Reading to Ruth › Advice for families

Gifts for a 90-year-old who has everything

By ninety, most people have all the things they want and several they don't. Ask what they would like and the answer is usually “nothing, dear”. The presents that work are the ones that get used up, the ones that bring people with them, and the ones that give back something age has taken away.

By Tara Button, Ruth's granddaughter and the founder of Reading to Ruth · Updated 11 October 2026

Presents that give something back

1. Their books. I am biased about this one, because I make it. If their eyes can no longer manage print, Reading to Ruth is an audiobook player with one big button, on a tablet they already have. The family add the books and record voice messages from their own phones. How to give it as a present.
2. Their music. The songs of their twenties, on something simple enough to work without help.
3. Their photographs, out of the boxes: a small album of the best thirty, with names and years written large.
4. Their own story. Sit down with your phone recording and ask about their childhood, their first job, how they met. It is a present to them and, later, to everyone else.

Presents that get used up

5. The good version of an everyday thing: proper marmalade, the tea they like, a tin of real shortbread.
6. Flowers more than once. A bunch every month does more than one large bouquet.
7. Stamps and cards, if they still write, with the addresses already printed on labels.
8. A newspaper or magazine subscription, in large print or audio if their sight has faded. Many areas have a free local talking newspaper.

Presents for comfort, and for company

9. Warmth. A wool blanket, a heated throw, sheepskin slippers with a proper sole.
10. A bird feeder outside the window they sit beside, and a promise to keep it filled.
11. Lunch. At their favourite place, or brought to them, with the people they would most like to see.
12. A date in the diary. A standing visit or telephone call, the same time every week. It is the present most ninety-year-olds would choose.

Why I made the first one on this list

My grandmother Ruth is 101, almost completely blind and hard of hearing. We both love books and poetry, but she found the blind book player too complicated and couldn't hear her smart speaker well enough. One day she told me, “I'm just so bored.”

Now our family give her books to listen to, and send voice notes, poems and articles. When someone adds a book, the player says who it is from, reads their message aloud and begins the story.

Giving Reading to Ruth as a present