Right - I bet no-one can help with this problem.....

[seeker]

My b and sil are the most impossible people to buy for. So I had a brilliant idea. In Sussex you can rent a cherry tree for the year, so my plan was to rent them a tree, and give them the rental certificate with a voucher for a picnic and help with picking the cherries and space in my gigantic freezer for the fruit. A brilliant idea - although I say it myself!

Except I have just gone on the website to rent the tree and there aren't any left. It didn't cross my mind thay would sell out - there were hundreds of spare ones when I did it for dp last year!. What on earth am I going to do? We're seeing them at lunch time on Boxing Day - can anyone think of a similar "virtual" sort of present? They don't need or want ANY sort of 'stuff"!

buy them a cherry tree for the garden

Subscription to the Chocolate Tasting Club www.chocs.co.uk

sponser an animal

a soldier

a puppy

Ascertain their tastes, and get them a subscription (or one each) to a magazine they'd like.

But don't forget to get them a copy of the magazine to unwrap on Xmas day.

Buy them a title
here

Or a bit of the moon

Move away from the computer, get your patterns, your wool and your needles out, and create him something beautiful and filled with love and joy.

The cherry tree idea's great btw. I'm in Sussex and may well investigate that in the future.

I'm kidding about the knitting btw.

Even better
www.virtualgifts4u.com/mainlobby.htm
these are all free

You could get them an olive tree from these people nudo-italia.com/

it's a bit further to go to visit it though!

Right - still no solution and they will be here in 5 hours. Knitting is out (the cats chase the wool) and the olive tree, thought lovely is too expensive. I didn't get anything yesterday that I can recycle (very unusual, that!)

I need something that I can either buy in a service station, buy on line and print off a certificate or make in the hour or so I'll have spare this morning.

I would make them some fairy cakes, but I'm ALWAYS doing that - it's my default emergency present so they will know!

Very boring, but Amazon vouchers? You can buy online & print.

Amazon vouchers. If they cant find something they like on Amazon, they must be dead!

Fairy cakes are always nice though. Or make fudge or rocky roads? Or give them a bottle of their favourite tipple?

Get to Sainsbury's (I think most are open today) and buy stuff to make a foodie hamper of luxury stuff?

OK -I've has an idea. They both like Scotch. How would you feel if you got a bottle of whiskey and a couple of hand made vouchers that could be cashed in for, say, a posh picnic delivered to a spot of their choice in the summer, and another one for a Sunday lunch cooked in their house while they all go out to the cinema? Not sure about the second one - I'd hate someone else to cook in our kitchen, but SIL hates cooking, so it might be OK.

I bought my sister and her dh a Love film subscription for a year - 2 films per month for £44.

I'd be v happy with just the whisky, personally. Think maybe you are thinking too hard here! Sometimes simple is good, you know, cf you daughter and the socks. But if you just have to be a bit more cre8ive, why don't you print out the snowflake making instructions for them as well?