"Need a mother-daugher gift idea"

My daughter is 13 years old and we still read together. Sometimes she reads to me and sometimes I read to her. If your friend’s wife and daughter have not yet read the Twilight series (4 books) by Stephenie Meyer then that would make an excellent gift. My daughter and I did not read the entire series together but we both read all the books and enjoyed discussing them. A few other great books would be The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. A Great and Terrible Beauty is part of the Gemma Doyle Trilogy.

While I personally don’t feel badly about getting a gift card to a book store, I’d agree that it is not terribly creative.

An option might be a subscription to National Geographic. This is our yearly gift to my MIL, and she absolutely loves it. She passes it on to me after she has read it, and I pass it on to a friend after I’ve finished it, who then passes the copy to several of his friends.

Another interesting idea might be to give them a gift of bridge lessons. Many local community centers offer inexpensive lessons, given once a week in an evening over a month or so. This is something mentally challenging they can enjoy doing together for their entire lives.

How about a Scrabble board?

I don’t know how much you are willing to spend, but if they don’t have a GPS, buy them one, and maybe a membership to geocaching.com. Or if they do have a GPS, just take their whole family out for a fun afternoon some weekend. Geocaching is a great way to get out into the country that an entire family can do together.