GIFT BASKET THEMES

1. Golf Lovers Basket

It may be a bit cliché but a large majority of retired men intend to play a lot of golf and a golf driving range gift certificate or golf course membership would fit perfectly in a gift basket. It can be a center piece of a golf themed gift basket which could include golf gloves, tees, balls, shoes, and any other golf related item you can think of. here’s a couple of funny gift ideas, you can get the DVD Dwarf on Golf or all used products in the basket before giving the real basket.

2. Exercise or Fitness Theme

Many people say they want to exercise more but the eight do not have the time or they don’t want to spend the money. If you think your retiree would be interested in a gym membership you can center a gift basket on a gym gift card and take those excuses away. You can include weight lifting gloves, exercise clothes, protein and nutritional bars, vitamins, head bands, and other like gym going products. Again, for a laugh you can personalize a T-shirt, towel, a big supply of sports cream for all the aches and pains, make a funny exercise tutorial or whatever else you can think of that would be funny.

If a gym membership is not ideal but you think the person would want to exercise you can still do a gift basket but gear it more towards exercises that can be done at home. Include some exercise videos (P90X or Turbo Jam for example), exercise bands, weighted aerobics gloves, yoga mat, exercise cloths, different fitness drinks and foods, small weights, roller blades, running shoes, and so on. The combination’s or themes are truly endless. Again, for fun you can include a funny videos, exercise for dummies manual, a funny list of do’s and don’ts, and a funny list of motivational quotes.

3. Day Spa Theme

For the person that needs to relax and be taken cared of send them to a spa for a day so they can get that much needed massage, acupuncture treatment, and aroma therapy. The basket can include some soft nature music, candles, lotions and oils, massaging tools, foot soaker, facial creams, and anything else that will go along with the theme. The mockery that can be created with this can get crude in a hurry, but having funny labels on the lotions, creative titles of manuals, hair waxing products, toe jam cures, and so on. Like I said this one could get funny so have fun with it.

4. Sports and Recreational Themes

A lot of people are fanatical about a specific sport, so you can do a football themed gift basket including tickets to a game, or for a tennis player buy a racket. Where I live people are nuts for the Ohio State Buckeyes so buying a golf bag with Brutus the Buckeye on the side, or football jersey with his or her name on the back would go a long way. To get a laugh buy something that is totally irrelevant to the sport like ping pong ball for a golfer or soccer ball for a basketball fan. A big gag is making a basket of a rival sports teams products, but keep it inexpensive because most of it will never see the light of day.

All these ideas can be perfect for a women or mens gift. If you are looking for bigger items like elliptical machines, treadmills, or other gym equipment go to EllipticalMachinMan.com to see some reviews and lists of different products. I hope you have fun with your retiree’s gifts and can use some of the themes provided to get a great idea.

Giving a retirement party to someone helps them put some closure to a part of their life that has become (in most cases) a good part of who they are. It’s not easy for any of us to stop doing something that we’ve been doing for years, so to think that it’s easy to stop working is wrong.

How do you plan a retirement party for the soon-to-be-retiree? That isn’t hard to do if you really know the person. Are they light-hearted, humorous, straight-laced or just laid-back? Whoever they are is how you need to design the party. Of course in every case, humor should definitely be a part of the party. Ask someone to write a few retirement poems for the person leaving their job as well as others making retirement speeches to him/her.

A few years back I had to help plan a retirement party for a co-worker who was a pretty laid-back type of guy. We wanted to give him a going away party that would help him remember that he was greatly appreciated as well as being missed after he retired. We had the party in the break room of our office to help keep the cost down so we could get him a retirement gift that we knew he would love during his golden years.

The man was balding (I think he had 12 strands of hair left), so we went ahead and bought a hair piece for him to wear at the party. Not just any hair piece, a purple one that would go well with the fact that he loved the Minnesota Vikings and never missed a game. We knew he would get a kick out of it. We also had a cake made up in the shape of a football helmet with the design of the team. We bought him quite few gag gifts that were also purple.

He thought that it was pretty funny a nice that we did this for him. What he didn’t expect was that we all chipped in and raised enough money for him and his wife to go to a home game of the Vikings. Let’s just say that we never saw him so excited in the 10+ years that he worked for the company. It was the perfect mens gift.

It’s been years since he retired and he still stops by every so often and talks with us and thanks us for the party as well as the gift. It’s something that he’ll remember for the rest of his life.