In my last post of my festive gift guide series, I cap it off with my guide to what to buy for all the special kids in your world. Christmas is already my favourite holiday, but it really is taken up a notch when you experience Christmas with little ones.
Since starting school, the older two boys have written letters to Santa with their Christmas wish lists (and in later years, some questions to him about the logistics of gift delivery!). On Christmas Eve, they leave a plate of biscuits and a glass of milk out for him under the tree. After tucking them into bed, some of those biscuits seem to disappear as my husband ‘reviews’ Santa’s replies for the boys to read on Christmas morning.
As the older two have developed a healthy skepticism, it’s somewhat bittersweet to see them asking searching questions whilst also seeing that they really want the magic of Christmas to be kept alive. I want to let them know that the magic never goes away, it just changes. But, that might be something we all have to learn for ourselves, in our own way.
This Christmas will probably be the first time our two year old will really comprehend what is happening. He was quite happy to sit with Santa at his daycare Christmas party this week, so I have high hopes of getting a great Christmas snap of all the family with the big man in red.
When it comes to gifts, we always have so much fun buying for kids and I get so much joy watching ours unwrap their gifts on Christmas Day. My four boys are aged 10, 7, 2 and 10 months – so my guide is more tailored to those age groups.
For this gift guide, I’ve been heavily inspired by items that I’ve given to the boys or that we Santa 😉 will be giving to them this year. I hope that some of these gift ideas will give you some inspiration.
Imaginative play-time
It is so sweet seeing our kids play altogether. The older two boys have been role-playing quite a bit with our toddler in playing shops and supermarkets. They pretend to be the customers while our two year old fetches all the groceries for them. The wooden food sets have been getting a bit of a work out as a result and the Melissa & Doug ones would make a great gift.
Play-Doh has also been quite popular in our house. The older boys are quite skilled creating really involved sea monsters and scary looking creatures whereas our two year old is still in the pizza base making stage! Clean up isn’t too bad either – you just have to remind them to put the lids on properly so they don’t dry out!
For the budding muso
We’re constantly playing music in our house and our two year old has shown a real interest in it. He’s obsessed with The Wiggles and not a day goes by that he hasn’t picked up his toy guitar to pretend to strum along to the music. It’s also hard to get him out of his Lachy Wiggle costume!
We’ve had this toy piano in the house for years and it’s the cutest thing! I highly recommend Schoenhut toy pianos as gifts.
To continue to foster his interests, we’re going to get our two year old a 1/4 size guitar to see how it goes with it. We’ve got lots of toy instruments at home and while they are a bit annoying on the noise front, the children really do love playing with them and love receiving them as gifts.
Things that go
Something happened to our boys when they each reached the age of two because they just became absolutely obsessed with trains. In a house full of boys, we have quite an impressive collection of wooden train tracks that we’ve been accumulating since our eldest was a toddler.
The primary train-obsessor at the moment is our two year old. He squeals whenever we walk past the train station and on weekends, we’ll hop on a train, just for a couple of stops, and then head back home, just because he’s absolutely bonkers for them.
Conveniently, the train sets from Ikea, Brio and the wooden Thomas & Friends sets are all compatible. For the really young ones, a large ‘My First Thomas‘ makes a great gift.
Construction and building
You really can’t go wrong with Lego. Our older two boys have enjoyed the specialty Ninjago and Harry Potter sets but they’re now loving anything Star Wars related (and have their eyes on epic builds like this Imperial TIE fighter or Droid ship or AT-AP Walker). Personally, I love the classic sets, without the complicated instructions where you can just build whatever.
Our seven year old is really interested in robotics and model building so we’re going to give him a Meccano set this Christmas.
Build their library
We don’t scrimp on books in our household. We’ve got a few bookcases and our dedicated kids library is overflowing having reached capacity a while ago! My husband and I love to read so naturally, we love it when our boys receive books and always encourage it if it’s suggested by our friends or family.
At a really young age, our kids enjoyed the “That’s not my…” series does the trick, Mem Fox’s “Where Is The Green Sheep?” and the textured books where they touch and feel. During the toddler years, we thoroughly enjoy reading Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler books to them. They are wonderfully written and the boys have all enjoyed the subsequent short movies that have been produced (our favourite being Room on the Broom).
For the older school age boys, who now mostly read to themselves, they really enjoy the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ style novels, Anh Do’s “WeirDo” series and David Walliams books. Our seven year old also enjoys the Usborne ‘Lift the Flap’ style books which provide an interactive way for kids to discover the answers on a variety of topics.
My favourite author as a child was Roald Dahl but my boys haven’t really taken to his books, which I think may be a sign of my age!
And that’s a wrap for my 2019 festive gift guide series! If you made it this far and read all my other gift guides, thank you so much! I would love to hear whether my suggestions inspired any gifts that you have purchased for your loved ones.
Thanks for stopping by! xx
