40th Birthday Gift Ideas for Women: What to Give a 40 Year Old Female

The best 40th birthday gift ideas for women are those that do two things - celebrate her - the personal, unique individual that she is - and celebrate 40, that milestone age that's bound to mean something to a woman leaving her thirties. These gifts suitable for a woman turning forty are broken up into two categories: first, humorous and gag gifts about arriving at the age of 40, and second, elegant, enjoyable, or just plain wonderful gifts a woman will love receiving at her 40th birthday party or quiet celebration.

Some women look forward to turning 40. Others dread it. 40th birthday gag gifts help break the ice at parties and also can make a gal laugh at what can be a stressful event.

Funny presents run the gamut from gifts that tease the birthday lady about life changing drastically now that the 30s are behind her and the 50s loom ahead, to tongue-in-cheek books about the ironies of turning 40 or how to survive the scary world as a person of advanced years, complete with quips and jokes.

If you are looking for gag gifts to present publicly to her at her birthday party, and she's at all shy, then on behalf of the birthday girl, I beg you, show some mercy. If she's at all sensitive about turning 40, focus on joke gifts that emphasize the wry inevitability of getting older rather than those that tease her about being hopelessly over the hill.

However, if she's got a wild sense of humor and loves to laugh at herself, an over-the-hill or 40th birthday retro candy gift basket might be just the ticket.

A music lover? Even music snobs will laugh at getting the Billboard Top Rock & Roll Hits 1972 in honor of the year of their birth. Retro music is also something to play at the party to really get in the nostalgic mood.

For party favors or to stick inside a gift basket for a cynical, goth or gloomy type 40-year-old woman, seriously consider the 40 Sucks Lollipops offered on this page.

For her 40th birthday, a gift basket will please her, for several reasons.

1. Gift baskets have a plethora of tasty food like chocolate and salty munchies that women turning 40 like to eat (or if they don't, perhaps they want to start now.)
   
2. Gift baskets have gifts. More than just one. That's nice.
   
3. Gift baskets have lots of little things to pick through, like candles and funny sayings and boring logo pens, kind of like a toy chest in the attic, which makes her feel young and adventurous.
4. Gift baskets have enough goodies that she can share with others and feel virtuous for her generosity.
5. 40th Birthday gift baskets usually have a candle or something saying "forty" that she can stick away somewhere and forget, then look back on when she turns 50 or 60 or whatever and think, "How young and innocent I really was then. Oh, to be forty again..." etc., etc.
   
6. Gift baskets have food. (As somebody who recently turned forty, I feel it's worth mentioning twice.)
   

Here are some fun, luxurious, and snazzy gift baskets your 40-year-old birthday girl will love.

I'm a big fan of spa gift baskets for birthdays, mostly because they're incredibly versatile.

They're suitable for everyone from a coworker to a friend to a sister to a mother to a wife. You can buy them premade or you can make one yourself and put in just the gifts and goodies that appeal to the birthday woman's taste.

However, if she's adamantly anti-gift-basket or - more likely - allergic to fragrances, then along with the spa gift basket suggestions are elegant 40th birthday gift ideas. These exquisite presents are suitable for pretty much most forty-year-old women.

And if she absolutely despises the present, well, she can happily regift them to someone else who likes them better, thus saving her a pack of money and trouble.

But I don't honestly think she will despise them, because they're not your generic crystal poinsettia or statuette of a proud dog that people look at and blink and at and privately think, "Where will I put this?   My home looks like a whirlwhind came through it but I'm supposed to have shelf space for this thing that serves no function?" or whatever.

Forty is a milestone year for any woman.  The best birthday gift for a woman turning forty is one that helps her look at reaching a new decade of life as an achievement.  The right birthday gift can make her feel younger, wiser, and as though she's entering an era of new challenges, having conquered the old ones. Whether you choose a rite-of-passage present or a gift basket that's pure pleasure, she'll appreciate the acknowledgement of what is truly a special and notable occasion.