35 Gift Ideas for Neighbors and Friends
The words come to us from different language families. Present comes from the French for "to present. They were both in use for the idea of something undergoing a transfer of possession without expectation of payment from the 13th century onward. The words gift and present are well-matched synonyms that mean essentially the same thing, but even well-matched synonyms have their own connotations and distinctive patterns of use.
Gift applies to a wider range of situations. Gifts can be talents. You can have the gift of gab, or a musical gift. Gifts can be intangibles. There is the gift of understanding or the gift of a quiet day. Presents are more concrete.
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A bit more, well, present. Gift can also be an attributive noun, acting like an adjective to modify another noun. What do you call the type of shop where you can buy presents for people? What do you call the basket of presents that you can have sent to all your employees? We have gift boxes, gift cards, and gift wrap, not present boxes, present cards, and present wrap. Gift appears to be more frequent than present , though it is difficult to get accurate counts, because if you compare occurrences of the noun present with the noun gift , you include that other noun present , meaning the here and now.
However, the plural noun presents captures only the word we want. Gifts outnumbers presents in the Corpus of Contemporary American English by four to one. Still, according to my personal sense of the words, present —though it may not be as common—is more casual sounding than gift. I expect a child to ask Santa for lots and lots of presents, not many, many gifts. Have you got a Big Question you'd like us to answer?
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But the truth is, if you ever see a minor out wassailing, you may want to call his or her parents. The word wassail has many meanings. Before the Battle of Hastings in , English soldiers reportedly sang:. But, in England, wassail also denoted the alcoholic beverage you imbibed during that toast—an elixir of steamy mulled mead or cider. Sometimes, wassail was a whipped dark beer flavored with roasted crab apples.
Wassail was usually slurped from a communal bowl before, during, and after big events and holidays. It was supposedly on the menu during Lammas Day, a pagan autumnal harvest holiday that involves transforming cornhusks into dolls. It was also imbibed on Twelfth Night , a January holiday that involves lighting a fire in an orchard, dancing, and singing incantations to apple trees in hopes of encouraging a bountiful harvest.
By the Middle Ages, the practice of sharing a giant bowl of wassail—that is, the practice of wassailing —evolved from a holiday celebration to a form of boozy begging. Not all rich folk were happy to see wassailers at their doorstep. Misers like Selden may have had a point: Since alcohol was involved, wassailers often got too rowdy. Attendees learned how to facilitate a Dementia Friends Information Session with community members.
A Dementia Friends Information Session is a face-to-face session that lasts approximately one hour and is run by a Dementia Friends Champion.
It covers the five key messages everyone should know about dementia through activities and discussion. Stop by the library to check out a book for your favorite child who might need help understanding a family member who is living with dementia. We laughed a lot — mostly at ourselves, cried a little, and found much to recognize in what she shared about the experiences of life with dementia.
If that sounds incongruent — laughing about a serious disease — we might consider her suggestion to lighten up a little bit in those places where it makes sense to let go.
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She approached the subject with dignity and respect for the person living with dementia, as well as compassion and understanding for the caregiver. She asked us to consider whether we needed to be right if it resulted in a tug of war, or if we wanted our loved one to be calm and content. Jolene provided many tips for avoiding conflict, such as ways to help improve daily living issues, like i ncontinence, and she asked us to work out the root cause of agitated behavior to find a solution to them other than medication.
Throughout both the morning and evening sessions she created an environment of sharing so we could learn from each other, too. Her words will stay with us for a long time and hopefully not just make our own lives better when we put her suggestions into practice, but enrich the lives of the people we care for, too. If you missed the presentation, you can find information about Jolene and her books about caregiving at her website.
This post discusses recovery issues. Marilee stressed that there is a significant increase in morbidity and mortality if the wandering person is not located within twelve hours. Be prepared to provide as much of the following information as possible:. Early publicity efforts are likely to be important, urging anyone who has seen the individual to report. Patrol area roadways, paths, sidewalks, rail lines, and other travel aids nearby. Systematically and thoroughly search nearby areas, including dense brush. Repeat searches of the home and surrounding area and roadways, making sure to look in possible hiding places.
Early use of trackers and tracking dogs, preserving any verifiable clues, and video surveillance from area businesses may be important. Check with your local agency. Marilee discussed the characteristics that are common to most critical wanderings. They tend to stick to a defined path, however.
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They may misinterpret sight or sound cues, and their fear or anxiety may increase as a result. For example, a woman may mistake the concern of a passerby or a rescuer as being a threat. A war veteran may hide from search aircraft. The median distance traveled on foot is one-half mile. Nearly one-quarter of those found are within 35 yards of a travel aid, such as a road or trail.
They may be trying to travel to a former residence or a favorite place. The third prevention component addresses Exit Control: Our next post in this series will be on March 20, It will discuss the characteristics of wanderings. The final post will address recovery issues.
It is important to note that all wandering prevention tactics must be balanced with the need to ensure fire safety, along with access and ease of use for caregivers and emergency responders. T he second prevention component is Environmental: Marilee distinguished between wandering and critical wandering during her presentation.
Controlled wandering may help alleviate anxiety and provide some needed exercise for the person with dementia. The first prevention component is behavioral. Identification of the factors that contribute to wandering. Common trigger factors include:. Once determined, these triggers can be addressed or alleviated through caregiver behaviors — distraction, calming, reassurance, structured exercise, re-orienting to new landmarks, etc.
The next post March 16 will continue with wandering prevention — environmental modifications.