Last minute gift ideas: the gift of time

I've seen a lot of blog posts, articles in the paper and online, and TV slots about what gifts to get for mums, for dads, for grannies, for your next door neighbour, for the person who has everything...the list goes on. But I've noticed this year that a lot of people are choosing to give a different gift to people....the gift of time.

As adults, our wants at Christmas are usually much less than those of little people, who would love Santa to deliver the latest toys, or the coolest brand of clothing. For the last few years, when asked what I want for Christmas, I've been really struggling to come up with anything. I don't really NEED anything, and anything that I really WANT I tend to buy myself - and to be honest, those things are actually few in number. So, I guess I could be considered 'hard to buy for' - so Simon tells me. Similarly, he needs and wants very little, so I consider him 'hard to buy for'.

My granny is even worse - she needs nothing, and it's highly likely that if you get her a gift, she will try to give it back to you in 6 months time saying "Someone bought this for me for Christmas, but I didn't use it...do you want it?"

So, for the last couple of years, instead of Simon and I getting one another big gifts that we don't really need, and instead of giving my granny stuff she will be ungrateful for (and she doesn't hide that well!) we have decided to give the gift of time.

This year, Simon and I have decided we will take a little family trip to London instead of getting one another Christmas gifts. The money we would use for large gifts has gone towards flights, activities and our hotel instead. We still bought little stocking fillers, but nothing major. My sister and I usually take my granny out for afternoon tea, but this year I decided to take her out for lunch instead - spending time with her and Isabelle.

Similarly, my sister told me that she and my brother-in-law have decided that instead of large gifts, they will spend a day doing different bits and bobs together.

None of this stuff can be wrapped and stuck under the Christmas tree and, in some cases it may actually end up being more expensive than the gifts, but sharing our time together will mean so much more to us, and for Simon and I, will give us some lovely memories with Isabelle which will last for longer than any gift we could buy.

So, still stuck for a present for someone and panicking as Christmas flies towards us? How about giving them the gift of your time instead. I bet they would appreciate that a lot more than a last minute stocking filler.