Five Different Gift Ideas
Let’s be completely honest here – gift buying is stressful. Unless you’re one of that very small group of people who have both the time to devote to gift buying and the creativity to come up with a stream of new ideas, the major events each year that are characterized by gift giving (obviously, Christmas and birthday plus Father’s Day and Mother’s Day spring to mind) are preceded by a period of days and weeks during which you try to come up with a new thoughts about what to buy Mom or your boyfriend or whoever – and then eventually you race around at the last minute, desperate for anything that isn’t a gift card, a sweater or a bunch of flowers. Sounds familiar?
Well, the main thing that can overcome the time pressure is to plan well in advance – obviously. And as part of that, if you can apply that discipline, you can start to collect ideas and thoughts during the “downtime” between gift occasions. So here are a few to add to your collection of ideas, based on the friends and relatives that most of us have to shop for regularly:
- For Mom: typically these days, Moms have too many jobs to do and too little time to do them in. They give their energies to other members of the family and have almost no time for relaxation. So why not book a day out at the local spa, especially if they offer a package of services that she can choose from on arrival? On the day in question, insist on taking her down to the spa yourself, if that’s possible, and make sure that she knows the day is hers to use for her relaxation and her own needs alone – everyone else can take care of themselves on her one day of liberation from her routine.
- For Dad: more and more Dads enjoy wine just as much as beer. But they don’t always appreciate the finer accessories that can enhance the enjoyment of wine. So buy Dad a wine rack and some up-market wine glasses, maybe even some fancy pottery wine goblets, to increase his enjoyment to the full.
- If you have a girlfriend: most ladies appreciate jewelry for the beauty of it’s image and the opportunity to spice up an outfit. By presenting her with a silver heart locket, you will be giving her something that will also send a loving and romantic message as well as complementing the many other pieces in her jewelry collection.
- If you’re buying for a boyfriend: unless he’s a rarity, you boyfriend will enjoy driving and will be fascinated by fast cars. You probably can’t afford to buy him a Ford Mustang GT or the most high-powered Chevrolet Corvette, but perhaps your budget will stretch to a day or two’s hire of something like that. In case you didn’t know, there are companies that will hire out a Porsche 911 or a Dodge Viper for that day or so of fantasy motoring.
- For parents: they can frequently be the most difficult to buy for, just because they have had some many things bought for them over the years that finding something different is very nearly impossible. So how about going back to the time that represented a really romantic time in their lives – can you find out the place (if not the hotel) that they honeymooned in and book them a weekend away there on or around their anniversary? What a powerful reminder of their life together that would be!
Not all of these will meet your gift buying needs, nor will they all be within your budget. But use these to trigger further ideas of your own and you should find that gift buying is not quite the nightmare that you feared.