Gift Giving Ideas for the New Graduate

Whether high school or college, graduation from school is a milestone that deserves to be commemorated by family and friends. Show your pride for your graduate by marking the occasion with a special gift.

Honor the past. Students spend a lot of time going to events, be they concerts, sporting events or the like. And no doubt they have a collection of ticket stubs buried in their "must keep" items. Let the graduate show off the great experiences they've had with scrapbooks, shadow boxes, frames, etc. from www.thatsmyticket.com. This is one of those sites where your imagination can be your guide.

Encourage the organized life. A gift that combines a bit of whimsy with serious organization comes from www.vat19.com. The Star Wars USB flash drive is a 4GB storage unit with some preloaded items. It's PC and Mac compatible.

Time to take off. Many graduates take a well-deserved vacation after weeks of final exams and commencement activities. Some plan trips with friends who may be going away or starting new jobs. For this graduate, a travel-related gift would be welcome. In the $80 range there's the Liz Claiborne luggage from www.ebags.com. What's that you say? The graduate has nowhere to go? Well, perhaps you want to give your graduate the travel experience itself. Check out www.excitations.com, which bills itself as a gift site that offers "the wow factor." And that it does. One experience gives new meaning to the idea of summer camp. For $310, you can give a gift of three days of junior rodeo school. Your graduate will get riding and bucking tips from a rodeo expert. The fun starts with a bucking machine and works up to a ride on a real steer or bull.

Take the next step. Whether your graduate is a high schooler going off to college or a college grad taking on that first job, mornings and breakfast are going to be tough from now on. Here's a gift to help with that problem. For $9.95 you can get a breakfast sandwich maker from www.x-tremegeek.com. The simple device allows you to put bacon and eggs into their allotted spots, pop it into the microwave and voila, a breakfast sandwich in about two minutes.

Read all about it. For the high school grad who will be going off to college, www.amazon.com has several books that will help them take that next step. Try My Roommate Is Driving Me Crazy!: Solve Conflicts, Set Boundaries and Survive The College Roommate.

I have no idea. It may seem a cop-out to give a gift certificate or money, but sometimes that's exactly what the grad wants. Check out www.giftcertifcates.com. You'll find a virtual warehouse of gift certificates to choose from.

If you're faced with buying a graduation present and you're stuck for an idea, take a moment to let your imagination run wild. Think back to the carefree days when you graduated. Check out the sites listed, and odds are you would have appreciated many of the gifts suggested above.