Creativity with Gifts and Appreciation

By Ricky Buchanan.

I know the agency rules about gift giving, at least with the agency currently providing my attendant carers, is “nothing that costs money” or something very similar. I don’t have spare money anyway, being on a pension and all, but I feel it’s important to recognise things like birthdays and Christmasses and other special times, so I’ve used my creativity and come up with things that cost virtually no money but have a high emotional value for that person.

Sometimes these gifts and their worth are specific to the carer involved. Once I secretly learned a Russian song and sang it as a “gift” to a carer who was Russian and was teaching me Russian during our PCA shifts. Then we laughed a lot and she explained to me what the correct pronunciation was and I sung it again! Several times I have made tiny pieces of artwork like hand-made gift cards with drawings on them for carers who I knew loved art. I made a 2 inch square woven bag as a “goodbye” gift for a PCA who moved to England after working with me for four years – she was an art therapist as well as a PCA and we did lots of arts and crafts together while she was here, so I knew she would appreciate the little bag.

I’ve often used my computer skills to make up “certificates” for carers who’ve mastered a new skill on my behalf, or while they were here. It’s a sort of “joke” gift because the certificates look like something you might give a kindergarten kid who just learned to spell her name – they aren’t professional or fancy, I just put them together and print them on my regular printer. But it’s something that gives us a chance to laugh together which is always a good thing, and even if the certificate is pretty cheesy it does convey that I noticed and cared.

Other gifts have been about appreciation – 2 Christmasses ago I got one PCA to cut a bunch of silver stars out of thin cardboard we got at the newsagent, and on one side I wrote “Thanks for working during Christmas!” and on the other side I wrote “You’re a star” and stuck a tiny chocolate beetle (the cardboard sheet was $2 and I got a whole bag of the beetles on sale for about $4 and had been waiting for a time I could use them – I think we made about 15). Those were given to everybody who worked a shift with me between December 24 and January 1, because I think working during that time – especially on Christmas day and New Year’s Eve – is a special thing and I wanted those people to know I appreciated that. Christmas has always been a very special time in my life, spent with family, and now that I’m housebound I only see the family during the short time they visit me on Christmas Day. It makes me very happy that these tiny things can make people feel appreciated and really make their day – I’ve had several people tell me on the next shift, or soon after, how much they appreciated it and that they’d put the silver star on their fridge or dashboard.

Showing appreciation can be done with a word or a smile, and it can make a big difference to a relationship.