Gifts for: Your Parents

As a child, it's usually easy to find gift ideas for parents. Most schoolchildren make little crafts in art class for holidays and Mother's and Father's Days. As you get older though (provided you have a good relationship with your parents), you often want a gift a bit more special or personal. If you know your parents well, thinking of a gift will be easier. If you're stuck, here are some ideas to help you brainstorm.

HANDMADE

Being close to your parents gives you the advantage of having a better chance of knowing or finding out their clothing/accessory preferences and clothing sizes. That information makes picking patterns and colors a lot easier. Just be sure your parent would actually have a use for the item--my dad doesn't wear hats or scarves, so that's not a good gift for me to make him.

Clothing is a fairly personal choice, so you might prefer to make something different. Think about your parent's interests. My dad is a big fan of a particular college sports team, so I used the team colors to write out the college's fight song, motto, and other related things in the shape of its logo. I also did this later with several light bulb jokes (e.g.; "How many hands does it take to change a light bulb? Many, because many hands make light work.") Other sorts of collages can work well, especially if you play on nostalgia, like when my brother spent years saving ticket stubs from Major League Baseball games he went to with my dad. When they had seen every other team play our home team, he put those tickets together in a frame for Father's Day. Hobbies are good wells of ideas too. If your parent cooks and bakes, you can make potholders, pie holders, dish towels, or other kitchen accessories. Several items together can make a nice gift basket.

All the text is light bulb jokes, done in colors to help show the shape of one.

A gift basket I made for my mom: ingredients for raspberry muffins, a knit dishcloth, "pinch, smidgen, and dash" measuring spoon, and muffin forms in the shape of her favorite flowers.

Food itself is also a great gift. My dad has a sweet tooth, so homemade cookies are always a hit. He also loves my lasagna recipe. When I do make dinner for my parents (for example, for my mom's surgery last month), I like to include dessert as well.

One other idea, especially if you're on a budget: write a letter. My brother did this for our mom's birthday his first year away at college, and now Mom wants one every year.

PICTURES

Photographs of family members are often a good starting point. They sort of straddle the line between handmade and storebought, leaning one way or the other depending on what you do with them. Our mom loved getting childhood pictures of us with Santa, so the year I went to visit my brother's family out of state, we all posed in front of his neighbor's Santa decoration and got the picture printed for Mom. If you have siblings (and everyone gets along with each other), you might want to remake a childhood photograph or two, posing in the same place with similar clothing several years after the original was taken. This past Christmas, we gave my parents a set of three pictures: the three of us at each of our weddings. My brother took this a step further--our dad has a picture of his great-uncle standing by a particular rock at a national park, and one of him by the same rock. My brother got a picture of himself in the same place and pose, and had all three of the pictures put together in a nice frame. 

A scrapbook or collage can be nice. You can upload various pictures onto sites that make custom calendars, mugs, puzzles, blankets, mousepads, Christmas ornaments, and other items. Going back to my dad, while there's not much I can sew or knit for him (having already knit him two afghans), he looks forward to getting a calendar with pictures of all his kids and grandkids each Christmas, especially since we live in different states. Shutterfly has a yearly promotion around the end of November for this, so my brothers and I just upload a dozen pictures each to our shared account, arrange them on the right months, and have it mailed to me (because I live closest to our parents). 

STOREBOUGHT

A gift need not be forged by your own two hands to be special. The important part is showing that you care enough to try to think of something the recipient of your gift will enjoy. For the past several years, my mom has requested a membership to a sewing club for Christmas. Split between us kids, it's not expensive. 

One of my dad's favorite gifts is gift cards to restaurants. He enjoys taking people out to eat, and knows that if suggests a particular place because he has a gift card, whoever he invites is less likely to feel indebted for the meal. My godfather is similar--when his (adult) children ask him for ideas for Father's Day, Christmas, or his birthday, he requests a gift card to a place they both like so they can go together and spend some time catching up.

Other storebought ideas to get you thinking: consumables or decorations from your hometown (this works better if you don't live where your parents do), particular things that catch your eye you know they'd like (for example, my dad likes to write notes and he wears a tie to work--I've gotten stationery and a tie with his favorite sports team on them),or any items they've mentioned they would like--a gift doesn't need to be a surprise.