How to Choose a Calendar as a Gift

A calendar might seem like a simple gift, but choosing the right one can make it surprisingly personal.

Unlike many gifts that get used once or put away, a wall calendar can stay on display for an entire year. Every month brings a new image, and every day the recipient has something useful hanging on the wall. Choose a subject that matches someone's interests or personality, and a calendar becomes much more than a way to keep track of dates.

Calendars can also work for almost anyone. There are calendars for animal lovers, travelers, history buffs, art enthusiasts, nature lovers, coworkers, parents, and people who appreciate something a little stranger or funnier.

So how do you choose the right calendar as a gift? Here are the most important things to consider.

Start With the Person's Interests

The easiest place to start is with something you already know the recipient likes.

Do they love dogs or cats? Are they interested in wildlife, national parks, art, history, travel, or religion? Do they have a particular hobby or sense of humor?

A calendar built around an existing interest immediately feels more personal than a generic gift.

You don't necessarily need to know someone's exact taste, either. Sometimes one simple piece of information is enough. If you know they love cats, for example, you've already narrowed your search considerably. The same is true for someone who loves classic artwork, beautiful landscapes, or unusual history.

This is one reason calendars work especially well as gifts for people you know reasonably well but may not know well enough to buy something highly personal.

Think About Their Personality

Sometimes the subject isn't as important as the personality of the calendar.

One person might love a beautiful landscape calendar. Someone else would much rather receive something that makes them laugh every time they look at it.

At Blue Wolf Calendar Company, we publish plenty of traditional calendars featuring subjects such as animals, art, nature, landscapes, and other popular interests. But we also publish calendars that are intentionally funny, odd, unusual, and interesting.

Those less-conventional calendars can be particularly good gifts for people with a quirky sense of humor or for someone who already seems to own everything they need.

Instead of asking only, "What does this person like?" try asking, "What kind of calendar would this person actually enjoy opening?"

Consider Where They'll Use It

Think about where the recipient is likely to hang the calendar.

A calendar for someone's kitchen or home office can be very different from one intended for a workplace. Someone with a private office may enjoy a calendar that reflects a very specific interest or sense of humor, while a calendar hanging in a shared workplace may need broader appeal.

The location can also help you choose between something decorative and something highly practical.

If the recipient is likely to write appointments, birthdays, deadlines, or reminders on the calendar, look for a layout with plenty of usable writing space. If the calendar will primarily be decorative, the photography, artwork, or humor may matter more.

Make Sure It's a Useful Size

Most traditional wall calendars are designed to provide both a large monthly image and a calendar grid underneath.

A common format is approximately 12 × 12 inches when closed and 12 × 24 inches when hanging open. This gives the recipient a substantial image without requiring an enormous amount of wall space.

If you're unfamiliar with the different formats available, our guide to standard wall calendar sizes explains the most common options.

Size becomes especially important when you're buying for someone with limited wall space, such as a coworker with a small office or someone living in an apartment.

Look at the Amount of Writing Space

If you expect the recipient to actually plan with the calendar, don't overlook the date boxes.

Larger date boxes provide room for appointments, birthdays, work schedules, school activities, and other reminders. Tiny boxes may look fine in a product photo but can become frustrating once someone starts using the calendar.

Our guide to calendar date box size goes into more detail about how much writing space can make a calendar easier to use.

For someone who likes to stay organized on paper, this can be one of the most important features of the gift.

Quality Matters More When It's a Gift

A calendar is something the recipient may handle and look at every day for a year, so quality matters.

Paper, printing, image reproduction, and binding all contribute to how the calendar looks and feels. A well-made calendar simply makes a better impression when someone unwraps it.

Good construction also matters months later. The pages should remain securely attached and turn easily as the recipient moves through the year.

For a closer look at these features, read What Makes a High-Quality Wall Calendar?.

Don't Overlook Funny Calendars as Gifts

Not every calendar gift needs to be beautiful or serious.

Sometimes the best gift is the one nobody expects.

Funny calendars can work especially well for friends, siblings, coworkers, parents, and anyone with a good sense of humor. And because a calendar is still functional, it has an advantage over many novelty gifts: the joke doesn't necessarily mean the gift is useless.

That's where unusual calendar subjects can become particularly fun.

A strange animal calendar, bizarre historical theme, offbeat piece of artwork, or other unexpected subject can turn an ordinary calendar into something people want to show everyone else.

For the right recipient, the more unusual the calendar is, the better the gift can be.

