Choosing a gift for my 32 year old son was not an easy task. For one thing he lives three thousand miles away and there are many things I would be afraid to send for fear they would get damaged.(note to son, Mom did not forget your cookies)The other thing is that we have totally different tastes and always have had.
He loves home made goodies and so a big box of those is always a nice gift. As is a video of family events that he misses.
When it comes to major gifts such as Christmas what I try to do is send things that I know are useful and that he can use to’do his own thing’ for example.
Last years gifts all fit in a manilla envelope and he enjoyed those. He loves to eat so sent him gift certificates for pizza hut and McDonalds(not my favorite places but he likes them) I also included phone cards so he could call family and then I gave him a larger gift certificate at Wal-Mart. This way he could eat out a few times, call home and go and get whatever else he wanted at the store.
It was a cinch to mail off and he loved it.I will be doing it again this year. Mom will also send some home made sweets or I will never hear the end of it. He wanted one of my home made pizzas but haven’t figured out how I could send that yet! Well maybe I could after all. Send a grocery store list of what he needs along with the recipe and he’ll have to take it from there.
Nothing ever replaces Mom’s cooking so you could also send home made cookies, candy, jams and so on. I think anyone would like this time of gift.
I also love using gift certificates so the person can get what they really want. Especially when you don’t see them often and have no idea what they have or don’t have. You just need to know where their interests are as to what kind of gift certificates to get them.Let’s face it though everyone eats and everyone uses a telephone so those are always safe bets. Include some pictures of the family or a video and they will be well pleased. You might want to throw in a subscription to the local newspaper so they can read all the news from back home.