100 Presents to Celebrate a 100th Birthday

This month I had the honour of participating in a 100th birthday party. 100th birthday parties are such a unique and special event and because of that we wanted to give a unique and special birthday gift. We decided to put together 100 items for a 100th birthday. It was a challenge to keep everything sustainable, but we had a lot of fun putting it all together. For anyone else celebrating a milestone birthday, I’m sharing some gift ideas to build your own unique gift.

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Birthday Present Ideas for a 100th Birthday

When someone is turning 100, it can be challenging to think up a birthday present because centenarians don’t generally need more “stuff.” Even with that in mind, we decided to put together a basket of 100 things for our grandma’s 100th birthday. I crowd sourced some ideas after getting to about 80 items on my own. Below are a number of ideas that were generated, some we used and some we didn’t this time.

We used multiple of one item to get to our 100 items. For example, we wrote three weeks of notes and dated them to be opened one per day. This got us to 21 items with one idea. It was fun to mix and match and decide which items would be most appreciated.

Making Sustainable Gift Choices

As with anything, there are ways to make things you buy be more or less sustainable. I’ve separated the gift ideas below based on some general idea of how sustainable and earth friendly the items are, but with each item there are ways to make better choices for our communities and our planet.

When shopping for your gifts, consider these ideas:

• Buy second hand items;
• Look for items you already have at home (greeting cards to write notes, for example);
• Shop with small, local businesses;
• Choose items with recyclable packaging;
• Stay away from as much plastic as you can.

Most Sustainable Birthday Present Ideas

1. Handwritten notes from yourself or gathered from people in their life
2. Newspaper print out from the day they were born
3. Homemade snacks and treats
4. Homemade word searches or crosswords — there are a number or websites where you can make these for free, like Canva
5. Soap — try finding some local, small businesses that make soap, like Uncle Mike’s
6. Magazines
7. Houseplant
8. Gift cards to their favourite restaurant or coffee shop
9. Gift certificate for a spa treatment
10. Birthday cards gathered from your friends
11. Donation to a charity they are connected to
12. Drinks
13. Word cloud in a photo frame — there are various websites out there like Wooclap and Mentimeter
14. Vintage items from the year or decade the person was born
15. Custom cookies
16. Homemade coupon book redeemable for activities with you
17. Use ChatGPT and Suno to make a song about the person’s life
18. Video greetings from loved ones

Sustainable-ish Birthday Present Ideas

1. Photos (individual or in a photo book)
2. Lotto Tickets
3. Store bought snacks and treats
4. Activity books – mazes, word searches, Sudoku (we liked this nostalgic word search book)
5. Pencil or pen
6. Pencil Sharpener and Eraser
7. Socks
8. Mementos from a special place
9. Handmade gifts like cross stitches in frames
10. Lip balm
11. Hand Lotion
12. Body balm
13. Gloves
14. Slippers
15. Bouquet of flowers
16. Games – either single player or multi-player depending on the person
17. Sleep mask
18. Colouring Book and pencil crayons
19. Puzzle
20. Teas or coffee
21. Guest book for everyone at a birthday party to sign
22. Letter from the King and other government officials – find details here: Request for Congratulatory Messages
23. Items made with loved ones photos (like a blanket, mug, or puzzle)
24. Back scratcher
25. Shoe horn

Less Sustainable Birthday Present Ideas

1. Nee Doh — this might seem like a strange one, but they are fun, colourful items that are great for fidgeting and also for hand strength
2. Calico Critters blind bag — these are fun little toys and the blind bags can be bought for under $10
3. Stuffed animals
4. Candies
5. Lens cleaner wipes for glasses
6. Individual Kleenex packs

Putting Together your 100 Gifts

We chose to gather all our our items in a basket to present at the birthday party. It was determined that unwrapping items would prove to be too difficult and time consuming, so we left most things unwrapped. I did include a couple small gift bags to keep smaller items gathered together. I didn’t want anything to go missing in the basket!

I also used ribbons and some clips to help make the presentation a little more pleasing. My ribbons and gift bags were second hand, which is always nice for the planet and the budget!

If your gift recipient is okay to unwrap presents, keep things sustainable with our gift wrap suggestions: Plastic Free Gift Wrap.

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