You know Grandmom. She’s the one person on your Christmas list you have no idea what to get. She has everything, if she doesn’t have it, she doesn’t want it, and she’d probably rather see you spend the money on the grandkids than on her. But you have to get her something – it’s Christmas!
Gone are the days of the Grandmoms who sat home, watching her stories, crocheting slippers. Grandmoms now come from a generation of working women, and many of them work still. They are more likely to be out and about, active in more organizations or hobbies, and not the type of sit at home, wait until family comes kind of grandmom.
I love the jar gifts for Grandmoms. I know, you’re thinking they’re played out, no one uses them, and you don’t want to give an old idea new life. But guess what? On the days Grandmom heads out in the morning to play tennis, stops to have a coffee with her friends at Starbucks, puts an hour or two of time in with some volunteer work, and stops at the grocery store to pick stuff up for a weekend sleepover with the grandkids, she doesn’t feel like making a big dinner from scratch. But as active and healthy as she is, you want to keep in mind that she is a senior citizen, and frozen foods loaded with fats and sodium aren’t good for her.
How awesome would it be for her to come home, dump out the jar of ingredients into a big pot, throw in some cubed meat or diced chicken she picked up at the grocery store, and let it simmer on the stove while she checks her email and catches up on Facebook? Dinner in an hour, and she’s beaten your score on Bejeweled Blitz and harvested 800 crops on her Farmville farm while it cooked!
And when she has the kids over this weekend, it will be fun for Grandmom and the grandkids to whip up a batch of muffins or cookies, using the jar gift you gave her. She doesn’t have to scramble to find the ingredients in the pantry, and she doesn’t have to buy a whole bag of brown sugar, which she won’t need again until it is petrified way beyond viability. She and the kids just dump the ingredients into a mixing bowl, add some eggs or oil, and in a matter of minutes, Grandmom is the superstar of the weekend with fresh, hot, homemade cookies. We’ll let Grandpop put the dishes in the dishwasher!
Food is always a great gift for an active senior – the easier, the better. And if you can make it healthy by assembling it yourself, you’ve got an inexpensive winner of a holiday gift!