| Probably the most dreaded birthday of all is your 40th, indicating a turning point in your life. In your 30s you can still be youthful, wear trendy clothes without a second thought and go clubbing without feeling self conscious about your age. Then overnight it happens
You are suddenly a fully paid up member of the 'mature age group'. You find that the junk mail you receive no longer relates to fashion-wear and wild holidays. Now you receive gardening brochures and information on thermal garments. All this instils in you a feeling that you have started to crumble before your very eyes. You start to look for grey hairs, and those lines around your eyes are no longer laugh lines that show that you are up for a bit of fun, but are now well and truly wrinkles, destined for greatness.
Of course this is just a state of mind. The old adage that life begins at 40 is true; particularly in this day and age when many people are ignoring their chronological age and, energy levels permitting, are still living life to the max anyway. Just because your parents behaved like old people when they were your age doesn't mean that you have to. A positive mental attitude keeps you young, so now is the time to start doing something new, something you always wanted to do but never got round to doing.
It is a big leap from being 39 to turning 40. With this in mind, 40th Birthday Gifts should have more than a tad of excitement about them. Buying someone a cheeky 40th birthday gift gives the message to the recipient that there's life in the old dog yet, and that will be all that is needed to cheer them up and get them up and running with added zest. The male ego is easily crushed, but he will be more than proud to wear a pair of Naughty 40 Cufflinks made from bone china and beautifully hand decorated. Let him flaunt his age proudly. This ideal 40th birthday gift will be a conversation piece and he'll lap up the attention it brings him. He will also appreciate a hilarious Life After 40 Survival Guide, a lovely 40th birthday gift with cartoons and witticisms to guide him through the next few years and give him humorous hints on how to grow old gracefully.
Along similar lines, another good 40th birthday gift idea is The Funny Side of 40, a whimsical look at the mid-life crisis and changing body shape. That will really rub it in, so make sure he can take it before you hand over this light hearted cartoon book. For him or her another amusing book, The Little Book Of How To Survive Turning 40 is the perfect 40th birthday gift to get them chuckling, full of anecdotes and humour from celebrity quotes and if that's not enough to cheer them up you may have to resort to more serious measures chocolate. Not just any old chocolate though, because this is a '40 and fabulous' personalised bar of chocolate covered in a wrapper with their name on it. It will seem a shame to eat it, but it is guaranteed to have that feel good factor that they will not be able to resist for long. And if you really want to rub it in, a wonderful 40th birthday gift is some candles with the message Don't Ask that they can display ironically on their birthday cake, instead of trying to squeeze 40 candles onto the icing and then blowing them out without getting a hernia.
If they need a constant reminder of just how old they are, a 40 and Naughty Mug will do the job. This lovely 40th birthday gift features a pretty pink ballerina, and the words will inspire an attitude of growing old disgracefully. Other mugs suitably designed as a cheeky 40th Birthday Gifts are the personalised mugs with the message 'My life has just begun' and the recipient's name proudly displayed for all to see. This will be ideal for sipping hot cocoa and getting an early night, if they decide to take the old fogy's route to wrinkledom.
Life has definitely begun when you reach the ripe old age of 40. It is up to you what you do with it, curl up in a corner and hope it will go away, or embrace it with open arms. 40 is the new 20, so give imaginative, cheeky and uplifting 40th Birthday Gifts that will give them a good reason for having you as a friend. After all, they will need all the cheering up that they can get.
. |
