The holiday toy flyers have begun to arrive, and if you haven’t started shopping (or at least planning) for your kids yet, there’s no time like the present. To help, I asked the experts – my 6- and 11-year-old kids – what you should consider putting on your holiday gift-buying lists, and to be even more helpful I limited them to 10 items.
According to my kids, and a source at the local Toys R Us, the hottest toy this holiday season is going to be Hatchimals, hands down. Sadly, if you don’t have one already hidden away in a closet somewhere waiting to be gift wrapped, it’s not going to be easy to get one. So what’s the big deal? Hatchimals are giant eggs that your kids nurture in order to get them to hatch and reveal a fluffy animatronic animal inside. What’s not to love about that? They retail for around $60, but plan to spend a lot more if you end up having to resort to online auction sites like Ebay to find one.
Yeti in My Spaghetti is one gift I’m looking forward to having my kids unwrap this year. It’s a game that’s kind of like a reverse version of the Pick-up Sticks of my youth. A layer of “spaghetti” strands lays over a plastic bowl with a Yeti sitting atop them. Each player has to pull out a piece of spaghetti without causing the Yeti to fall into the bowl. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, because holding regular family game nights is a great way to foster family bonds. The Yeti retails for around $16.
Art supplies are always on my little ones’ lists. And they are an item that can be purchased and tailored to any child’s taste. Coloring books come in all manner of themes and are available for the youngest artists on your list and even those pesky tweens who are so hard to shop for (check out the adult coloring book section at any craft store). Markers, crayons, paper, paints . . . you can’t go wrong with this gift, and, even better, you can adjust the cost to whatever fits your budget.
The big-ticket item for the boy on my list this year is a remote-controlled R2D2. The pragmatist in me sees this as a quick way to set fire to a bunch of money, but the kid in me – who remembers waking up on Christmas morning and finding exactly what she wanted under the tree – is pushing me to find it on sale and then try to add on a coupon for additional savings. Plus, I have to admit, it would be totally cool to have a droid roaming the halls of our house. R2D2 retails for around $149, but I have been able to find it on sale for around $100, and I’m banking on deeper discounts the closer we get to the big day. Here’s hoping the force is with me.
The Shopkins craze is apparently still going strong this holiday season. From inexpensive blind bags to play sets, you can find a Shopkins gift to suit any budget, and the little blind bag “baskets” are perfect for tucking in to a stocking. It was mind-bogglingly hard to resist these tiny, useless pieces of rubber when they first came out and were nothing more than food items with silly faces. Now, the line includes nearly every possible product you can imagine – from makeup items to furniture. Does that make them even harder to resist? You should probably check with the kids.
Christmas at our house always involves a Lego set or two, or four. And our kids always get the Lego Advent calendars right at the beginning of the season. Despite their high price point, and the pain they cause when stepped on with bare feet, Legos are a toy I can get behind because they require a heap of imagination and no screen time. There are sets for everyone, girls, boys, animal lovers, comic book fans . . . the list never ends. And, again, this is a great gift because you can tailor it to fit your budget. For example, I will not be buying my son the $600 Lego Death Star set he has requested, but I will find a reasonably priced Star Wars set and he will be just as happy.
Piggy-backing on the success of Shopkins, a new (to me anyway) line of tiny sea creatures is hot right now. Splashlings are tiny rubber mermaids, mermen and all manner of underwater creatures that kids can collect and, one would assume, play with in the tub. The price point for these is still relatively low, you can get a whole set including a treasure chest with a mystery collectible inside for around $11.
For the video game enthusiast in the house, the big wish list item is Skylanders Imaginators. True to its predecessors, this video game promises to have your child begging you to run back to the toy store for another piece to enhance play. That’s the downside. The upside is that this game actually requires some imagination as players create their own Skylanders. A starter pack will cost you about $99.
Shopping got quite a bit more difficult once my daughter started creeping into that pesky tween zone, where toys are beginning to be pushed aside. One of the most hoped for items on her list this year, however, will make shopping a little easier and actually quite fun: she wants funky headbands. Taking this kid on a trip to Claire’s yielded a list of gift ideas a mile long, even beyond the headbands. And, if you’re not sure what the tween girl on your list would choose, a gift card is always a safe and welcome option.
As much as it pains me to say this, Nerf guns have snuck their way into my kids’ wish lists once again this year. The only solace I see here is that with a new weapon in the arsenal we’ll at least be able to find darts for five or 10 minutes. Here’s a tip from someone who’s been around the Nerf block a few times: If you buy a Nerf gun do not leave the store without a pack of extra darts. I’m fairly certain that after a summer of endlessly fun backyard battles there’s a squirrel somewhere in my neighborhood nesting in a big foam arsenal for the winter, but my son is down to one single dart.
The takeaway for me after watching my kids circle their most coveted toys in flyers and painstakingly craft letters to Santa over the past few weeks, is that the most important thing to remember about the holidays is to keep the magic alive. Does my 11-year-old really still believe in Santa? It’s unlikely, but I will hold on to that ember of hope for as long as I can, and I know that whatever our budget allows, she will find exactly what she needs under the tree on Christmas morning: a whole lot of love.