<p>Dad doesn’t drink alcohol at all so beer, wine and bourbon are out. He is having vision problems but more for driving then reading (that’s talk for another thread) but I wonder if a better reading lamp would be nice too. Love the long handled shoe-horn idea! He and my Mom have recliner’s now so that’s taken care of.</p>
<p>MD Mom - The amaryllis idea is a great one for my Mom!</p>
<p>this doesn’t have anything to do with reading…but my dad loves it when I give him gift certificates to the car wash (they sell them in packages of 10 or so).</p>
<p>This is what I am getting my FIL for Christmas [Grill</a> Alert Talking Remote Meat Thermometer at Brookstone](<a href=“http://www.brookstone.com/bbq-and-grilling-tools_grill-alert-talking-remote-meat-thermometers.html?bkiid=categoryLandingPage_Outdoor_Living_Grilling|C4CategoryProdList1FDT|7190529]Grill”>http://www.brookstone.com/bbq-and-grilling-tools_grill-alert-talking-remote-meat-thermometers.html?bkiid=categoryLandingPage_Outdoor_Living_Grilling|C4CategoryProdList1FDT|7190529)</p>
<p>My MIL is always complaining that my FIL forgets about the meat when he is grilling. Now he has no excuse or my MIL (who I love but is a bit of a control freak) can monitor the meat and yell at him to turn it.</p>
<p>When I’m not sure of a gift to give my FIL I go to the book store and buy a new release. He and my MIL like it when I go to the book store and pick out something that I think he would enjoy that has just come out. He doesn’t like to shop so it’s better than a gc. He has usually enjoyed what I’ve picked out, I usually read reviews or has certain authors that I know he will enjoy.</p>
<p>Also if he is having eye problems and you are willing to spend the money, how about a Kindle. You can change the font on it and make the print bigger. My H has eye problems and would love this. My BIL has one and loves it.</p>
<p>Two books, non-fiction that I’ve enjoyed are Horse Soldiers and Too Big to Fail. I gave my S, The Paris Vendetta by Steve Berry. He likes his books and it seems that Steve Berry always comes out with a new one around Christmas time.</p>
<p>I’ve started stuffing stockings for my parents and they are delighted by it. I include a couple of gift cards–restaurant, favorite store, airline–lots of the goodies they deny themselves the rest of the year–cashews, chocolate covered cherries–and some nostalgic sweets–Teaberry gum, candy sticks. So that they don’t end up with a pile of Christmas stockings, I stuff an actual sock and put its mate in too.</p>
<p>More great ideas! I love the car wash one, but I am not real familiar with their town so will save that for summer birthday idea so I can scope it out on my next trip down.</p>
<p>The Kindle is a great idea but just too expensive. When it comes down to $100, I’ll jump on it. Another thing about giving books is that both my parents are big library users. In fact, my Dad is the President of their library’s friends group. Both of them are happy to read and return books instead of having to find space for more.</p>
<p>I think I will bookmark this thread for Dad’s July birthday!</p>
<p>Michael Chabon has some great books - his latest “Manhood for Amateurs” is about his adventures raising kids.</p>
<p>My father passed away this past year at 86. Interview your dad now - my daughter did it for a school assignment and it is so precious to have a recording of his memories of the Lindburgh kidnapping, the depression, the war, his early boyhood pleasures and memories. Those guys had fascinating lives and saw so many changes - its really a gift to yourself - but I think any older person appreciates your focused attention and time!</p>
<p>^^manyamile…I did something similar for my late H’s birthday. At Christmas I slipped a note into the cards I sent asking people to write their reminiscences, send pictures, etc. of him, mailed to a D’s address. She compiled a wonderful scrapbook for his summer birthday party. We had no idea he would die 2 months later.</p>
<p>re Bucky pillows: these are carried at our gourmet-natural food store in Seattle area, also at some high-end gift shops. We have them at several stores near me.</p>
<p>You are getting good advice here, and I’m sure we’re swapping tips for the elders in our lives.</p>
<p>Concerning reading lights: something I learned while getting the brighter light is that there are two independent variables for improving reading vision: font size and lighting. When the lady at the center-for-the-blind tested my FIL, he failed a line of small-text reading until she brightened the room light for him. Then he read the same line perfectly. From that we decided on a portable table lamp so he could carry it with him to worship services or the library. He also has an Ott pole lamp at home. </p>
<p>For time together, we find he enjoys being taken to history-based full-feature movies, especially featuring a main character in biographic format. He trusts our reviews and doesn’t take the time to read reviews to choose the rare movie he would enjoy. Anything within his “nostalgia range” pleases him, regardless of mainstream film critics. </p>
<p>Recent hits for him: Amelia Earhardt, Ali (about Mohammed Ali) , Good Bye and Good Luck (Edward R. Murrow), Inglorious Basterds (WWII fantasy/history; he’s not afraid of rough scenes, and understands which parts are imaginary). </p>
<p>He also loved Michael Moore’s expose of the downfall of the economy in 2009! Since he’s always watched TV news, he connected with that format. In general we found he likes a strong, clear, chronological narrative, rather than something with chronology that lurches around (no “Crash” for example).</p>
<p>I wonder if these preferences are generational, or a product of 80+ years of avid reading. A practical working man with a high school education, he never had time for poetry or literature, preferring non-fiction. I can imagine other patriarchs who’ve always read fiction or poetry. Those folks might enjoy attending a book-reading at a bookstore with you, meeting the author, standing in line to get a signed copy made out to him personally as a lifelong reader.</p>
<p>Speaking of movies – since our Dad is very hard of hearing, he turns the TV up so loud it was impossible to enjoy watching a movie at home with him! We got him a set of portable/digital earphones that allow him to adjust hearing in the room as loud as he wants, while the rest of us enjoy at a reasonable decibel level. Yes, he has two hearing aids, but even so.</p>
