Retirement Gifts Are Hard.

By Karen and Erica

You have a friend or colleague retiring at the end of the year. You are nice enough to start thinking now what a thoughtful retirement gift might be. 

You do some research. You start, of course, with ChatGPT. Its offerings:

Experience-Focused Gifts

• Travel voucher or airline gift card – lets them jump into trips they’re planning.

• Class or workshop series – cooking, photography, sailing, art, or whatever matches their interests.

• Memberships – to a museum, botanical garden, hiking club, or cultural institution they’ll use often.

• Festival or event passes – theater season tickets, music festivals, or sports events.

Tools for Their New Lifestyle

• High-quality luggage or travel backpack for upcoming trips.

• Sports or hobby gear upgrade – such as a new kayak paddle, set of golf clubs, or chef’s knives.

• Technology – a great camera, tablet, or smartwatch to track activities and adventures.

Personalized & Meaningful

• Custom map art showing the places they’ve traveled—or plan to.

• Personalized journal for recording post-retirement adventures.

• Commissioned portrait or caricature in a style that celebrates their spirit.

Something Luxurious Just for Them

• Spa or wellness retreat certificate for a celebratory reset.

• High-end picnic set for days out with friends and family.

• Quality timepiece engraved with a personal message.

ChatGPT has scoured the internet to come up with this list. Creative, sort of. But what is the message? These are gifts that are either mementos of a career or job that has come to an end, or that assume the retired person will be spending decades having fun. Fine for those who want to play for decades–which many do–but the list offers a limited picture of what retirement can be in the twenty-first century.

Here’s another popular list.

• Personalised and custom retirement gifts: Custom-engraved plaques, leather journals, or memory books

• Wellness and relaxation retirement gifts: Spa gift baskets with bath salts, meditation app subscriptions, or weighted blankets

• Premium retirement gifts: For long-term employees: milestone timelines, exclusive keepsakes, or framed artwork.

• Funny and lighthearted retirement gifts: “Retired, not my problem anymore” mugs or aprons, custom bobbleheads, funny T-shirts, or comic strips

• Digital and remote-friendly gift ideas: Subscriptions to streaming, audiobooks, online learning platforms, or E-gift cards

Leaving aside the so-called funny ones, the gifts fall again into the same two categories: mementos of work, and tools for relaxation and filling time.

Then you go to Wirecutter’s selections. Lots of gardening stuff. Some online games. A meditation cushion. A National Parks scratch-off poster. Paints. Cooking supplies. A robe. They all look pretty nice. But the overall message is:the same: your friend or colleague is being put out to pasture and will need something to occupy her or his time. 

You know your friend is a bit nervous about retiring, and anxious about being seen as done and irrelevant. She loved her career but is not the kind of person who says: I used to be a [fill in the blank.]  She looks forward, not back. She knows she can fill her days. But where will she find purpose, and relevance? You don’t want your gift to confirm that she has become either a relic or non-productive.

Retirement gifts are hard. Mementos of a happy career are sweet. But they are backward looking. Relaxation gifts are also excellent. The first few months require plenty of rest. But where are the forward looking gifts? Especially difficult when you have no specific idea about what your friend might wish to do. And  she might not know either.

Retirement is a pivot–a big one and a hard one, but one that leads to a new take on life. People who retire do need to relax and reboot at first. But then they need to be inspired, and to understand that they have an amazing chance–an opportunity to do something new and different, something they have always wanted to do, or something they haven’t even thought of yet. Something that might change the world. 

Obviously, we think you should tell your friend about Lustre. But we would love to hear what other gifts you have found that are future focused, and fun. Because reaching retirement is an achievement to be celebrated with an inspiring gift–something to look forward to after the R&R.