Buying gifts for your children is both a joy and a source of anxiety, especially as they begin to grow up and their interests and desires change dramatically. One minute your little girl is fascinated by dolls, and the next she’s looking to get involved in a variety of sports. In addition, you’re also looking to stay original through buying gifts that are appreciated for their surprise factor as well as for their sentimental value. So, here are three gift ideas that push the envelope a little, and promise to excite and delight your children.
Plant Kits
You might think your children aren’t quite at the age where they’re fascinated in the hydrangeas, picking up the shovel and heading out into the garden to plant seeds before winter, but growing plants inside can actually be hugely thrilling for children – especially as some plant growing sets are marketed as fun, exciting scientific experiments – often with food promised at the end of their journey of growth.
Such presents are clearly a gift that keeps on giving. If you buy a set that grows quickly, your children will check in with it most days, excited to see the plant’s latest growth. To really build up the excitement, buying a grow-from-home set that’ll produce fruit or vegetables that will delight your kids, too.
Sentimental Shirts
As your children move through school, they tend to pick up a number of t shirts. They’ll have one for school itself, but also for any sports teams they’re involved in, trips they participate in, and clubs they attend. This can add up to quite the weight in material – and as your children grow, these t shirts no longer fit them.
In what is both an unusual and deeply sentimental gift, you can have these t shirts converted into a blanket that will memorialize your kids’ hobbies and passions for the long-run. All you have to do to make t shirt blankets is to send off the t shirts in question, and wait for them to return all stitched together in a patchwork of colors and memories.
Sporting Gear
Finally, this tip’s about getting your kids outside. It’s been a hard year for families, who have been forced to live within their four walls for far longer than they had hoped. Kids have been especially downbeat, with opportunities to meet friends and do new things curtailed by restrictions. But now that society has opened up, it’s time to encourage your young ones to get active again.
Of course, there are hundreds of different sports that you could interest your children in, and you should pay close attention to what they tend to watch and talk about to decide whether it’s a soccer ball, a basketball hoop, or a racing bicycle that you’ll buy them. Along with that, you could get them some of their favorite team’s apparel from stores like Locker Room Direct that tend to have collections for various sporting teams. It could even encourage your kid to get outdoors and play more, just like their idolized player. This is the sort of gift that’ll get hundreds of hours of use if you find the right sport.
Surprise and dazzle your children with the three above gifts that offer something different from the norm while encouraging them to be active and curious.