Gifts for Aging Parents

Mother's Day and Father's Day are quickly approaching, and those of us with elderly parents are wondering what on earth to get for gifts. Most of our elderly parents all ready have enough "stuff" to fill several houses. Here are some ideas that your parents will absolutely love!

1. Give them the gift of your time. So many of us are so busy with our own children, jobs, and extracurricular activities, our parents would really appreciate an afternoon of our time all to themselves. Even if it's just sitting around in the living room looking at old pictures, they will cherish every moment.

2. Hire a professional cleaner to come in and do the heavier spring-cleaning for them. Your parents still want a nice fresh house, but the older you get the harder it is to get in all the corners and do any sort of heavy scrubbing. Even if the person just washes all the windows, walls, and ceilings, it will help your parents have a nice fresh house for the warmer months.

3. Give them gift certificates to the grocery store. If your parents are on a fixed income, they probably do their best to be thrifty with their food purchases. Giving this gift will allow them to buy some treats that they may not otherwise indulge in, and will also help them stock up on things they might need.

4. Give them homemade gift certificates for jobs you will do for them. These certificates might include a day of yard work, or painting a room. You might be able to help them figure out some new technical gadgets they have but haven't been able to figure out on their own. Take a look at things you think your parents would appreciate the most help with and give them gift certificates for those things.

5. Do they go out to eat, or have a favorite place they go for coffee? Give them gift certificates to those places. They will enjoy their time their even more knowing it was a present from you.

6. Put an ad in their local Newspaper, thanking them for the wonderful job they did raising you. Use their full names and a nice picture of them if you have that. They will really enjoy their friends calling them to say that they saw your "Official Public Notice of Gratitude" to them.