The perfect gift doesn’t just make the holidays brighter; it also makes the recipient’s life easier or more fun year-round.
But what do you get for the older adult in your life who’s notoriously hard to shop for?
Here are our tried and tested gift ideas for seniors, including options we’ve picked up for our own families.
Bring Back Familiar Favorites
As time passes, seniors often lose access to their hobbies and interests. Fortunately, there are a few services available that can help them reconnect with the things that make them happy. Here are two of our favorites:
SiriusXM Radio
Many older people who’ve moved to be closer to family or to access the care they need find that they miss the comforts of their old home. One great way to connect them with their old hometown is to get them a subscription to SiriusXM. They can keep up with their favorite sports teams from across the country and enjoy their favorite music.
Order Them a Hometown Treat
If your loved one has moved recently, they might be missing a favorite dish from home. If so, Goldbelly can help. This long-distance meal delivery service can safely overnight their favorite foods from restaurants across the country, helping seniors rediscover their old favorites.
Share Some Family Memories
It’s well-known that seniors tend to love reminders of their family—so well-known, in fact, that many of them are already swamped with photo albums. Here are a few good alternatives:
Personalized Gifts
There are many services that create custom gifts like calendars, coasters and mugs with your personal photos on them. All you need to do is send them the photos you’d like to use and pick a product and design you like.
A Digital Photo Frame
One of the best ways to share family photos with your loved one is a Frameo frame. This Internet-linked digital photo frame lets you display pictures in your loved one’s home from anywhere. It creates less clutter than a traditional photo album, and lets them display far more images than an ordinary frame. Even better, whenever you take a new photo, you can easily share it to the frame.
A Photo Book
Sometimes, the best gift is just a nicer version of something the person might get for themselves. A photo book from a custom printing company like Shutterfly is a lot like a permanent, high-quality photo album. It’s a great way to remember the people and moments that matter most. Creating a photo book together also makes a great family activity; teenagers can be especially helpful here while also spending quality time.
Because you get to decide exactly what goes into a photo book, there are plenty of ways to get creative with it. One good option is to write down your most treasured family recipes with photos of your loved one making each one to create a unique family cookbook.
Storyworth
Storyworth is a service that offers something incredibly valuable: time to reflect. Each week, they’ll send an email prompt to think about a story like a first job, a school milestone or a childhood pet. Even better, the company will then collect those stories into a physical book that they can review and share with younger generations.
Make Their Life Easier
Many seniors lose mobility and coordination as they age, and it can make daily living more difficult in a variety of ways, some of which may not be obvious. One great way to bring a smile to their face is to give a gift that makes their life easier—especially if it helps with a problem they didn’t even realize they had.
Space Out Food Gifts with Subscriptions
There’s a lot of food at home during the holidays, but it’s easy for seniors to run out later in the year. One way to help is to commit to sending them a regular subscription or care packages: Collections of fruits, healthy snacks and pre-prepared meals you know your loved one will enjoy. With services like DoorDash and Instacart, you can order food for them from anywhere.
Reach Out to a Geriatric Care Manager
If a senior in your life doesn’t need care yet, consider gifting them the services of a geriatric care manager, who can ensure there’s always someone available to step in if they suddenly need assistance. If you need help finding a good care manager in your area, we’re happy to point you in the right direction.
Extend Their Reach
For seniors who experience joint pain or loss of coordination, objects on high shelves or the floor can be difficult to reach, and those that fall behind the fridge or the couch might as well be gone forever.
It might seem silly, but one of the best ways to help your loved one get hard-to-reach items is to give them a grabber. Grabbers vary a great deal in quality, grip and weight, so make sure to get one that’s light enough for your loved one to easily maneuver, but which packs enough grip to reliably hold small objects. It’s also helpful to get one with a swivel head, which is helpful for reaching items on high shelves or under couches and beds.
Install Some Good Night Lights
Night lights provide crucial illumination to help seniors who struggle with balance and vision to avoid tripping at night. Any night light will do for safety, but if you want to make life a little better for a senior you care about, get a high-quality one that makes their home more beautiful.
Once your loved one opens their gift, offer to install it for them so they don’t have to bend over and reach a low outlet.
Give the Gift of Connection
Sometimes it’s hard to get a conversation started. If you live near your family, you might have exhausted the most obvious topics; if not, it can be difficult to break the ice.
Luckily, there are games like Talking Point built to help with exactly that. It’s designed to help families come together, learn about each other and resolve conflicts. It’s a fun, rewarding way to strengthen your family ties.
Games that involve sharing memories and family traditions are a great way to help seniors with grief and loneliness during the holidays, especially if they’ve recently experienced a loss.
Get Respite Care Services for Help With the Holidays
A professional caregiver can offer companion care to help with many aspects of the holidays and throughout the year. Whether your loved one needs help baking cookies, wrapping presents or getting to and from holiday celebrations, our caregivers are there to help.
Through respite care, professional caregivers can also help you relax and spend time with your loved ones during the holidays as their family member—not their caregiver.
To learn more about how we can help, or to be put in touch with a geriatric care manager, contact us today.
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