote bags you can have pictures printed on. I thought about one of those for one of the grandmothers.