Christmas Gifts for Grandma Who Has Everything and Means It | Bluegrass Gifts

By Thanksgiving She Has Told Everybody Not to Bother

Somebody asks Grandma at the Thanksgiving table what she wants for Christmas, and she says nothing, and she means it. She buys her own slippers, her own good coffee and her own birdseed. That is how Christmas gifts for grandma who has everything become a family group text by the first of December.

The best Christmas gifts for a grandma who has everything are time, help and the whole family in one place: a standing visit, a chore done for her, a recent photo with everyone in it. If you want one thing for her to unwrap, make it about the place the family gathers, like her name over the porch.

That last one is what we make. Our personalized front porch sign, a carved Christmas gift for grandma who has everything except her name on the porch, carves her name and FRONT PORCH in bold lettering with a porch rule beneath. The sample reads The Millers’ Front Porch over SWEET TEA SERVED DAILY. Hers might read Nana’s Front Porch, over a rule she actually lives by.

The honest field comes first, though: what works on a grandmother like this whether or not you buy from us. If the present is coming from the little ones, we wrote a separate piece on Christmas gifts for grandma from grandkids, built around their names; this one is for the grown-ups doing the shopping.

Christmas Gifts for Grandma That Bring Somebody Up the Driveway

A grandmother who has everything is usually short on three things: time with the family, a hand with the jobs that got harder, and everybody in one room at once. Most of the best gifts on her list cost a Saturday, not a credit card.

The honest field, gifts that work whether or not you buy from us:

• A standing visit, in ink. Not “we should come by more.” The second Sunday of every month, written on the calendar by her kitchen phone before you leave on Christmas Day.
• The gutter she has been watching since October. Clean it, change the porch bulb she cannot reach, and carry the Christmas tubs down from the attic, with a promise to take them back up in January.
• A photo from this year with everybody in it, her included. Grandmothers are usually the one holding the camera. Take it at Thanksgiving, frame it, and write every name on the back.
• Her recipe cards, copied for the family. Sit with her one afternoon, photograph every card in her handwriting, grease spots and all, and make a set for each household. The gift to her is the afternoon.
• For a great-grandmother, four generations in one frame. Her, her child, her grandchild and the baby, on one couch, in one picture.

The has-everything test, four questions to put to anything you are thinking of wrapping:

• Could she have bought it herself last Tuesday? If so, she would have.
• Where does it live on December 26? If the honest answer is the guest room, put it back.
• Does it bring anybody up her driveway, or only the mail carrier?
• Will it still be out where she can see it in March?

Very little in a store passes all four. Everything in the list above does, and so does one thing you can wrap.

◆ From the Workshop: The words on this sign are never painted. The carve cuts down through the finish into clean grain, so Nana’s and FRONT PORCH read in bare wood against the color, and on a porch that matters: there is no ink to fade in the afternoon sun and no vinyl edge for the humidity to lift. The two carved lines that frame the porch rule come out of the same board in the same pass. The darker the finish, the harder the bare-wood letters stand out, so Ebony and Dark Walnut read clearest from the bottom of the porch steps.

Christmas Gifts for Grandma That Go Where Christmas Actually Happens

Think about where Christmas really happens at her house. Mostly not under the tree. It is the porch: where she waves you in from the driveway, where the cousins end up after supper, where she sits with her coffee watching the road for the first car. She has had that porch for years. What she does not have is her name on it.

That is the whole case. It needs no shelf; it goes up on a wall she already looks at every day, and every visit after this one starts under it. It passes the test, too: she cannot buy her own name over her own porch, and it is still there in March.

You type three lines on the product page and watch them appear on the board. The name line takes up to 16 characters: Nana’s, Mamaw’s, Grandma June’s, Mamaw & Papaw’s. The place takes up to 14, so Front Porch can become Back Porch, Screen Porch or Patio, and the porch rule underneath up to 30. The style option sets the lettering: classic serif, flowing script or tall farmhouse caps; the photos show the classic. A real person reads every order before anything meets the saw, spelling checked against what you typed, so settle Mamaw or Mammaw with the family before you order.

Pick the size by the wall. The Small 16" x 3.5", at $30.00, fits the narrow stretch of wall beside the front door. The Medium 24" x 5.5" ($55) sits over a pair of rocking chairs. The Large 30" x 7.25" ($80) is for a long porch wall that gets read from the driveway. A sawtooth hanger comes installed; hang it flush under the porch roof, since covered porches are kind to carved wood. Dark Walnut or Ebony suits a white house, Weathered Gray a gray one, and if her porch ceiling is painted that pale haint blue, Worn Navy picks it up.

