A girl I used to work with has a sister who is in the forces (not sure which one =s) and she got her a pamper day at a salon for when she was back home. She loved it! :)
Thanks for your reply, Georgiesmum, but she isn't a great one for jewellery and not sure bout 'smellies'. I know when I get them at Christmas time they usually end up in nearest charity shop as they usually contain a lot of stuff I don't want.
To go with some of Georgiesmum suggestions have you seen the digital photo frames, you could load it with photos of family and friends, it then goes into a rotation mode and shows a different photo every few min our son and dil have one they are really good.