Seniors Prefer Presence To Presents

DANBURY — If you are a little low on cash or strapped for credit this holiday season, here is a bit of good news. What the senior on your shopping list may want the most will not cost a dime.

When given the choice of what they would like to receive for the holidays, eight of ten seniors (84 percent) surveyed in a nationwide poll said time would be the most special gift they could get this year.

To further reinforce that finding, 42.4 percent of the seniors who participated in the survey conducted by the national eldercare company Home Instead Senior Care said they did not know what their favorite gift was last year. On the other hand, 98.6 percent of seniors in the company’s fourth annual holiday survey recalled with whom they spent the holidays last year.

The survey also revealed that most seniors (91 percent) do plan on spending time with their loved ones this season.

“I think these results confirm what we’ve always known at Home Instead Senior Care; that is, time with family and friends is among a senior’s most prized possessions,” said Sharon Massafra, owner of the Home Instead Senior Care office serving Bridgeport, Danbury, and Waterbury areas. “It’s important to spend quality moments with the seniors in your life.”

Of the seniors who would like to get a gift this year, it appears that the majority is saying: “Surprise me!” Three of five seniors (60 percent) said they would want to be surprised.

The cost of the gift is not always important, however. Of those who received a gift last year, more than a third (37.7 percent) indicated that the gift was not expensive ($49 or less), while 45.1 percent estimated the cost of their favorite gift to be $50 or more. When it came to their own holiday gift purchasing, nearly all said they would spend the same as or less of their own money than they did last year. Only 3.4 percent of seniors said they planned on spending more.

Home Instead Senior Care completed 500 telephone interviews with individuals 65 and older randomly selected throughout the United States. The maximum sampling error for this sample is plus or minus 4.3 percent at a 95 percent confidence level for the United States population 65 and older. Interviews were conducted between July 31 and August 18.

Home Instead Senior Care is a provider of nonmedical home care and companionship services for the elderly with more than 450 offices in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Western Europe.