What to put under the tree: Useful and pleasant gifts for parents
Come up with cool gifts for mom and dad hardest, because they usually want to give the whole world. In addition, no one knows them better than you - so it would be good if it was something meaningful and significant. For example, if in childhood you loved skiing with your whole family, you can buy parents a pair of cross-country skis (and if you go all the way, then with sticks, bindings and boots) of a completely new level, which will return a forgotten habit to their lives. But we tried to curb our fervor and chose several universal options that will delight any adult and help us spend 2016 even better.
Annual subscription to a good magazine
Thick paper magazines have their own unique charm. It is clear that most of them can be read online for a long time, but the most worthy ones are much nicer to hold and store. In the end, both we and our parents spend too much time staring at the monitor or the screen of a smartphone. An annual subscription to an interesting magazine is a gift that mom and dad will receive almost every month again and again. The main thing here is to choose a publication that will meet the parents' hobbies: theater-goers - Theater magazine (3515 rubles), high syllable lovers - Prime Russian Magazine (1500 rubles), for those who like to read about art - The Art Newspaper newspaper (1600 rubles) , well, or a universal option for those who are interested in a little of everything - Esquire (2160 rubles).
Robot Vacuum Cleaner
Household appliances - the most common and, we recognize, the beaten version of a "serious" gift. The main thing is that it really makes life easier and more enjoyable, and not like the three-part food processor that my colleague gave her mom in 2005. Robot vacuum cleaner - maybe. First, nothing is more depressing than the thought of parents armed with a vacuum cleaner, and after this - a tonometer. Secondly, independent vacuum cleaners have long ceased to be a futuristic object for insane money: you can buy them now starting from five thousand. When choosing to pay attention to the trajectory of the gadget, but mainly - on the volume of the battery. Here this handsome XRobot is able to restore order without recharging for two hours in a row.
Multicooker
Give parents a New Year multicooker - sounds, we admit, it is doubtful: thank you very much, very necessary. In fact, multicookers: a) are undervalued; b) mistakenly endowed with petty-bourgeois connotations. This is a device that is truly able to relieve anyone of the fuss at the stove and even suits those whom the thought of fuss in the kitchen horrifies. Checked for yourself: just throw all the ingredients in a heap, go to watch the series, and after one series you take out the divine risotto from under the lid. We will not remind once again that the main multicooker is Redmond.
Pool Subscription
What could be better than to swim from the heart in the pool when there is snow and gray outside the window? Such a gift will be equally liked by sports parents, it will allow workaholics to distract and switch and shake up those who stayed at home. Swimming often and not for nothing is recommended to people in the age - such physical activity strengthens and invigorates, but at the same time does not overload the spine. Depending on the interests and training of parents, you can buy them a pair ticket, arrange classes with a trainer or write to the group on aqua aerobics. Prices for a swimming pool vary greatly depending on the city and even the area. For example, a subscription for 10 visits to the pool in Moscow’s Olympic Stadium will cost 3,150 rubles, and a six-month card to the Trud pool on Varshavskoye Highway with unlimited visits in the morning is slightly more expensive than 11,000 rubles. Outside the capital, prices are much more pleasant.
Kindle
We are absolutely sure that in your parental home there is already an immense library, to which you last tried to approach in sixteen years - and even half were not mastered. It is possible that parents did not open the doors of the bookcase from about the same time (dust is not considered to be wiped off). “Reading? There is no time for this” - of course, nonsense, but the price of new paper books is not at all. Yes, and put them already, as you know, nowhere. Any parents who are favorably related to technology will only be happy with the Kindle, in which you will upload new books at each visit (and at the same time give small gifts - it is not necessary for the elders to know how much and how much to pay for it).
Subscribe to digital or online TV
If parents watch TV, it is easy to make their lives better and more diverse by giving them a subscription to good digital TV. When you have more than 100 channels - with the classics of cinema, programs about art, animal life and nothing else, you immediately forget about the existence of central Russian channels. The choice of digital TV in Russia is gigantic - feel free to choose the appropriate package from those offered by your local Internet service providers. The price for the annual subscription is around 2000 rubles. There is another option for parents who actively use the Internet - such subscription to online TV will please. Among the popular and reliable options are Amediateka with a rich library of films and serials (2699 rubles per year) and expanded access to the Ivi cinema (399 rubles per month) - both can be watched both on mobile devices and on a large TV.
Subscription to the museum or concert hall
The main feature, which is peculiar to almost everyone, with rare surprising exceptions, is that over time we all become calmer and more diligent, and by a certain age we risk settling at home. Regularly pulling parents out of the comfort zone and entertaining is not a feasible task, although I really want to. It can come to the aid of a completely measured and solid form of leisure, associated with intellectual activity. If your dad, mom or both are theater-goers, lovers of classical music or painting, there is nothing better than a season ticket to the conservatory, museum or theater. For Muscovites, the first thing you want to do is to advise Pushkinsky’s lecture hall with obligatory exits to the halls — they will tell you about post-impressionism, about the small Dutch, and about the early Renaissance. All classes begin in the humane six to seven in the evening, you can choose different days of the week, and in general there are lots of options. Approximately the same applies to the philharmonic, concert halls and theaters - most importantly, choose not only to your taste, but also to the taste of relatives. And as for the use of season tickets, the older generation, believe me, is much more responsible than we are with our annual cards to the gym.
Daylight device
There is no life without sunlight. One could put an end to this, having previously remembered that in such conditions the average Russian spends at least a third of the year. But there are people who have got even more - and these are our parents who have spent in such conditions twenty to thirty years longer than we do. Correct the situation, or at least improve it, maybe a lamp imitating sunlight - for example, the Beurer company, which looks like an illegitimate child of Apple, hails from the future. One name of the "light shower" mode, along with environmental friendliness (the device works on energy-saving lamps) already gives strength. All this pleasure will cost five to ten thousand rubles.
Humidifier Boneco Air-O-Swiss U201A
The not so pleasant truth of life is that with the beginning of the heating season a humidifier becomes the best friend of any citizen: because of the dryness of the air, the skin and mucous membranes dry up. Handing parents a compact humidifier in this case is the same thing as wishing you well-being. The quiet, laconic and democratic model Boneco is easy to use (all you need is to pour water into the tank and plug the humidifier into the outlet) and is sold in many appliance stores. This can only be included at night, and you can use it around the clock and arrange in the room a kind of tropics with warm, moist air. By the way, this humidifier is designed for a room of no more than 47 m².
Nespresso Inissia Coffee Machine
The cheapest and simple capsule Nespresso coffee machine for a couple of years as a masthead for everyone who likes to drink coffee at home, but has not matured, either morally or financially, to buy an “adult” coffee machine. Parents will definitely appreciate the simplicity of the gadget (elementary management, washing and cleaning is even easier) and compactness (not more than a toaster). As for the coffee itself, Nespresso has a rich line of different flavors, limited collections regularly appear (for example, now there is chocolate-ginger coffee, with amaretto and cardamom), a stock of 100 capsules can be ordered on the Nespresso website - delivered right to the door. In general, you will have a reason to run to your parents more often for a cup of coffee.
Photo: 1, 2, 3, 4 via Shutterstock, XRobot, Redmond, Kindle, Beurer, Boneco, Nespresso