h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My Mum's 90th is approaching. She says she doesn't want any presents, she's got everything she wants.
Probably has more money than us too! But we'd like to get her at least a token gift. Anyone any ideas?

Take her to a nice restaurant? A very special place for afternoon tea and cake? A spa experience with manicure and gentle back and neck massage?

Some of them seem to want to go ballooning or bunjee-jumping.

Family picture with mum at centre. Anyone missing can send in pictures & have it added using photoshop or something.

Flowers

One of those DVD's commemorating year of birth

What Milla says

Visit somewhere that has good memories for your mother.

All my 98 year old Ma-in-law wants is company.Someone to listen and chat with.Loves flowers to look at.Loves to read on her Kindle.

Sadly due to arthritis and numb fingers she finds knitting and crochet difficult and holding and reading a newspaper almost a chore.

I guess what I'm saying is it's not the present it's the thought and your time that's more likely to be appreciated.

I have a step-mum, my mother's best friend and my ex's mum all rounding the corner to 90 soon. For their 80th they all got a party so I guess they get another.

All three of them like to cook and entertain so the party is usually where the are, I think it should be out and about for a change a break from the work it entails.

"a change and a break"

Purview is our fiend.

The Four Horsemen of the disastrous post: Typo, Haste, Myopia, and Culmsy fingers

Give us something to work with. What's she like apart from being almost 90? She must have a personality as well as an age. I doubt that a DVD of the year she was born would jog many memories for the woman. I don't remember the year I was born. Do you?

My nan loved to wear brooches.

Even if she didn't go out, she always wore a brooch

That's odd. My nan like to wear britches.

Again, not if she was going out.

I suppose roller skates would be out of the question?

I think the best present, as previously mentioned, is the gift of ones time & the more family that can be gathered the better, perhaps all going out for a meal to her favorite restaurant. During which said photo could be taken.

With regard the DVD some people find it interesting to see how things were in the year of their birth - even if they don't "remember" the year of their birth, it should evoke thoughts of their parents and the particular cultural environment into which they were born,.

Flowers/indoor plants grown hydroponically so that they just need water adding.
I'm only seventy but I have had enormous pleasure out of a little wind up radio with a built in torch and from a bottle of Irish triple distilled malt.There are hundreds of talking books available through our local library for when a human voice would be nice but you can't be there, but I agree your presence would be the best present.

I heard of a woman who was approaching her 100th birthday. There wasn't much she hadn't seen in her long life, so she asked for a ride on a camel. The next year, when one of her neighbors turned 100, *she* wanted to ride on an elephant.

Some great ideas!
We have indeed fixed a family lunch, though unfortunately it has to be two weeks before the birthday.
She can't walk far because of arthritis and doesn't like to be out late of an evening. Otherwise quite independent, drives & organises to go to the theatre/cinema with friends, does own shopping etc.
Rarely watches DVDs we've given in the past, but does read a lot & likes plants.

I think it may have to be a book or plant.

They love photos. DVD of the year of one's birth is always a daft idea, but what about the year she got married/started first job/left school - an age at which one is becoming to be aware of the world and politics. Especially for the nonegenarians who were in their early 20s when the war broke out. There's loads of footage available of that period. They like royalty, too - the newsreels were always reporting on the events of the day and the escapades of the young Princesses.

Maybe she likes Countdown, Eggheads, Pointless or something. You probably won't want to take her to a TV recording, but you could stage your own version of the programme. Easiest would be Deal or No Deal, which you could fiddle so that she gets to win. If her favourite programme is a soap, maybe a trip to the studio, if it's nearby, meeting some of the cast, would be an idea.

An audiobook?
A lovely cake?
A fifties-style family tea?

On the other end of the scale, instead of something nostalgic, what about something super-modern? A visit to an Imax cinema?

Or something timeless like a visit to "place of interest".

Someone else asked this question not long ago. There were suggestions there which you might be able to use.

Go with the elephant ride!

My grandma (also approaching 90) is still talking about the fireworks (pre-built by a firework making company, all fixed on a big wooden board and going off one after another automatically) my parents gave another old relative for a birthday.

Gift tokens for the cinema or theatre