Cross-generational gifting

UPPER DELAWARE RIVER, NY & PA — Finding the perfect gift is hard. It’s even harder when you’re trying to buy gifts for someone whose experiences and tastes are decades apart from your own. 

Buying gifts for youth can devolve into an endless cycle of chasing ever-shifting trends. What’s the hot new line of toys that’s hitting store shelves? Are jean jackets “in” this year, or are they last year’s fashion? And which iPhone model are we on, again?

Youngsters trying to buy presents for their grandparents or other relatives face problems of their own. It can be hard to find a unique gift for someone who’s spent an entire lifetime accumulating treasures—most anything they might want, they’ll already have. 

However, there are a few tips that can help make cross-generational gifting easy, enjoyable and worthwhile. From college savings plans to homemade story books, the River Reporter collected suggestions from area seniors and from further afield about what gifts people want to receive—or to give—this holiday season. 

Make it personal

The best gift of all might be the memories of time shared with loved ones. That’s hard to wrap up in a gift box—but there are ways to gift treasured memories, as Marianne Kuiper Milks pointed out. 

Milks recommended that youth give their elders a scrapbook filled with stories from a month in their life, as well as pictures to go along with it. This kind of gift will “let them know they really matter to you,” she said. 

“I am always more keen on handmade gifts,” said Heather Collins Lockwood. “The simpler things.”

Lockwood hosts a kid’s gift-making workshop at her studio, Lockwood Creation Studio, in Callicoon, NY in December, helping kids with handmade gifts if they don’t know where to start. Past treasures to come out of the workshop include ornaments, stuffed animals, wood-burnt cutting boards, soap and fire starters—”Useful gifts,” she said. 

As for what seniors can give their younger relatives?

“I’d love to discover if there is something in our home they love, and give it to them instead of waiting,” Milks said. 

Make it practical

Practical gifts tend to mean more to their recipients as they grow older. A young child on Christmas morning might overlook the socks in their stocking, but that same gift is a godsend for the 30-year-old working adult without a matching pair to their name. 

Tess McBeath suggested a range of practical items that would make good gifts for elder people—including a subscription to your local newspaper of choice. 

Seniors might appreciate such gifts as grocery store gift cards, motion lights for the stairs, flashlights and batteries and “a nice, new, warm blanket,” McBeath said. 

For a more personal touch, gift-givers can bring over a meal, she said. 

Make it an investment

It’s common advice, but it’s good advice—if you don’t know what to get someone, you can never go wrong with cash. 

Linda Cobb said her family chose to focus on financial gift-giving, with a personal twist. 

“When our first grandchild was born more than 20 years ago, I said to my daughter, I didn’t want to be part of the craziness of gift-giving for holidays, birthdays, etc.,” Cobb said. “Instead, my husband and I opened 529 college savings plans as each granddaughter arrived.”

The oldest two grandchildren in Cobbs’ family have graduated, and neither of them has any debt, she said. 

“The two youngest have had accounts since they were born, but since they are soon to be three and six they have a long way to go,” she added. “It was one of the best things we’ve done!”