This year, Helen Keefe asked her husband to get her a facelift for Christmas.
"I needed my outside to match how I felt on the inside,” Keefe, 65, tells Yahoo. "I've always acted 10 to 15 years younger, and now I look it.”
That’s because Christmas came early for the community college event coordinator in Astoria, Ore. On Dec. 15, she underwent a facelift and deep plane neck lift, courtesy of her spouse. "I said, 'Hey, Pat, do we have an extra $30,000 for a facelift for Christmas?'" Keefe jokes.
Two years ago, Keefe received a medically necessary upper blepharoplasty (or eyelid surgery) and felt that after the procedure, her eyes looked younger than the rest of her face. "Getting the eye surgery was already a dramatic difference in my appearance, and then the rest of my face really looked old in comparison," she says.
The holiday timing also felt right, she adds. "It was like a perfect rainbow, because my grandkids were going to Japan for Christmas, and we're not going,” she says. “And our work ended up having an extended break this year.” That meant fewer responsibilities to deal with over the holiday season — and, very important, extra time to recover post-op.
Now, just a few weeks post-op from her facelift, Keefe says she couldn't be happier with her results and, aside from a little pain along her ear and throat, is recovering nicely. The cherry on top: Her husband is taking care of the house and their dogs while she heals. “That’s the real gift,” she says.
Plastic surgery isn't exactly a gift you can put under a tree, but it has become quite the coveted wish list item. And it’s not as impractical as you might think, according to Dr. Sean McNally, the plastic surgeon who performed Keefe's facelift.
"If that's what you, your significant other or family member really want, I can't think of a better present. Improving function, looking better or feeling more confident is a great gift," McNally tells Yahoo. He argues that cosmetic work could be considered a savvier buy compared to other luxury gifts. "A mommy makeover will certainly get more use than that Birkin bag you might be considering," he notes.
As cosmetic procedures become more mainstream and less taboo (or, at least disclosed more, with the Kardashian-Jenners leading the charge), injectables and nip-tucks have emerged as one answer to the age-old question: What do you get for the person who has everything (including crow’s-feet)?
A mommy makeover will certainly get more use than that Birkin bag you might be considering.
"I'm gifting my sister her first Botox appointment," says Sophie Birnbaum, a beauty publicist in Marlboro, N.J. She says her sister, who is 31, has been interested in getting Botox for a long time but hasn't been ready to pull the trigger just yet.
"She's super hard to shop for, and this has been the main thing she wanted, so I know she'll be super excited," she says. Of course, it helps that their father happens to be a plastic surgeon.
"We're a little more comfortable with this kind of thing," says Birnbaum. Since she and her sister have talked at length about the various procedures they'd like to try, Birnbaum feels confident that this will be received well.
Previously expressed interest makes it easier to gauge whether or not this would make a good gift. Tori Loiacono, who is also a publicist, is giving her 56-year-old mom a gift card for Botox and NAD+ injections this Christmas. She tells Yahoo that her mother has become increasingly interested in wellness and self-care practices since starting menopause. Loiacono sees this gift as the ideal way to help her mother reconnect to herself — not to change who she is. "For her, it's less of a vanity thing and more of feeling good in her own skin," Loiacono says.
And since Botox injections can be pretty pricey, receiving it as a gift can eliminate some of the guilt that women may feel around spending money on themselves. "I think the only thing stopping her was not wanting to spend a ton of money, so now she won't have that problem anymore," says Birnbaum.
She adds that social media has helped demystify cosmetic work for the layperson.
"Five or seven years ago, Botox was something that you thought only older people got. But now with TikTok and other forms of media, we're seeing the before-and-afters, and it's not so scary," Birnbaum says.
A decade ago, it would have been weird to give her sister Botox. Now it’s sensible — which is perhaps why so many med spas and cosmetic clinics offer gift cards to use for their services.
"I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I feel like for a woman in their 30s," she says, "gifting Botox is the next level of gifting someone a Starbucks gift card."