<p>The other thing Dad likes these days is HATS. Wool baseball caps, ski caps, brim hats. Each week he loses three and we buy him three. Then he finds the three lost the previous week. It’s a family :)</p>
<p>Homedics Back Massager Quad-Roller Massaging Cushion with heat.</p>
<p>I don’t want to get up from the chair when this thing is on…</p>
<p>OK, I was desperate for an idea for my father, a macho retired AF pilot. My electrician showed me his latest favorite Gadget…which I have now ordered from Lowes.</p>
<p>Stanley Bar Flex modle BF0109 LED Light. It has a magnet on it so can stick to metal…it has a hook, it has all sorts of ways to stand up…so it is handier than a flashlight…and it can be brightened and dimmed. Also, the price is right. </p>
<p>Don’t go buy all of them…I am going back for a couple more before Wednesday.</p>
<p>BTW my electrician is the greatest at age 70, smart as a whip</p>
<p>I’m bookmarking this thread. My dad has macrodegeneration and our local society for the blind has been a treasure trove of gadgets that have kept my dad reading. He has always been a big reader. Walls and walls and walls of books. He had to give up the golf and the tennis and the driving, but the society for the blind has kept him reading. I do love the car wash certificate idea, however, has he still keeps my mom’s car clean even though she’s he one who has to drive to the carwash. He still goes along and puts the gas in, goes along and pushes the buttons at the car wash, etc. We did the long shoe horn and they still “dress up” when they go out to dinner although my mom told me he couldn’t remember how to tie a bow tie a couple weeks ago…so sad. Windsor knot was OK, but had “forgotten” how to tie the bow tie which he wanted to wear. I like the Bucky Pilllow idea, too.</p>
<p>It is a little thing, but I absolutely love my bookmark that looks like a little fringed oriental rug (you can also get mousepads like it). I read a lot and have TONS of bookmarks (many free, some purchase or received as gifts), they are all over the house tucked in drawers, etc. so one is always handy. But there is something elegant about that little rug-like bookmark that I just love when I tuck it into a book. I always seek that bookmark out, especially when the book is good because somehow it enhances the experience (maybe because it is like putting a piece of art inside a piece of art?). It is also quite flat (some purchased bookmarks are too bulky or could mark the page somehow). I just found two more of them at the local bookstore and bought them for the D’s for stocking stuffers.</p>
<p>Here is the link on Amazon, although they appear to be out of stock. But you could look at your local bookstore.</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Customer Reviews: Oriental Rug Bookmark - Agra](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Oriental-Rug-Bookmark-Agra/product-reviews/B0009VQ7XO]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Oriental-Rug-Bookmark-Agra/product-reviews/B0009VQ7XO)</p>
<p>The mousepads, by the way, do add a bit of elegance to a home office.</p>
<p>On a totally different note, we always give my dad one or two boxes of his favorite Girl Scout cookies. Frozen from the year before. His stash is always long gone from the previous spring, so he loves this. I can tell because he will not share them, not even with the grandkids… This works best in areas where cookies are delivered after Christmas the previous year (not true in all parts of the country).</p>
<p>Haven’t read the whole thread, but in case this hasn’t yet been suggested…</p>
<p>What about having everyone in the family write him a letter (you be the QB, buy the scrapbook, and mount everything) and collect them all into a gift? This was done in our family - it meant the world to the recipient.</p>
<p>Spidey, Great idea for a milestone birthday but I don’t see if for Christmas. I considered it for his 80th birthday but it seemed that most everyone did something like that when my parents celebrated their 50th anniversary just a few years ago. And I’m just not a scrapbooker. I should have asked to keep the cards and notes then. Actually, knowing my folks, they are in a bag in their house somewhere…</p>
<p>intparent, I have one of those oriental rug mousepads! </p>
<p>momofthreeboys, My father also has macro-degeneration and just this past year had two surgeries for a detached retina. He’s lost most of his vision in that eye. This Thanksgiving my library donated about 10 audio books that we were discarding for their blind center. He and my Mom are familiar with it because his mother used to go to it all the time. It never occurred to me that the blind center might have things I could buy that would help his sight. duh! I will be looking for that light that you mentioned Faline2. Is this it? <a href=“http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=310030-89606-BF0109[/url]”>http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=310030-89606-BF0109</a></p>
<p>Such great ideas! I appreciate each one.</p>
<p>This is probably too late for this year, but I also have sent the predecorated Christmas trees that people just need to pull out of the box and plug in. Jackson Perkins has a nice selection. MIL is getting a little forgetful and it makes decorating easy.</p>
<p>One Christmas I gave everyone in my family asplights
[ASP</a> lights laser engraved - ASP ELITE light - professionally laser engraved!](<a href=“http://www.asplights.com/]ASP”>http://www.asplights.com/)</p>
<p>These are tiny LED squeeze lights that fit onto your keychain. It is amazingly helpful to have a little light on your keys when you get out of the car in the dark, or need to see the keyhole, etc.</p>
<p>There are other brands of these handy little keychain lights, but I make sure I always have one because I am so spoiled.</p>
<p>I gave my father a sweater vest from my alma mater (an education that he paid for.) This year they finally have a winning football team and I could just see him in the snappy vest. He likes it!</p>
<p>Gift certificates to local restaurants & the dinner theater place are also appreciated.</p>