We are a small Kentucky shop with 5,000+ customer reviews, and we carve this sign on a CNC machine in our shop, on one face of a solid board: pine for the stain finishes, poplar for the paints, never MDF. It ships free in the U.S., and any two signs or wax melts earn up to 20% off at checkout, handy in a year with two grandmothers on the list.

Sweet Tea, Strong Coffee or Supper at Six: Porch Rules by the Kind of Grandma

The porch rule is where the board becomes hers. Here are rules that fit the 30-character line, by the kind of grandmother who sits there:

• SWEET TEA SERVED DAILY: the sample, for the pitcher that never runs dry
• COFFEE’S ON, COME ON UP: the one out on the porch before the sun is
• SIT DOWN, YOU’RE EATING: the one who always feeds you, hungry or not
• WHAT’S SAID HERE STAYS HERE: the one who hears the news first
• THE ROCKER ON THE LEFT IS MINE: the one with a chair nobody else dares sit in
• SUPPER AT SIX, NOT SIX-FIFTEEN: the one who runs the house on time
• STAY OFF THE PETUNIAS: the gardener with a pot on every step
• PORCH LIGHT’S ALWAYS ON: the one who waits up
• GRANDKIDS SPOILED HERE: the one with the cookie tin by the door
• WAVE AT EVERYBODY: the one who knows every truck that passes
• ROCKING HERE SINCE 1971: fifty-some years on the same porch
• FOUR GENERATIONS SAT HERE: a great-grandmother’s porch

Write the rule the way she would say it from her rocker, not the way a greeting card would. And if her porch is where the family goes after supper to do nothing at all, our piece on why porch sitting and doing nothing is good for you makes that case better than any sign could.

Four Grandmothers Who Should Get the Visit and Not the Sign

The sign is the wrong gift for some grandmothers, and better to know it before you type her name.

• Her front door opens onto a stoop with no roof. This board wants a roof over it. Hang it inside on the entry wall, or pick a sign made for her kitchen.
• She is moving somewhere smaller. A sign for a porch she is leaving is a hard thing to unwrap. Wait for the new place; if it has a patio, the place line takes Patio as easily as Front Porch.
• She has named the one thing she wants. If you have heard the word recliner three times since Labor Day, buy the recliner.
• Nobody has been up her driveway since spring. Then the gift is the visit. Give her the standing Sunday this Christmas and the sign next year, when there is somebody sitting under it.

For everybody else, use the question she would use herself: where does the family end up an hour after supper? If the answer is her kitchen or her garden rather than the porch, the rest of our personalized signs are carved the same way, so put her name wherever that is.

She will tell you again next November that she needs nothing, and she will be right about nearly everything. Put her name and her rule on our personalized front porch sign for the grandma whose porch is where Christmas really happens, and write the second Sunday in January on her calendar as the day you come hang it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What to get a grandma who has everything for Christmas?

Get a grandma who has everything something she cannot buy for herself: your time on her calendar, help with a chore that has gotten harder, a recent photo with the whole family in it, or her recipes copied for the grandkids, and if you want one thing to unwrap, her name carved over the porch where everybody gathers. Skip anything she would need a shelf for. Our personalized front porch sign carries her name and her own porch rule, starts at $30.00 and ships free in the U.S.

What to get grandma for Christmas as an adult?

As an adult, get grandma what a grown grandchild can give and a small child cannot: a drive to her appointments, a Saturday of jobs around the house, a standing lunch date, or a keepsake you chose and paid for yourself, like her name and porch rule carved on a sign for the front porch. If you live a long drive away, pick a day for a weekly call and write it on her calendar at Christmas. Our personalized front porch sign can be ordered from anywhere and ships free in the U.S.

What can you put on the personalized front porch sign?

You type three lines on the personalized front porch sign: her name, up to 16 characters, such as Nana’s or The Millers’; the place, up to 14, such as Front Porch or Back Porch; and a porch rule of up to 30 characters underneath, such as SWEET TEA SERVED DAILY. You watch the lines appear on the board as you type, choose classic serif, flowing script or tall farmhouse caps from the style option, and a real person reads every order before anything meets the saw, spelling checked against what you typed. Sizes run from the Small 16" x 3.5" at $30.00 to the Large 30" x 7.25" at $80, in 20 hand-applied finishes. It ships free in the U.S.: 2-7 business days in the shop, then 2-5 days to reach you.