Hello BP
It's a great personal present for someone who is a keen crossword enthusiast,
I compiled 3 crosswords last year for friends whos parents were eager solvers for their Christmas presents, I included information that was personal to them, I made a list of things like, their names, hobbies, pets, their street name and number and their jobs etc, and tried to incorporate as many as possible (7 or 8 words is about the limit before you start to really struggle to fit more in). I use software produced by Antony Lewis, which makes the grid construction manageable. I then create my own clues. I've posted a few of my other grids on here via a Dropbox account and they seemed to go down quite well. One of those grids was one that I had done for a friend, and was personal to her parents.
check this bit of the story out.
Her parents stayed in a villa in Turkey called "Cicek Evi", so I used it in their grid.
I wrote a clue that went something like this
Turkish accommodation with choc ice Kevin has eaten (5,3)
When I posted the grid on here, I explained that this clue will be unable to solve as it's personal to my friend,
I can't quite remember now who it was, but one of the guys went and bloody solved it and told me Cicek evi was Turkish for flower house.
I was totally amazed.
I think it was trevor or terry