gift ideas for Senior Citizens

[Sherry in OH]

I need a gift idea for my grandmother.

 

Most of the other adults on my list will be getting homemade candy, cookies, and gift cards. My grandmother has diabetes. Candy and cookies are out. I prefer a consumable gift as her house is already overflowing with trinkets and other objects given or made by grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I had thought to give her a grocery store gift card, but my mother thinks she would lose it or forget to use it. The gift must travel well - we will be driving 400+ miles a few days before Christmas.

 

Any ideas?

[JoyfulMama]

Does she have a hobby? My grandmother knits, sews or reads every night. Also, she loves a good bouquet of flowers (could easily pick it up after arrival).

[Mejane]

Body lotions? Good for dry skin and circulation (esp. important for diabetics.)

[Mergath]

I tend to go way sentimental with grandmas. If mine were still alive, I'd probably record me and my dd singing Christmas songs or something (we're big on singing at my house) and give her the CD.

 

ETA: Oh, it has to be consumable? Hmm. You can buy (or make) a lot of premade mixes for things like soup in pretty glass jars.

[NanceXToo]

Don't laugh but my grandma (back when she was still alive, sniff, sniff) got a big kick out of getting scratch off lottery tickets.

 

She also loved getting bottles of Vodka to pour into her little silver flask, but that was my Nanny for ya! :D

[specialmama]

I vote for a beautiful scarf. Whether a raw silk scarf with beautiful artisan painting on it, or a warmer seasonal scarf, every lady loves a scarf. :D Apart from that, I'd get a beautiful frame with our family's picture in it.

[OrganicAnn]

If she likes plants - a Christmas cactus is nice. I find older women really like a dozen roses. Also I've known a couple of older women that were thrilled with those old fashioned sets of silver brush, comb, mirror and you can get them engraved - these can be expensive or very expensive. Another idea is Bed Bath and Beyond has had a bags with places for pictures. I call these grandma bags and they don't really cost too much.

[Heather in AL]

We get "senior angels" from the Angel Tree and they often request things like flannel bedsheets, slippers, warm throws, etc.

 

The ladies often ask for hand/foot/body lotion and shower gels.

 

The men seem to ask for the sheets, decks of cards, chess, etc. (I thought I'd toss that in just in case it helps someone else)

 

Sorry I'm not more help.

[Dawn in OH]

Fruit basket? I remember my diabetic grandfather always ate a piece of fruit for dessert, so I'm assuming that would be an acceptable gift.

 

I also like the roses idea. She probably hasn't gotten those in a while.

[Baseball mom]

I use to give my grandmother individually wrapped snacks. I buy seveal and dump them all in a big gift box (I mean I didn't wrap the little debbie boxes etc.)

 

 

Mine wasn't diabetic and she loved her sweets so she got alot of that. But you could get her some of her favorite snacks and some flowers.

 

Oh and I gave my grandmother some of her favorite colas, in small bottles so they wouldn't go flat. She didn't drink them often.

[i.love.lucy]

My MIL (79) loves birds, so I often look for things with beautiful birds on them, like new pot holders, or a calendar, or even a pretty throw. She also loves her White Shoulders bath powder. Baths are a luxury that the elderly can still afford and your g.ma might like some bath lotions or body washes that smell really pretty.

 

Definitely get her a plant too. My MIL can ignore plants and they just thrive. She's had her Christmas cactus for 4 years now and always tells me when it blooms (odd times of the year).

[Stacia]

Years ago, my grandmother requested that I put together a box full of cards, sorted by type (birthday, wedding, get well, sympathy, etc...), along w/ stamps & a pen. I also got her a calendar & filled it out w/ all the dates marked w/ everyone's birthdays, etc.... She liked sending cards (but they can sometimes be an expense on a fixed budget) & letters to her children & grandchildren, so the box w/ an assortment of the types of cards she liked to send was perfect for her. She loved having the calendar w/ everything on it too -- that way she didn't forget to mail anything.

 

It would also be nice to include return address labels for her too. Maybe some blank sheets of paper too, so she could include a short letter if she wanted to.

 

FYI, if you are putting one of these together, you can sometimes find nice card assortments at places like Costco where one box will have a nice variety of cards for various events.

[....]

I always buy my grandparents a bunch of groceries and I give them a gift card to the grocery store. I know you said that she might lose it (the gift card). Would she forget about it if it was taped to the frig? :confused: My grandfather has dementia, so he would definitely forget it, but my grandma seems OK with gift cards.

[momofkhm]

When my Nana was still alive, my mom and her sister would trade off every year. One would get paper plates and the other paper cups and napkins. I mean enough to get Nana and Gumpy through the whole year! Nana was still living at home at the time but was over 85. Anything they could do (living 2 and 5 states away) to make her life easier. Not the most common gift, but extremely practical. And consumable.

[Renthead Mommy]

My grandparents played a lot of cards, and my grandmother plays a lot of solitaire with actual cards, not on the computer. I ordered them a deck of cards from snapfish with my son in his Davy Crockett halloween costume on it. They loved it. Now that my grandpa is gone, she plays solitaire with them.

 

When my son was little we made note cards for her out of watercolor paper and paints. He was little so I cut out stencils and he painted around them. I had folded them in half to make them card size. If your kids are old enough you can have them paint pictures or sunsets or just color the pages. I'd encourage lighter colors, but watercolors work well because they are lighter when they dry and you can write over them easily. Card size, note card size or even note paper size are work well. Don't forget evelopes and stamps.

 

Snapfish also has notepads that you can put pictures on. Things like grocery lists pads that stick to the fridge are great. You can order them from snapfish, or design them your self and copy them at Staples and have them sprialed. One sheet of legal paper would hold four list pages. You could put a differnt picture or saying on each one and then cut them up, sprial them and stick a magnet on the back with a pen attached to a string maybe.

[rwjx2khsmj]

My grandmother loved getting one use cameras. I would give her a package (6 I think) and a gift card to the local drug store to have them developed. She loved having pictures of her people to share with visitors.

[Mejane]

Sugarless cookies and candies have come a long way. Many older people like to suck on hard candies.

[MaMa2005]

We give this and it is always well received. http://www.caswellmassey.com/almond-cold-cream-hand-soap.aspx?DepartmentId=41 Even though it says hand soap, it is great for moisturizing in the shower/tub.

[Kathleen in VA]

When my mom's mom was in the nursing home (in her 90s) someone in my family bought her a very soft, huggable teddy bear for her birthday. She exclaimed with joy, "Oh, a teddy bear! I've never owned one!" That was a big surprise to me - that she'd never owned one and that she was so delighted to finally get one. Perhaps there is something your grandma never got a chance to own as a child that she'd appreciate getting now.

 

My dad's mom had a cup of tea every morning while she read the paper. She had a little corning ware teapot she boiled her water in. As she got older she would forget that she had put the water on to boil and it would often get very low before she remembered. For her 90th birthday I bought her a whistling teakettle.

 

For something consumable, how about a roll of stamps?

[sagira]

My mom is 72, and this is what I'm getting her (she gave me her wish list):

 

- Scrabble Champion Edition for Windows Vista PC

- Coconut Scent cologne (Waikiki)

- a VHS of the 20th anniversary of Les Miserables

- various CDs of her favorite music that I download from iTunes and burn

- Boxed variety of perfumes

- Aloe and lavender scented body powder (Gold Bond)

 

She also likes books and crossword puzzles, and the symphony and ballets.