Calendars Can Make Great White Elephant Gifts

Calendars are also a natural fit for White Elephant gift exchanges.

White Elephant gifts usually need to satisfy a somewhat unusual combination of requirements. You want something affordable, entertaining when it's opened, and ideally desirable enough that people might actually want to steal it from one another.

An unusual calendar can check all three boxes.

Blue Wolf sells calendars specifically suited to this kind of gift giving, including funny, odd, interesting, and sometimes downright ridiculous subjects. These can work well for office Christmas parties, family gift exchanges, friend groups, and other White Elephant events.

A funny calendar also has one major advantage over a novelty item that gets a laugh and then gets thrown in a drawer: it's still a calendar.

The recipient can actually use it for the next year.

A Calendar Can Be a Gag Gift That's Still Useful

The same idea applies to gag gifts.

Many gag gifts exist almost entirely for the moment when they're opened. Once everyone laughs, there isn't much reason to keep them.

A funny or bizarre calendar can deliver the same surprise while remaining useful.

That's an appealing combination when you're shopping for someone who appreciates humor. They get the initial laugh when they unwrap it, and then they get 12 months of new images and jokes, artwork, animals, or whatever strange subject made you choose the calendar in the first place.

It can be especially effective when the calendar relates to an inside joke or something you know about the recipient.

Think About the Recipient's Sense of Humor

When buying a funny calendar, knowing your audience becomes especially important.

What's hilarious to one person might be completely uninteresting to another. A funny gift works best when the humor matches the recipient.

For a coworker, consider whether the calendar is appropriate for their workplace. For a close friend or family member, you may have much more freedom to choose something strange or irreverent.

The goal isn't simply to find the weirdest calendar available. It's to find the weird calendar that makes you immediately think of a particular person.

That's what makes the gift personal.

Don't Assume They Already Use a Digital Calendar

Even someone who keeps their entire schedule on a phone can still enjoy a paper calendar.

The two formats don't have to compete.

A digital calendar is excellent for notifications, appointments, and schedules that change frequently. A wall calendar provides an always-visible monthly reference while also serving as decoration.

Someone may use Google Calendar for meetings and appointments while keeping a beautiful, funny, or unusual calendar hanging in the office or kitchen.

We compare the advantages of both approaches in Paper Calendar vs. Digital Calendar: Which Is Better?.

Choose Something They Wouldn't Necessarily Buy for Themselves

One of the best approaches to gift giving is finding something a person will enjoy but probably wouldn't think to buy.

Calendars are particularly well suited to this.

Someone may never go shopping for a calendar filled with an unusual subject, strange artwork, funny animals, or an obscure interest. But when they receive one that perfectly matches their personality, it can become one of the most memorable gifts they open.

This is particularly true for people who are difficult to shop for. Instead of trying to find another piece of clothing, coffee mug, or generic gift card, you can choose something tied to an interest, personality trait, or shared joke.

Beautiful, Practical, or Completely Ridiculous?

When choosing a calendar as a gift, it can help to put your options into three broad categories.

Beautiful: Choose striking photography, artwork, animals, landscapes, or another visually appealing subject.

Practical: Prioritize readable dates, large writing spaces, and a useful format for someone who likes to stay organized.

Funny and unusual: Look for an unexpected subject that matches the recipient's personality and gives them a reason to laugh when they open it.

Of course, a calendar can fit more than one category. A beautiful calendar can still be practical, and a ridiculous calendar can still have a perfectly functional monthly grid.

The right balance depends on the person receiving it.

How to Pick the Right Calendar Gift

Before making your final choice, ask yourself a few simple questions:

• What subjects does this person genuinely enjoy?

• Would they prefer something beautiful, practical, funny, or unusual?

• Where are they likely to hang the calendar?

• Will they write on it or mostly use it as a visual monthly reference?

• Is the calendar appropriate for the place where they'll display it?

• Would they buy this for themselves, or does it feel like a fun surprise?

If you're still deciding among different styles, sizes, and features, our guide on how to choose a wall calendar can help you narrow down the options.

A Gift They Can Enjoy All Year

One of the best things about giving a calendar is how long the gift lasts.

Instead of being enjoyed only on the day it's opened, a calendar changes every month and remains part of someone's home or office throughout the year.

It can be beautiful. It can be practical. It can reflect someone's favorite animal, hobby, place, artwork, or interest.

Or it can be completely ridiculous.

Sometimes that's exactly what makes it the perfect gift.