50th Birthday Gift Ideas for a Female Friend

Your friend is turning 50, and you have been around for some of it or most of it. The best 50th birthday gifts for a female friend say what the friendship has meant, not just that you remembered the date. Below are 11 ideas, from small and funny to a real treat. Our top pick is a song about her and the two of you, because a friend of many years deserves more than a candle and a card.

Listen to a real Songbond song

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

11 50th birthday gift ideas for a female friend

1. A song about her and your friendship ($39.90). Tell us how you met, the trip where everything went wrong, and the line she always says after one glass of wine. Songbond turns it into an original song, ready within 24 hours. Play it at her dinner or send it the morning of.
2. A deck of 50 memory cards. Buy a pack of blank cards and write one shared memory on each. Some funny, some tender, a few she has probably forgotten. It costs a few dollars and one long evening.
3. A girls' weekend she does not have to plan. Book the cottage, run the group chat, sort the food, and tell her only when to be ready. Usually $150 to $400 per person.
4. A charm bracelet with one charm per decade. Pick five small charms that stand for each stage of her life so far, even the decades before she knew you. Usually $60 to $200.
5. A very good robe. The heavy, soft kind she would never buy for herself. At 50, comfort is a real luxury. Usually $60 to $150.
6. A class the two of you take together. Pottery, watercolor, flower arranging or a wine tasting. You get an afternoon side by side, and she gets a new thing to be bad at with you. Usually $50 to $120 each.
7. A reunion dinner. Quietly track down two or three friends she has lost touch with and seat them at her birthday table. This one takes some detective work, so start a month out.
8. A monthly subscription. Fresh flowers, coffee from a small roaster, or a book box. It keeps the birthday going all year. Usually $25 to $60 a month.
9. A sash and a crown. She will roll her eyes and then wear them all night. Usually $15 to $30.
10. A time capsule from the year she was born. A magazine, a record, the candy she ate as a girl and a printout of the top news that week. Usually $30 to $80 to put together.
11. Tickets to see a band she loved at 20. Plenty of them still tour. Stand next to her when they play the song she used to know every word of.

How to choose for her

Think about how she likes to be celebrated. Some women want a big fuss at 50. Others want the day to pass quietly with one or two people who know them well. Match the gift to that, not to the number on the cake.

• If she loves a crowd: the weekend away, the reunion dinner or the concert.
• If she prefers quiet: the memory cards, the charm bracelet or the song.
• If she never treats herself: the robe, the subscription or the class.

Give it before the party, not at it

At a 50th, the birthday woman is pulled in twenty directions. Gifts opened at the party get a quick thank you and end up in a pile by the door. If yours is the personal one, give it the day before over coffee, or send it first thing on the morning of her birthday so she has it before the phone starts ringing. If you want the whole room to hear the song, ask the host for two minutes after the toasts, when people are listening and the music is still off. Have someone film her face, not the speaker.

Make a song for her 50th

Create a birthday song for your best friend and tell us about the years you have shared. It is ready within 24 hours, and if the party is tomorrow, express delivery gets it to you in about an hour.

Also in the Journal: 50th birthday songs for the party and a thank-you song for a friend.