80 presents for 80th birthday...help!

[tessiegirl]

My nan is shortly turning 80 and I wanted to try and come up with 80 presents for her
Is it possible?!
Presents can be small and cheap to some which can be more expensive...
Can anyone please help with ideas?

Thank you for more suggestions! Some good ideas!

Glad you like them OP.

Insoles and puppies are always winners.

@HectorHalloumi

How about spending 80 hours with her and taking her on holiday somewhere fabulous.

Around the world in 80 days?

Haha!! 😅

How about finding out her favourite song and singing it to her 80 times?

On a serious note though, OP I think it’s really nice that you want to do something special for her, it’s very thoughtful, and whatever you decide I hope she has a lovely birthday!

For my 30th one of my presents was a jar of 30 Things We Love About Gizmo, collated from everyone all my family. It was so beautiful and I still look at it now xx

How about finding out her favourite song and singing it to her 80 times?

LOL'd.

@notagainmummy

Absolutely silly (if novel) idea. She will end up with acres of tat. Get her something nice she will appreciate.

It isn't even novel, this kind of madness has been around for quite while now. I don't know where it started but it's not new.

@GizmoBasil

For my 30th one of my presents was a jar of 30 Things We Love About Gizmo, collated from everyone all my family. It was so beautiful and I still look at it now xx

Now that is a gorgeous idea

@tessiegirl
I'm so sorry that some people on here have decided to be so unkind about your idea. Whilst some people clearly would not appreciate the thought, you and your mum clearly know your Gran better and believe she would like this. 80 gifts does not necessarily mean 80 lots of tat - that says more about those posters .

I agree that consumables tend to go down well with older people - my mum and late MIL loved getting posh food items. I would definitely look at some lovely Fortnum and Mason goodies, maybe some Prestat chocolates. Does your Gran like books? Maybe an audible book? A DVD of a favourite film? My mum would love some good handcream or skincare products. If your Gran is a gardener, I like the idea for seeds. Yes to photos or a photo book. What about a digital photo frame with 80 pictures loaded onto a memory stick? If she likes a drink, you could include some miniatures - craft gins and single malt whiskies are available in 'taster' sizes.
Whatever you decide, I hope she has a fantastic time.

@Erictheavocado for a 80th birthday I would consider seeds, miniature booze and hand cream Tat !
A plant , full bottle of spirit and a beauty treatment ( manicure) better

"for a 80th birthday I would consider seeds, miniature booze and hand cream Tat !
A plant , full bottle of spirit and a beauty treatment ( manicure) better"

Exactly. It's tat and not even the full sized version of it.

Seeds? Who wants seeds at 80 for their birthday? At least buy her the bloody plant.

Miniature bottles? Why? Surely this is a time to buy something bigger and better than a little snifter 😂.

Hand cream. Jesus. Fucking hand cream.

I've come back to this thread because it's annoying me how negative so many of you are.
I really hate the word 'tat'. It's a real insult to perfectly normal everyday things that people (at least the ones I know) be very pleased to receive.
My mum (73) and mother in law (83 tomorrow) both love their gardens and making things grow and making their gardens look pretty. They would both be very happy with seeds as part of a gift.
You lot are so miserable. Birthdays should be about fun and treats. They don't have to be big expensive gifts. Sometimes it's the little things that are the nicest and best thought out.

Seeds are not tat. I don’t believe gifts of that type, well suited to the recipient, are what people were referring to as tat.

It’s shorthand for the sort of...well...tat that people tend to use as fillers for this type of gift. It’s a little different when it 5 or 6 little things to make up 18 or 20 in total. Quite another when you’re coming up with filler gifts to make up 80 in total!

But 80 little things are not a small thoughtful gift.
They are a giant pile of tat !

Ahaha just seen the comment above specially calling seeds tat.

Of course they’re not. A keen gardener would probably always appreciate the thought behind that, even if they can’t or won’t use them all - and at least they don’t have to throw them out, they can pass them on to someone else...

Who wants to pass shite on to other people though?

80 years she's lived. 80.

A little packet of seeds making up an 80th birthday gift of 80 individual items is exactly what constitutes tat.

Seeds on their own aren't tat, but presented in this way, yes, they are.

Imagine having to say "ooooh lovely" 80 times for just one grandchild's gifts to you?! Bizarre

If she's a keen gardener you get tickets to the Chelsea Flower Show or something for her 80th.

Not a packet of seeds alongside 79 other things as part of a 400 quid tat pile.

I’m not arguing the general point with you - see my comments earlier in the thread. I think the idea of 80 presents is ridiculous and obscene, and I’ve said so.

I’m saying that seeds, specifically, aren’t necessarily tat. A gardener would likely appreciate that, and even if some of them aren’t what they would have picked they would likely know someone who might want what they can’t use.

I’m firmly in the 80 memories/80 photos camp, if you feel you must make it about gifts. For any of my own relatives I’d be taking the spend time with them + one very carefully chosen present route.

Why wouldn't they use seeds if they like gardening?
Seeds would be useless for me because I don't have a garden but my mum and mother in law both do. They LIKE gardening and growing things. You wouldn't have to say "oooh lovely 80 times". If I was giving seeds as a gift I would probably buy a nice pot, put the seeds in there, a garden ornament (which again they both LIKE), a couple of other useful gardening bits. It would be - say - ten different things but gifted as one. So you only have to say "ooh lovely" once.
You lot are so boring.

"I’m saying that seeds, specifically, aren’t necessarily tat."

I agree. As I've said, present 80 gifts at around a fiver each on average and suddenly it all becomes tat.

There's the boring thing again...

Yes quite @Ilovemaisie that would indeed be a lovely gift for a gardener. But that’s not what OP said she wanted to do. She wanted to buy 80 different gifts. Sorry, but some of that is inevitably going to be tat. At least in terms of environmental concerns and waste of money.

Boring is such a lazy term.

"You lot are so miserable. Birthdays should be about fun and treats. They don't have to be big expensive gifts. Sometimes it's the little things that are the nicest and best thought out."

Uh huh. And contacting their old friends for memories and photos is lovely. And emotional. And thoughtful...."sparks joy" some may say.

A packet of seeds, some hand cream and a bag for life.....oooh how fucking exciting and fun. What a treat, not miserable or boring in the slightest

Also you don't have to spend £400. For example the suggestion I had many pages back was for a book from each decade. Secondhand books can be bought for pennies online. You could easily get 8 books for just a few quid. And before anyone says "ooh secondhand - who wants some old secondhand book?" the idea would involve researching what books were popular in each decade, filtering out genres you know they really wouldn't read. It would be a well thought out gift to someone who loves to read.

There's nothing at all wrong with a few small gifts, like seeds, nice hand cream, posh biscuits etc, but a few of these things, not 80 of them.

That's what people are objecting to, I suspect, the sheer scale of the plan. The thought of being presented with 80! of anything is really quite stress inducing.

You see, the books thing is perfect. So why continue to insist that 80 pieces of random shite are fun and exciting?