Top Ten Gift Ideas for Your Sister

Sisters are forever. Even if they marry and move many miles away, they are still ready to respond to our phone call in the middle of the night, or an urgent e-mail asking for advice or comfort for the latest crisis in our lives. Why not make the next gift you give her, one that shows how much you appreciate her being there for you?

Here are 10 great gift suggestions that should please almost every sister ever born, whether the gift giving occasion is Christmas, her birthday, or, "just because you are my sister."

1. A date for lunch with you. Provide child care if necessary, pick up your sister, and take her to some special little restaurant where the two of you can just talk. Try to avoid discussion of current problems - you can do that anytime. For her gift luncheon date, try to center the conversation around happy times from your childhood; special vacation trips, school activities, guys you and she dated, etc. Kind of a walk down memory lane for both of you.

2. Find out what your sister is reading and give her one or more titles by her favorite author. The idea that you took the time to research the type of books she was interested in will mean more to her by far than the mere monetary value of the books.

3. Have a childhood picture of you and your sister made into a jigsaw puzzle or a crosstitch pattern that can be transferred to a decorative pillow top for her to make.

4. If there is a hot springs resort near you, tell your sister to grab her bathing suit and spend the afternoon soaking in the pool. If weather permits, pack a picnic lunch to eat on the way home. (If no hot spring is available, try a local swimming pool. They are usually pretty deserted during school hours, and most have a hot tub to soak in after a brisk swim.)

5. Fifty miles from our home, is an attraction for children called The Enchanted Forest. I have taken my children there many times, but the visit I enjoyed most was when I took my 40-something sister there as a surprise. We crawled through Alice's "Rabbit Hole," on our knees, sat through a production of 4 and 20 blackbirds popping up out of a pie, and actually slid down a slide on a gunny sack from the upper window of the Old Woman Who Lived in A Shoe's house. Perhaps you have a similar attraction meant for children in your area that would remind you and your sister of the joys of happy childhood days.

6. Find a local mall where they have a photo booth and take your sister inside with you for a keepsake photo of the two of you making faces, smiling broadly, or just goofing off. Then head for a knickknack store and buy a tiny frame so she can keep the picture handy to remind her of a fun outing with you.

7. Get the co-operation of the rest of your family and your sister's family to have a family photo calendar made especially for her. Each member of the family gets to contribute one special photo. Unused pages could be used for your sister's favorite pet, her car, or her prized rose garden. The important thing is to choose pictures that will remind her for a few weeks every month of someone or something very important in her life.

8. Is your sister always making excuses for why she hasn't done something she really wanted to do? Like treating herself to a day at an expensive spa someday when she can afford it, or indulging in dance lessons someday when she has more time or buying a new bathing suit as soon as she loses another 5 pounds? The next time you want to buy her a gift, call her bluff. Phone ahead and tell her, "Today is the day." And then take her to the spa to be pampered, or to sign up for the class she has been wishing she could take, or out shopping for a new bathing suit. When she makes her usual excuses, smile and say, "Hey, it's my treat. Let's go."

9. Does your sister rave about your cowboy cookies, your mini-meatball soup, or your "to-die-for" homemade chili? Why not spend a few hours cooking up a half dozen of her favorite dishes for her freezer? You can pick up a few inexpensive, but attractive freezable serving containers at a local store, and she won't even have to worry about returning the dishes. Then,
when she comes home from an especially bad day at work, she can pop one of your creations into the microwave and then sit back to unwind for a few minutes before her hungry family arrives for dinner.

10. If none of the first nine suggestions seem to fit your particular sister, and if you are short of cash, here is one final gift that will express to your sister that you care about her, and it won't cost you a cent. The one thing everyone needs more of is TIME, and your sister is no exception. Tell her that you have decided to give her X amount of time, and that she gets to choose how to use that time. Maybe she will want you to baby-sit so she can get away from her munchkins for an hour or so. Maybe she would like some office help. Can you answer her e-mail, delete junk mail, and organize files for her? Perhaps she needs to bake two dozen cookies and deliver them to her child's classroom before 2 p.m. this afternoon. I know you can do that. The list is endless. She may appreciate the gift of time so much that your gift buying problem where she is concerned will be solved from now on. Just give her more time.