Gifts for grandchildren who live far away

The parcel from Grandma gets opened in a rush, in a room full of other parcels, and by the evening it is part of the pile. Everybody was grateful. Nobody will remember it by Easter.

If you live a long way from your grandchildren, in another city or another country, you will know that feeling. You will also know the one underneath it: the worry of being a voice on a screen twice a month instead of a person in their week.

The gifts that help are not the biggest. They are the ones that put you into the ordinary days between visits. These are the ones we would choose.

A book you both own

Buy two copies of the same book, one for them and one for you. Then read a chapter together on a video call once a week, at a time that suits them. You read a page, they read a page. A small child can turn the pages along with you; an older one can take over the reading and let you listen.

It is the simplest idea here, and it lasts the longest. You will get through books together. You will both have opinions about the characters. The call stops being “how is school?” and turns into “what do you think she’ll do now?”, which is a conversation you can have with a child of any age.

Postcards with one question each

Keep a pack of postcards and a sheet of stamps by the kettle. Every week or two, send one with a single question on the back. What was the best thing you ate this week? Which teacher would win a race? If the cat could talk, what would it complain about?

A postcard takes two minutes to write and is real enough to prop on a shelf. The answer comes on the next call, or on a postcard back, and either way there is a thread running between the visits.

A photograph of your own childhood, with the story on the back

Children find it almost impossible to believe their grandparents were ever small. So prove it, one old photograph at a time. Send a copy with a few lines on the back: where it was taken, how old you were, what happened just after. The one where you fell in the pond. The one with the dog that ate the birthday cake.

Over a year it becomes an album of you, in your own handwriting, and it is one of very few presents nobody can buy.

A voice at bedtime

Record yourself reading a short story or a chapter and send it, on a phone, in a message, however works for the family. On a night when the parents are tired and you are far away, a child can listen to it at bedtime. Your voice, your pauses, your way of doing the wolf. They will play it again when they are grown.

Something that arrives on its own

A magazine subscription in their name. A letter that comes every fortnight. A seed catalogue, if they are that sort of child. Anything with their name on the front that comes through their door without you having to remember to send it. Post is an event for a child, and post that comes regularly is a small rhythm in their week, with you at the start of it.

An “I’ll teach you” card

Write a card saying what you will teach them on your next visit. How to make your pancakes. How to whistle through your fingers. How to play the card game you learnt from your own grandmother. If you know the date of the visit, put it on.

It gives them something to look forward to that is specifically you, and it turns the next visit from a date into a plan. Children are very good at holding on to plans.

A story with you in it

The one we make belongs on this list because it does something none of the others quite manage: it puts you inside the story.

A Journee story is told in letters, posted to the child at the rhythm the family chooses, weekly, fortnightly or monthly, and each one is a chapter in which they are the hero. The family can be added to the cast, so Grandma or Grandpa turns up in the chapters as a character: perhaps the one who knows the secret way into the castle, or who sends supplies to the ship, or whom the hero writes home to. Between visits, your grandchild reads about you. Each letter ends with a P.S. that asks them to choose what happens next, and the next letter follows the road they chose, which gives the two of you something to talk about on the next call that has nothing to do with school.

Our team writes and draws the worlds and their stories; your grandchild and their family are woven in. The gift card is the way to give it, at /gifting. The letters go to the child’s own address, and the practical side, including which countries they can be sent to, is set out at /how-it-works.

The thread, not the parcel

Whatever you pick from this list, the test is the same. Does it arrive once and get opened, or does it keep arriving? Does it sit in a pile, or does it come up on a Tuesday for no reason at all? The best gift from a distance is not really a thing. It is a thread, and everything here is just a different way of holding one end of it.