What an amazing feeling it must be to turn 50 years old…half a century of living. When I was 10 years old, anybody who was 50 years old was ancient in my eyes but now I am 27 years old and 50 doesn’t seem that far off and really doesn’t seem that old. I guess for someone turning 50 it is the same thing – either you feel old or you don’t and you say, “Well at least I’m not 70 yet”. 50th birthday gifts, therefore, can also fall into those two categories – gifts that say, “Wow, you are old” or gifts that say, “You are still alive, keep on living”.

I came across various websites when dong my search for the typical you-are-old gifts (I focused only on men’s gifts) and decided that 50wishes.com had the best selection of old man gifts. For ‘the adventure man’ they suggest you buy a boxer short/tie set, a book, a hammock, a cocktail maker, a journal, a globe, a hip flask or ID/Passport covers. For ‘the provider man’ they suggest a bonsai tree, a big cake, a fancy watch, a pen, a wine wrack or a cheese board.  Although there is nothing wrong with these 50th birthday gifts I am pretty sure that at 50 years old I probably would’ve gotten a lot of watches, journals and cheese boards in the past and getting more of those would make me wonder what the next 50 years were going to bring – would life only consist of watching the time go by, writing my memoirs and eating a lot of cheese?

I believe that the older you get the ‘younger’ your gifts should be – you are still alive after all, 50th birthday gifts need to make the birthday person feel energised – at the end of the day it is a celebration of a person’s life.

There are many other amazing websites out there that offer more activity based gifts and this, I feel, is the way to go when buying 50th birthday gifts. Celestial Gift Experiences has gifts for the 50 year old that feels old and the 50 year old that feels young but both these types of experiences are, in my opinion, better than a hip flask. They offer photo shoots, safari dinners and drumming, Vaal River fishing cruises, supercar self-drive experiences, Farmhouse party weekend for 12 (I think this is a wonderful idea), 4 golf lessons, Cape Malay cooking experiences, rose garden breakfast, Tiger Moth peninsula flights, various spa treatments, in-shore fishing trips, a Birkin2-seater hot lap sessions, theatre and dinner and a wine estate picnic.

I understand that some people age gracefully and that some people hate the thought of turning 50 – this you cannot change but what you can change is the kind of 50th birthday gifts that you give. If you give an experience, you will be giving them a great memory too…which they can then write about in one of their many journals.

Prepared for by Klara Loots