40th Birthday Gift Ideas for Your Best Friend

By 40, a best friend has usually seen you through more than one version of your life. The best 40th birthday gift for a best friend celebrates how long you have lasted and makes room for more time together, which is the thing most people are short on at 40. These 12 ideas cover every budget. Our top pick is a song about your friendship, because it tells the whole story from the day you met to now.

Hear a real song from Songbond

This one was made for another family. Yours would carry their name and your stories.

12 40th birthday gift ideas for your best friend

1. A song about your friendship ($39.90). Give us the decades: how you met, the weddings, the moves and the hard year you got through together. Songbond turns it into an original song, ready within 24 hours.
2. A surprise reunion with the old crowd. Gather the friends from school or your first job for one dinner. You handle the booking, and they bring the stories.
3. A year of lunches, already booked. Twelve dates in a small calendar, one a month, each at a place you have both wanted to try. The gift is the promise that you will actually see each other.
4. A bottle to open at 50. A good champagne or wine with a note to open it together on their 50th. Usually $50 to $100.
5. A weekend away with no schedule. A cabin or a hotel with a pool, phones on silent and nobody to feed but yourselves. Split the cost, usually $200 to $500.
6. An engraved item with your inside joke. A keyring, a flask or a compact mirror marked with the line only you two understand. About $25 to $60.
7. A silk pajama set. The kind of comfort most people stop buying for themselves. Usually $80 to $200.
8. A comedy night out. Tickets to a stand-up show, with dinner beforehand. About $40 to $80 each.
9. A photo shoot for the two of you. An hour with a photographer somewhere that means something to your friendship. Usually $150 to $300.
10. A donation in their name. To the shelter, school or cause they care about most, with a card that explains why you chose it. Any amount works.
11. A jigsaw puzzle of a photo of you both. Printed from an old photo, ideally one with regrettable hair. About $30 to $50.
12. A box from the year you met. The snacks, the magazines and the music from that year, gathered into one box. Usually $30 to $60.

How to choose their 40th gift

At 40, the scarce thing is usually time, not stuff. The best gifts either create time together or remind them how much you have already shared.

• If they are stretched thin by work and family: the weekend away, the year of lunches or the pajamas.
• If they are the one who loves a party: the reunion, the comedy night or the photo shoot.
• If they are quietly sentimental: the song, the bottle to open at 50 or the box from the year you met.

How to plan a surprise reunion for their 40th

Start six weeks out. Make a list of the people they would most love to see and find them through old group chats or mutual friends. Ask their partner or a family member to keep the date free without saying why. Keep it small, eight to twelve people, so they can actually talk to everyone. Ask each guest to bring one story from the old days, and have someone read the best one before dessert. If you are giving the song too, play it last, while everyone in the story is in the room.

Give your best friend a 40th birthday song

Create a 40th birthday song for your best friend. Tell us your story, and the song is ready within 24 hours. If the party crept up on you, express delivery gets it to you in about an hour.

Also in the Journal: 40th birthday songs and songs for your chosen family.