What can you offer your grandma or grandpa when you are too old to draw a heart on a piece of paper and give it as a self-made greeting card? What can you give a senior that you want to honour in lieu of own grandparents? Cleaning Services!
In spite of old age and a dozen diseases, my grandma keeps climbing chairs and tables to dust shelves and hang washed curtains. I know many seniors who feel obliged to keep their homes perfectly clean, their own age and deteriorating health being no excuse. That’s how they were raised, and nothing can convince them to let it rest. In a house they consider untidy, they wouldn’t feel comfortable. I am far from interfering with their natural instincts. Yet from time to time, it would be a nice idea to offer them… Cleaning Services.
Gift for a senior in different settings
Children for adults: All-Aid Team
When I was little, we set up a ‘Helpers Team’ with my cousins and tried to assist our parents and uncles who took care of us during summer holidays with anything possible. Owing to the fact that we did everything together, we had a great fun, and the adults definitely appreciated our efforts. In other words, you don’t have to wait with this gift until your parents become grandparents.
Grown-up children for parents: Painting Team
This post was directly inspired by the Painting Team organized by my friends for their parents. Together with their teenage and adult siblings, they chipped in for a weekend trip for their parents, and while they were away, the children refurbished their apartment. It didn’t take the four of them long, and the parents still remember it as one of the best gifts ever.
Children or grandchildren for granny: Cleaning Team
My grandmother has been offered paid cleaning services a number of times, yet she didn’t want to hear about it. Nevertheless, she would gladly accept such services if they were delivered by one of us, who could be instructed to clean the house the way she is used to. Moreover, this way she could spend more time with us and talk with us without needing to replenish our glasses or bring more cookies.
If your granny’s love language is practical help, there is no better gift that she could get.
Cleaning Team’s Keepsake tangible gift for a senior
Your Cleaning, Painting or Redecorating Team may leave a keepsake in the form of a tongue-in-cheek framed Delivery Protocol. Write down what you managed to achieve (‘In the sweat of our brows we extracted dirt from all nooks and corners’, ‘We evicted half a dozen spiders’, etc.), add the date, your signatures and best wishes for your granny. Let her know that you did it especially for her.
Alternative gift for a senior
Cleaning services may also be ordered. Cleaning companies or individuals can be found at any location. They may not meet the senior’s need for intimacy and will not talk to the senior in the language of time, but I can imagine at least three situations when such a solution is justified:
- Your grandma is a perfect housewife, and you can never meet her standards, each attempt ending with a quarrel. In such case, let it go, pay professionals to do the job and entertain your granny while they work, in order to help both sides avoid unnecessary stress.
- You live far away, or there are more people who would like to chip in but are not able to participate in person. There are circumstances that cannot be helped, and perhaps it is a better idea to use the rare meetings to chat rather than scrub floors. Don’t forget to warn your granny that she is to expect such a team. Otherwise, the surprised senior might not let them in!
- You don’t have a granny, or your granny is well-off on her own, yet you would like to support a different senior in need. If you are on good terms with him or her, treat the senior like your relative and offer flat cleaning with a chat. The senior will definitely appreciate it. And if it is a total stranger whom you know needs help, but you don’t even say ‘Hi!’ to each other, cleaning services may be the best gift he or she has received in many years.
How do you feel about that? Personally, although I don’t speak the language of practical help, I can’t wait to have children who are old enough to give me such a gift for birthday or Mother’s Day.
My advice:
– You were too late to arrange for cleaning services for your senior’s special day? Not a problem. On that day, give the senior a cleaning, painting or renovation voucher and do the actual job when you have more time.
–Set the time of your services together with the senior. Not everyone at this age enjoys surprises. Therefore, it would be better if the only surprise was the keepsake the senior could later frame.
Leave a Comment