Gifts for grandma and grandpa: 10 personal ideas

Gifts for a grandma and grandpa who already have everything: 10 personal ideas for Christmas or a birthday, from a photo book to a birthday calendar.

2026-11-09 · Little Chapters

The best gift for grandma and grandpa is one they can't buy anywhere: the year of their grandchild, told by you, in a photo book or on a birthday calendar. What she said when she saw the Christmas tree. The song he wanted to hear over and over. Below are 10 ideas, from a book to leaf through to something you can make in an afternoon, and what to give if you are a grown-up grandchild yourself.

10 gift ideas for grandma and grandpa, including Christmas gifts

For Christmas, a photo book of the year, the calendar or a bauble with a photo all work well. They are just as good for a birthday. The first three are made from what you already have: your photos and your stories.

1. A photo book of the year. The photos in order, with the stories behind them. Lovely if you have something to say about your photos.
2. A birthday calendar with your child on it. Photos from each month. A good fit if you are short on time, or if there are two sets of grandparents.
3. Reading along all year. Invite them in the app and they see every new chapter. Lovely if they live further away.
4. A framed drawing. Let your child draw, and write on the back what it is supposed to be, according to your child.
5. A hand or footprint. In clay or paint, with the date.
6. A recording of your child. A song or a story, recorded on your phone.
7. A book of questions for grandma. About the old days, and about when you were small.
8. A photo on something she uses every day. A mug, a photo puzzle or a bauble with a picture of your child.
9. A day together. Write a date on a card: a walk in the woods, baking biscuits, going swimming.
10. A small, sweet gesture. Homemade biscuits with your child's scribble on the label, a handwritten letter, or a newspaper from the day she was born.

Birthday gifts for grandma from a grown-up grandchild

Are you the grandson or granddaughter yourself, and is grandma a little older? A personal gift still works best, especially for a birthday:

• An album of photos of the two of you. Go through the old photos and note who is in them.
• A digital photo frame. Load it with family photos first, so she has nothing to set up.
• A handwritten letter. About what you have learned from her.
• A meal or a day out together. With cake.
• Flowers, something to pamper her, or a puzzle. To suit what she enjoys.

A gift for a grandma who has everything

However full the cupboards are, she can't buy her grandchild's year anywhere. She probably gets photos in the family chat already. But loose photos don't tell the story. A book shows how the year went, in the order it happened, with the things only you know.

It's a book to pick up when visitors come round, or with a grandchild on her lap.

Then it's no longer about the photo, but about the moment: do you remember?

What to put in the book

It doesn't have to be perfect or complete. Choose a few photos for each month that capture how that time felt, and write a sentence or two with them. The small things are what make the book:

• What was said. A first word, a mangled word, a funny question at breakfast.
• The moments with grandma and grandpa. The first sleepover, baking together, the birthday party.

Not sure how to start? Finish one of these sentences:

• "When we ring grandma and grandpa's doorbell, you always shout..."
• "All you wanted to do this year was..."
• "At grandma's you are allowed to do something you can't do at home, namely..."
• "This is what I want to remember about how you talk now:..."

Haven't kept track this year?

A year flies by with a small child, and it's never too late. There are two easy ways.

Look back. Open the app, go through the months behind you and choose a few photos for each one, with a line about what you remember.

Give the calendar. The birthday calendar asks less of you: one photo a month is enough.

A birthday calendar as a gift for grandma and grandpa

In the Netherlands, where we make Little Chapters, the birthday calendar traditionally hangs in the loo. Which means grandma and grandpa get to look at their grandchild every single day.

You make the calendar from your chapters: photos from each month, with lines next to them for writing down the birthdays. Choose the colourful version, with its own colour for each month, or the classic one, calm and white. If you have more than one child, they can all be on it.

Two sets of grandparents? Then you don't have to choose who gets it. You make the calendar once and order two, one for each.

Making a photo book for grandma and grandpa: about 10 minutes a month

In Little Chapters you put a few photos in a chapter each month and write down what you want to remember, or just say it out loud. That takes about 10 minutes a month. Keeping up is easier than catching up: every month you do now is one you won't have to search for next year.

By the end of the year those chapters are almost a book, which you can order as a printed photo book. It can also be portrait, with tall pages that suit phone photos.

Let grandma and grandpa read along all year

Family can read along for free in the app and see every new chapter. Would you like them to add something themselves? With Plus you can invite them as writers.

A gift for new grandparents

Are your parents becoming grandparents for the first time this year? Then the first book about their grandchild is a gift they will leaf through again and again. Is the grandchild still on the way? You can already start during the pregnancy. Looking for something for the parents themselves? Take a look at the baby gift card.

After the unwrapping

Perhaps the best part of this gift isn't the book or the calendar itself, but what comes after. Grandpa reading out loud what his grandchild said at breakfast. And you next to him, having already half forgotten it yourself.