5 Tips to Giving More Creative Birthday Gifts

5. Write something.

Often, when you’re giving a very simple gift, the card becomes the most important part. Write something that will show them how well you know them. That means not just a little “happy birthday”. How about, “Hey man, happy birthday! Lucky fluke at that golf tournament last year, Tiger. I’ll beat you next time.” (Ok, I know that sounded cheesy, awkward, and stupid but that’s the best generic example I could come up with.)

4. Use an inside joke.

If you take a glance down this list, you’ll notice that I didn’t put the most basic tip of all: no cash. Why? Well, if you’re just going to give them a wad of bills, however fat and juicy, without any supporting acts, then no cash. However, last year, one of my friends gave me a card that said on the front: “Deep down in the bottom of your heart, you know there’s no money inside here.” This drew a bunch of laughs from everyone because we all knew him as extremely cheap. Then inside, the message was, “But you still had to look,” with a few bills attached. That gift stole the show.

3. Special delivery.

Give the gift to them in a funny and special way that again, symbolizes how well you know them. For instance, if you know they love hot dogs, maybe put the gift under that plate of wieners in the fridge. (Was that example any better?)

2. Hopefully something they’ll use, definitely something they’ll remember.

Your first goal when giving a gift should be to have the gift that the birthday boy/girl will think of first when they look back at all of their gifts. If everyone just wanted to give something useful, all people would ever get would be cash. Yuck.
Give something that will jump out at them like, “HAHAHAH!” or “Oh my gosh, this is so touching that it almost makes up for how she loves her Slap-Chop more than she loves me.”

1. Go to the extreme.

So a group of friends and I were planning a gift for one of our super-manly, super-awesome teachers. Logically, we went to our neighbourhood mall and began to shop. We thought that it’d be best if we could make it some sort of a joke.

But let’s just say that we got a bit carried away :)

We ended up wrapping a “The Keg” gift card in a “La Vie en Rose” lingerie gift card, a Barbie Princess Book, a Justin Bieber girls’ extra-small t-shirt, and plenty of pink ribbons and wrapping paper. Now that’s what I call going to the extreme.

One Creative Gift Idea: Glass Flowers

Glass flowers. Whoever came up with these babies must be a real thinker. I can see the inventor as a keen businessperson who loved to decorate her home, but had a lot of other things on her plate. Let’s call her Sally.

So Sally thinks to herself: “Real flowers are always ideal, but watering them and constantly making sure that they get proper sunlight can be a huge hassle. And then there are those hopelessly listless plastic flowers that just don’t look right, no matter how well you arrange them.”

It appears that she’ll have to make a choice: bear the hassle of those lovely real flowers or suffer the scorn of visitors who notice her plastic ones. Ugh. Decisions, decisions.

But then she suddenly has a brilliant idea. “Plastic flowers are only ugly because plastic looks really cheap. What if we use a better-looking material to make the flowers?”

Of course, the first thing that came to her mind was gold, but obviously, as an intelligent businessperson, she had her budget in mind too. After pondering this for a few days, she finally put her finger on the perfect material: painted glass!

It’s stunning, affordable, and low-maintenance. Next time, when you want to give the gift of flowers, glass is always appreciable. What a sizzling hot banana pepper!