Quality time, assistive tech, good food: what older adults actually want for the holidays

For many people, gifts for the older adults in their lives can often be an afterthought. As people age, they tend to just buy the things they want instead of waiting for gifts from others, making holiday shopping for older relatives and friends a bit more difficult.

Classics like No. 1 grandparent mugs are cute the first time but not the third or fourth, and clothes tend vanish in dressers.

Nearly a quarter of New Jersey residents are over the age of 60, however, according to NJ Advocates for Aging Well, a nonprofit that focuses on public policy advocacy and education to enable older adults to live independently and with dignity.

With this in mind, we talked to older adults in South Jersey about the meaningful gifts they’ve received and given in recent years.

“What I’ve found is many older adults, myself included, pretty much have everything that we need,” said Frank Thomas, 71, a retired Stockton University business professor, who lives in Port Republic.

As such, he and his wife, a retired librarian, try to make meaningful gifts for the people, young and old, in their lives. In retirement, he’s taken up woodworking while his wife knits mittens, hats and scarves for friends — human and feline.

Last year, he made wooden bottle openers out of an old oak four-by-four and nails from a company his grandfather once worked at that he found in his crawl space. This year, he made wooden beer caddies for his friends.

Thomas also recommends gift baskets or food of the month clubs for older adults.

“Last year, probably, the gift that surprised me the most was this basket of ‘seasonal cheer,’” he said. “It had a bottle of scotch whisky, Irish whisky, there was a bottle of champagne. That’s always appreciated.”

Flowers make another good option for older adults “because people often don’t buy them for themselves,” he said.

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Annemarie Cook, of Southampton, who turns 69 at the end of this month, also suggests what she calls “consumable” gifts.

“You don’t need any more fuzzy slippers. How about something practical?” said Cook, a former investigative reporter for the Home News Tribune in Middlesex County.

She said she’d rather receive products, like unique handmade soaps or fancy food, since they’re “not extra stuff your survivors are going to have to clean out of your house.”

“Because that’s always a thought too,” Cook said. “Who needs more stuff at this stage of the game? We’re trying to downsize more than acquire stuff.”

For example, she’s started getting her husband a fruit preserve and honey advent calendar for his birthday at the end of November.

“With his morning toast, he has a new flavor of jam and it works all month,” she said. “I’ve never seen him so happy.”

“I don’t know how it is for other people who are aging, but I’m just not as sentimental about gifts and stuff anymore,” Cook said. “Maybe I’m turning into a Buddhist or something, but possessions really don’t mean that much to me."

Possessions she does recommend, though, are items that help her with her vision loss due to hereditary macular degeneration.

Macular degeneration is the leading cause of vision loss in people over 65, said Cook, who convenes a vision loss support group through the Unitarian Church of Cherry Hill that meets via Zoom.

For people who have macular degeneration, bigger is not necessarily better, she said. What is helpful is high contrast and bold print or design. As such, she recommends an EZ2See weekly planner, which features a thick font and ample space for writing appointments and notes.

“If you have an older person in your life who doesn’t know about this and thinks they have to strain and just feel sad about the fact that they can’t read a regular calendar anymore, this would be a delightful surprise,” she said. “Because I did get one for a neighbor who is 95, and she was so excited that she could see it.”

She also suggests the VictorReader Stream, a handheld media player that allows visually impaired users to download books, magazines, newspapers and music and record their own voice notes. Every day she uses it to listen to the Burlington County Times and My Central Jersey.

“I get a little taste of things that are going on in my old stomping grounds in Middlesex County,” she said.

Armand Burghard, 93, of Burlington, eschewed gifts altogether — or at least ones that don’t facilitate connections between older adults and their families.

“One of the things that I think the senior citizens would appreciate more is communications with their relatives,” he said.

“Nobody’s happier than having in their laps their great-great grandchildren,” said Burghard. “So, there should be visitations from various family members to let them know that they’re not forgotten.”

Often, families will put older adults in assisted living homes and neglect to visit them, he said. This causes older adults to feel isolated and feel like they don’t matter.

Older adults have been further isolated by the need to socially distance during the pandemic, making it even more important to remember and involve them in family activities, said Burghard.

Therefore, technologies that allow older adults to stay in touch with their family make great gifts, he said. He gave a glowing review of the GrandPad, a senior-friendly tablet and video phone.

“When I talk to my son, as an example, I see his picture as though he’s right here in the room with me,” he said. “I think that’s absolutely fabulous because my son happens to be out on the West Coast in California, and the chances of my seeing him, who knows?”

Whether by video chat or face-to-face conversation, the best present an older adult can receive is quality time with family and friends, said Burghard.

“The big thing that I want to emphasize is: don’t put them away in a closet and forget about them.”

Aedy Miller covers education and the economy for the Burlington County Times, Courier-Post, and The Daily Journal. They are a multimedia journalist from Central Jersey and a recent graduate of the George Washington University.

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This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: South Jersey older adults recommend meaningful holiday gifts.