21 Stocking Stuffers for Women Over 50

By now she knows exactly what she likes, so skip the sampler.

One good bar beats a big box. A box of assortments gets picked over for the two she likes, and the rest go stale on the counter. A good bar gets finished.

Read the percentage on the wrapper. Around 60 to 70 percent cocoa is dark but still a little sweet. Past 80 it turns dry and bitter, which some women love and plenty don't. If you don't know her taste, stay near 70.

A good bar from a chocolate shop or the better grocery aisle costs noticeably more than a drugstore candy bar. That's where your money goes furthest. Two different bars look generous and take up no room once they're gone.

Buy small, and buy good. She has cooked long enough to taste the difference, and a slim tin about the height of a pepper grinder is one she can use up while it still tastes like something.

Olive oil is at its best young. Check the best-by date on the tin or bottle, the more reliable guide to freshness. A missing harvest date doesn't mean lower quality, and a recent one is a nice bonus, not a requirement.

Choose a tin or dark glass. Light and heat dull the flavor, and a clear bottle on a sunny counter fades faster than she'll get through it.

Pass on the infused oils with a sprig of rosemary floating inside, unless she's asked for one. Plain good oil goes into everything she already cooks, from eggs to a pan of greens, and she'll taste the difference on bread first.

A rough, crumbly wedge in wax paper, tied with kitchen string, the cut face flecked with tiny white crystals. Those crystals are a good sign. They form as the cheese ages.

Ask the cheese counter for a wedge aged about 24 months. It's sharp enough to eat in chips with a glass of wine and hard enough to grate over pasta all January.

Real Parmigiano Reggiano has its name pressed in pin dots into the rind, so look there before you pay. A wedge the size of her palm is plenty.

This one suits the woman in a smaller house who would rather eat a gift than find a place for it.

Rewrap it in fresh wax paper, not plastic wrap. It keeps for weeks in the fridge that way, so she won't feel she has to finish it on Christmas Day.

Three clementines, bright as ornaments, pushing out the toe of a knit stocking. It's an old-fashioned touch she may remember from stockings of her own.

It earns its place for a practical reason. The toe is the hardest part of a stocking to fill, and small gifts sink there and get lost. Fruit takes up that space, so you need fewer things to make the stocking look full.

Pick fruit that feels heavy for its size, with skin that's snug rather than puffy. Loose, baggy skin usually means it's drying out.

A bag of clementines costs a few dollars and fills several stockings. She'll eat them that week, and nothing ends up in a drawer or the donation bag.

Good beans are a gift she'll finish in two or three weeks. Pick them up from the counter of a small roaster, in a plain brown paper bag folded over at the top.

Her mornings matter here. Caffeine and hot drinks are both common hot flash triggers, according to The Menopause Society.

If she's mentioned switching to decaf, or waking up hot at night, ask the roaster for their decaf instead. Most roasters carry one.

Look for a roast date on the bag, ideally within the last couple of weeks. Then think about how she makes coffee.

Whole beans are no use without a grinder. If she has a drip machine or a French press, the roaster can grind it to suit.

A half-pound bag is enough. Coffee tastes best within a few weeks of roasting, so bigger isn't kinder.

Raw honey from a local beekeeper tastes of whatever grew near the hives, so two jars from the same county can taste nothing alike. It's a small daily treat for the woman who has stopped wanting more things.

At a farmers market or orchard stand, ask the beekeeper what the bees were feeding on. Clover is mild. Buckwheat is dark, close to molasses. Pick by what she puts it on: tea and yogurt want mild, and a cheese plate can take dark.

Tell her, or tuck a note in the stocking, that raw honey turns cloudy and grainy over time. That's crystallizing, and it hasn't gone bad. Set the jar in a bowl of warm water and it loosens again.

Small jars are the right size. Eight ounces will carry her through winter toast.

The gloves are the gift here, not the cream. Plain white cotton ones turn a cream she might already own into an overnight treatment.

First, look around her sink. If there's a basket of half-used lotions, she doesn't need another. Give her the gloves alone, with a note on how to use them.

If her hands get dry or cracked in winter, give the pair. Choose a tube over a pump, since the AAD says tubes work better for dry hands. On the label, look for "fragrance-free" and "dye-free."

Here's the routine to pass along. She soaks her hands in warm water, or warm milk, for a few minutes.

Then she pats them dry, puts on a thick layer of cream, pulls on the gloves and goes to sleep. A humidifier in the bedroom helps too.

