60th Birthday

Sixty is not a quiet birthday. It’s the one people have opinions about. The one that gets a party or at least several conversations about whether it deserves a party. It’s the birthday where people have usually stopped pretending they want something when they clearly do not. That part, at least, makes our jobs easier. We don’t have to second guess them. We just need to find the gift for the person who knows themselves well enough to enjoy their sixtieth the way they want. The hardest part about finding gifts for sixty year olds is that nearly every other 60th birthday gift list leans too far one way or another. Noveltty mugs and sashes and gag gifts that rely on sixty being funny, or dead serious ‘Best Aunt’ sweaters that serve no purpose but to be worn. We’ve tried to hit a middle ground. Gifts that feel considered without being boring, personalized without having to know someone’s life story, and that anyone would genuinely like regardless of how they spend their birthday. We looked for heft. Things that don’t have to be expensive to have weight. Gifts that feel like someone put thought into them. Like they understand that someone turning sixty deserves better than a perfunctory present. We ditched a lot of gifts that made it onto every other list because they felt meaningless. Gifts you buy because you can’t think of anything else. We also considered that sixty year olds can be anybody. They could be reaching retirement or starting their own business. They could be traveling the world or keeping more nestled at home. They could be picking up new hobbies or focusing on the ones they’ve had for decades. These gifts should work for all of them. But to make sure they didn’t become so broad they didn’t mean anything, we gave them all the same test. Would we give this to ourselves? To the people we love, on a birthday that feels like the best one yet? If we weren’t sure the answer was yes then we kept looking.