Christmas Shopping part two - gifts that you cannot see

This is part two of my eco guide to Christmas shopping. Today I am looking at the giving of time. I read this quote on my friends care farm website

You give but little when you give of your possessions, it is when you give of yourself that you truly give – Kahlil Gibran

Inspired by this I thought I could use my great wisdom of life the universe and everything to give free advice as presents. So for example to my older friends would be this advice:

1. If you are having a drink with a young person in a bar and they suggest 'going on somewhere' then this means a dark smelly place that you may have to pay to get into.
2. If that dark smelly place has dancing poles then dont try them. You will look like a trainee fireman and will at best ache for the next 3 days or at worst end up in casualty.

Anyway you get the idea, I am not sure it would work because people dont always like being given advice and kind of expect it for free anyway, unless you are a lawyer or something. Perhaps the giving of a skill would be better. I have taken peoples portraits as a gift before. This works only if you are any good at it and you sometimes charge people for the same skill so for example taking one on your mobile and then texting it to them does not count as a gift. A good gift would be having a party or making someone a nice meal.

My dad once read something out from Saga magazine which said that old people dont want slippers and smellies but would rather have things like magazine subscriptions (presumably for Saga) or theatre tickets. Don't write them a voucher with 'a weekly phone call from your daughter' written on it. This is about as thoughtful as giving a terminally ill person a five year diary.
Here is a sensible website that will give you some proper ideas without trying to be funny http://www.newdream.org/holiday/giftideastaff.php#time

So I hope I have given you some food for thought. Tomorrow I will be looking at things you can make. See you then.