Cotton gloves come in packs of several pairs for a few dollars, and they wash well.

Tinted lip balm does the work of the lip gloss she'd like and the sun protection her lips need, in one thing she'll actually carry.

The part to get right is what's in it. The AAD suggests SPF 30 or higher with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, plus soothing ingredients like petrolatum, shea butter, ceramides, dimethicone or castor seed oil.

Then leave out anything that tingles. Camphor, eucalyptus, menthol, mint, peppermint, cinnamon and citrus flavors can all bother chapped lips, and so can fragrance and lanolin. That cool, minty feeling is the wrong sign in winter.

For color, a sheer berry, rose or brick tint goes on straight from the tube with no lip pencil needed. Get two, one for her purse and one for the nightstand.

Sunscreen says you expect her to be out walking, gardening and driving into the low winter sun. Leave a small tube by her car keys.

That matters more than it sounds. The right gift matches how active she actually is.

Her hands are in the sun every time she drives. The AAD advises sunscreen on hands all year: broad-spectrum, water-resistant, SPF 30 or higher.

Broad-spectrum means it blocks both kinds of the sun's rays, UVA and UVB. The SPF number is its strength.

A tube of 2 or 3 ounces fits a purse or a gardening bag. She'll reapply after washing her hands, so it goes faster than you'd think. Choose fragrance-free if her skin has gotten touchy.

Bar soap is easy to give and easy to use up, and it leaves no bottle behind.

Look for the plainest bar you can find, made mostly from olive oil, the style sold as Castile or Marseille soap.

Fragrance-free suits skin that's gotten drier. If she loves scent, give a scented bar for the kitchen sink and keep her body soap plain.

The bar will be in her hand in the shower, so here's a habit worth passing along. Dermatologists suggest lukewarm water, 5 to 10 minutes, and moisturizer within 3 minutes of stepping out, while skin is still damp.

Bubble bath and bath bombs can stay on the store shelf. Most women her age have a stash, and a plain bar gets used every single day.

A painted paper fan opened wide in her hand. Folded, it's the length of a pen, and it goes everywhere: church, the car, a warm restaurant, the overheated family room on Christmas afternoon.

It's for the woman in menopause, or past it, who still flushes. Up to 80 percent of women in menopause get hot flashes, The Menopause Society says.

The Society lists fans among the common ways women cope, while noting the science behind those steps is limited. A fan won't stop a flash. It makes those few minutes easier to sit through.

If she's long past that stage, leave it out. By now a fan may only remind her of a joke she's heard too often.

Thick wool socks in charcoal gray, with a scatter of rubbery dots across the soles. They look like socks she'd buy herself. Beige hospital-style grippy socks say something else entirely.

The reason to give them is plain. More than 1 in 4 adults 65 and older fall each year, according to the CDC, and fewer than half tell their doctor.

Socks that hold on wood and tile floors are an easy precaution, and nobody has to mention it.

Choose merino or a wool blend, with a soft top that doesn't dig in at the ankle. Turn them over in the store. The grip should cover the ball of the foot and the heel, not just a thin strip down the middle.

Fuzzy socks are on a lot of women's wish lists. These are the warm, fuzzy kind that also hold their ground.

A pair of soft leather gloves in cognac brown, lined, lying on a wooden bench by the door. Leather gloves are a common wish, and they're the one gift here worth spending more on. She'll wear them every cold day for years.

Lining matters. Silk or cashmere feels smooth against dry skin, where wool can scratch.

The test is a fist. Have her, or picture her, close her hand all the way. Good gloves bend at the knuckles without pulling tight across them or cutting into the base of the thumb. Stiff leather is hard on sore finger joints.

For size, wrap a tape measure around her palm just below the knuckles. That number in inches is roughly her glove size.

Pick a color she can find in a dark bag: cognac, oxblood, forest green. Black gloves vanish.

A small white pouch tucked into the palm of a knit mitten. She tears open the wrapper, it heats up within a few minutes, and it stays warm for hours. Then she throws it away, which is the appeal.

These are for the woman who still goes out in January: early walks, a grandchild's hockey game, birding at the lake, a long wait at the parade. Gloves alone don't always keep fingers comfortable on a raw morning.

Buy a box of ten pairs or so. They usually run about 75 cents to a dollar a pair, and you can drop several into each stocking.

One caution for thinner skin. Keep them in a glove or a pocket, never pressed against bare skin for long stretches, because they can get hot enough to irritate it.

A pen she doesn't have to pinch is a better gift than it sounds. Look for a chunky one, almost as wide as her thumb.

