How does one make an otherwise dull day exciting for someone? Simple: get him or her unusual gift. The gift doesn't have to be extremely expensive or extremely hard to find. What counts is the thought behind the gift and what you wish to convey or express by giving that gift.
An unusual gift doesn't have to cost much that. It just has to surpass certain notions of what a gift would look like. The following are themes that you can follow if you want to give an unusual gift.
When was the last time that you gave a living, breathing, kicking thing to someone as a present? If your friend needs cheering up, why not get a cute little bunny (put the creature in a cage full of sawdust first) to cheer your friend up? Puppies are almost always welcome, and would be great presents especially for families with small children (kids love to play with dogs, and golden retrievers and Labradors are good, loyal pets).
If the recipient is quiet or doesn't like contact with animals much, there's a solution: how about some fish. Get a small, inexpensive tank, buy a filtering system and fill the tank with fish. Have it delivered to the recipient's house and watch the recipient giggle like a fish in the sea.
People like it when they get something that they're really interested in. For example, a recipient who is an avid wine connoisseur would be happy to get new wine accessories for his or her birthday; the same goes for people who like mixing drinks at home, a cocktail shaker would be most appropriate. For heavy beer drinkers, a beer stein, modeled after European originals, would be a pleasant surprise.
Now if you've run out of ideas, then you can just get a gift that would make the recipient laugh. This includes party or magic tricks, a subscription to a humor magazine or something along this line.
The gift doesn't have to be an object per se- you can have a group of Mexican singers sing a happy birthday song while the celebrant is still in the shower, or you can have a bunch of friends dress as gorillas to scare the person a bit before they give the person a set of gifts from you.
Creativity reigns when it comes to gift-giving. As long as you won't be hurting anyone's feelings with what you would be giving, everything will be fine.