My best friend — the most wonderful human being I know — just turned 20 years old. We’ve been best friends for almost 7 years, which means a lot of birthdays, Christmases, Valentine’s Days, and any other “days” we want to celebrate our friendship — which ends up being a lot of gift exchanges. Every year, I try to give her something unique that I hope she’ll love, but I have a couple go-to ideas that I always fall back on.
Food
You honestly can’t go wrong with food, especially baked goods. If your best friend has a sweet tooth, there are tons of delicious, simple recipes all over the internet that you can decorate as much as you want. Alternatively, if your best friend is fonder of savory foods, pizza and mozzarella sticks are relatively easy to make and they’re fantastic. When we didn’t live 400 miles apart, I would bake her cupcakes on her birthday. Now that we do live 400 miles apart, I try to send her cookies or care packages from websites like Mrs. Field’s, or even Amazon.
Something personalized
Personalized gifts are really sweet because they’re cute and one-of-a-kind. You could DIY a gift basket with your bestie’s favorite things, iron patches onto clothing and accessories, or buy something online. Personalization Mall is a really great place to find unique personalized gifts for your favorite person. Etsy also has really unique items, like personalized Disney ears or t-shirts.
Something related to an inside joke
These are so much fun because you can get really creative with your gift and how it relates to your friendship. If you guys have a specific inside joke that always makes you crack up or silly nicknames for each other, those are great things to reference in a gift. My best friend loves to tease me about the cows at Davis (she’s collectively named all of them Bessie — all of them). I decided it only made sense to buy her a plush cow from the bookstore that says “Someone at UC Davis Loves Me.’
No matter what gift you get your best friend (or anyone), all that matters is that you show how much you love and appreciate them.
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