That's the whole idea. The Hospital for Special Surgery recommends built-up grips for hands with sore joints. A thin ballpoint is the opposite, and it makes fingertips squeeze.

You don't need to say any of that. Give it as a good pen. Gel ink glides with less pressure than an old ballpoint, and a pen that writes well is a small daily pleasure on a grocery list or a crossword.

Test it in the store by writing a few lines yourself. If your fingers relax around it, it's right. Add a refill or two to the stocking so it stays in use.

A wide rubber loop on a handle, slipped over the lid of a jar on the counter. She pulls the handle, the loop grips, and the lid turns without her wrist doing the twisting.

This one is mostly about who should get it. Give it to the woman who has handed you a jar to open this year, or grumbled about the spaghetti sauce. For her it's a small win, and she'll use it every week.

Leave it out for anyone who'd read it as a hint. A woman who hikes and lifts weights doesn't want a stocking that suggests otherwise, and a gift that points at frailty stings even when it's kindly meant.

Not sure? Put it in your own kitchen drawer. Everyone fights a stuck lid sometimes.

Check the button first. Small ones are fiddly with cold or stiff fingers, so look for a stubby metal flashlight about the length of her hand, with a button big enough to press with a knuckle.

She'll use it walking the dog after dark in December, finding the keyhole, hunting under the car seat for a dropped earring, and on the night the power goes out.

Next, see what it runs on. A flashlight that takes AA or AAA batteries can use the ones already in her drawer. A rechargeable one needs a cable she has to keep track of. Either works, as long as you choose on purpose.

One brightness setting is easier than a button that cycles through five. Press once for on and once for off.

A spare pair of readers for the car, the garden or the kitchen drawer gets used every day. Tortoiseshell ones look good hooked into the neckline of her shirt while she weeds.

Presbyopia, the trouble focusing up close, often starts soon after 40, says the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO).

Drugstore readers are fine for it, in the right strength. So ask her what strength she wears. It's a number like +1.50 or +2.00, often printed inside the arm of her current pair.

The AAO says an eye exam should decide that number. Picking a strength by guesswork is a common mistake, and the wrong one is what brings on the headache.

If you can't find out, give her something else. A pair she can't wear is one more thing she has to give away.

A paperback wrapped in plain brown paper and twine, sticking up out of the top of her stocking. She can tell from the shape what it is, which is half the fun.

A paperback is light in bed and easy to hold on a plane. When she's done, she can hand it to a friend or leave it in a Little Free Library.

The trap is buying for the reader she used to be. If she read thrillers for years, she may be on memoirs or garden writing now. Ask someone who sees her often what's on her nightstand.

An independent bookstore is the best place to look. Tell a bookseller two books she loved this year, and most will put a third in your hands.

Ask for a gift receipt and tuck it inside the cover. If she's already read it, she can swap it without telling you.

A wall calendar turned to a photo of two grandchildren in snow boots, spiral binding along the top. It hangs where she sees it every morning, and every January it comes down and gets replaced.

That's why it never turns into clutter. Photos of the grandchildren on something she uses every day is a gift some grandmothers have said they love.

Build it at a drugstore photo counter or an online photo service. Match each picture to its month: the beach in July, the pumpkin patch in October, snowsuits in January. She'll notice every time the page turns.

Order a few weeks ahead and check the shipping deadline your photo service lists at checkout, since custom calendars often need extra production time. Rolled and tied, it slides down the length of a stocking.

If you're the grandmother, put this on your own list for your kids. They'd rather know.

Put a promise of your time at the very top of the stocking, where she'll find it first, rolled up in paper and tied with red ribbon.

Many women say what they'd really like is time or a favor: a morning to sleep in, a dinner someone else plans, an afternoon of real help.

It costs no money. What it costs is follow-through, so write it as a plan. Name the thing, the day and who does what: "Saturday, January 16: I'll drive us to the garden center, and lunch is on me."

A coupon book of ten vague favors is easy to never cash in. One dated promise gets used.

Match the favor to her life now. If she's downsizing, offer a Saturday sorting the garage, and haul the donations away yourself.

If she's caring for someone, take over for an evening so she can go out. If she always hosts, book a dinner out in January and handle the reservation.

If you live too far away, promise a phone call on the same day every week, and keep it.

If you'd like something to unwrap too, roll a gift card for the coffee shop she already walks into inside the note, and plan to meet her there.

Then put the date on your own calendar before Christmas morning.