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Each year, I love sharing what we’re actually giving our kids for Christmas. It’s always my most popular gift guide, which I understand because I love seeing what real people are actually gifting, not just sharing in theory.
Here’s what we’re giving our kids for Christmas 2023. This year, we opted to do one STEM toy family gift for the kids to play with and work on together. We’re also sharing a trip that Dan and I booked that we haven’t told the kids about yet, and using that as a chance to give them a needed item for school. We also already gave them our annual Christmas pajamas and holiday outfits!
In addition to the family gifts, we decided each child would receive an individual experience, some sort of toy (since we shipped very few to London), and a book. I hope it’s fun to read and gives you some ideas, too!
This will be the main, final gift we share. We always do some sort of fun activity for them to guess what it is, and I can’t wait for them to figure it out. for which we’ll create some sort of fun activity to figure it out.
We’re going to include an umbrella for each child, as it’s tied to the history of the place we’re going. We were planning to get them each one, anyway, as they need one for the walk to and from school since it rains so frequently here. We just had one big family one before in dry California, and have got soaked in sudden rain a couple times already! I wanted something sturdy that would last instead of immediately flipping inside out because I’m NOT interested in repurchasing these every couple months.
Here are the umbrellas we’re giving them:
I’d heard about Gravitrax for a little while and it seems like my STEM-loving kids are a great age for it right now. I’m hoping it will be fun for even my 13-year old, but still accessible for my 6 year old (and possibly the 3 year old with help!). Especially since we shipped very limited toys to London, I’m excited to give them a full set of something that’s going to last for a long while and encourage joint play and learning.
We chose to get the original starter set with the vertical expansion pack. At the shop where we purchased here in London, those were on sale along with several other accessories, so we included the trampoline, zipline, and catapult. The total came out to just over $100 for all the pieces.
Available on Amazon, Target, Walmart
I’ve had this game on my radar for a little bit – it looks great for a variety of ages to be able to participate and be challenged while having fun with math facts.
We actually gifted our kids their Christmas pajamas at the start of the season so we could enjoy them all month long!
This year, we did these classic tartan pajamas for the whole family and I adore them. We’ve done this brand before and they wear and wash so well and stay sooooo soft. The flannel is especially cozy and I love this year’s pattern. Here are the styles we got:
I shared lots of suggestions for where to get matching family Christmas pajamas right HERE.
We also gift these earlier in the month with our family Christmas Advent Box to wear all season long! This year, we did these gorgeous red plaid & velvet dresses with a matching hair accessory for the girls, this adorable green Nutcracker pullover for my younger boys, and this plain green pullover for N.
I also got myself this gorgeous red taffeta pull-on skirt and this cozy cardigan with a rhinestone bow.
Our main gift to the kids for the last few years has been a special experience and we love it. It’s so fun to be able to something special and exciting for them that we wouldn’t pay for otherwise. N loves and has been missing American baseball, so we got him tickets to a game next summer!
I saw this 3-in-1 game table and knew N would be a big fan. Fortunately, it was on sale for much less in the UK!
I’ve wanted to get my kids book stamps for a while and this felt like a great year when they’ll start getting a few new English ones. I ordered mine from this Etsy shop and they’re great! I did the self-inking ones because I didn’t want my kids making a mess with stamp pads, ha.
We’re giving N a copy of The Wright Brothers and I’m so excited. He loves aviation and has been into nonficion the last few years, and enjoyed reading 1776 by the same author. I hope he loves this one – it’s so fun having your kids read stuff you’ve read and want to discuss! (Purchase on Amazon, Target, Walmart, Bookshop)
K has really wanted to go to the Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert (so have I!) but it just hasn’t worked out in terms of where we were living and the timing. Plus, I just couldn’t justify the cost of crazy expensive tickets at home, or spending a lot to fly somewhere.
Lucky us, a week or so ago, a friend of a friend was selling a couple tickets to her show in London. They’re terrible seats, which means the tickets were cheap (under £50 each!) – perfect for what we wanted. I can’t wait to surprise her!!
After my friend Janssen shared about how much her oldest daughter is loving doing some face painting, I thought it would be a really fun project for my art-loving girl (with lots of little siblings to practice on!). (This set also comes with some gems and stencils.)
I also addad in a cute friendship bracelet-making kit similar to THIS. I remember loving making these and think it would be really fun with her new friends.
I picked this book up at the Design Museum and I think it’ll be perfect for my girlie who will be heading to secondary school next year.
The other style didn’t come in green but this one had excellent reviews so I grabbed it for T.
Over the summer, the kids got to throw pottery briefly in Nepal. They LOVED it, especially T & A, and have been asking to do it again. There’s a studio near us that has a workshop for kids to come in and throw pottery, and then they can fire, glaze, and paint it after. I know they’ll be thrilled to get to do this!
We shipped very few toys to London, and basically no outdoor ones. T has been doing archery at school this term and I think a similar activity would be great for him to do in the backyard.
T has been very into origami lately and is still in love with animals, so I knew this book would be perfect for him.
A just might be the most excited for this class!
We saw this game when we popped into Hamley’s Toy Store here in London. Fortunately, it was decidedly less expensive here, but here’s a different brand that looks very similar and is much less pricey.
I saw this book in a school library and immediately knew A would love it. The illustrations are gorgeous and it has so many fun facts.
Someone on Instagram messaged me to ask if I’d heard of the Unicorn Theater for children here in London. I hadn’t, and it turns out it’s perfect for her age. It’s even called the Unicorn Theater – she’ll love it just for the name!
We’re taking her to the Ready, Steady, Lift Off! interactive space-themed theater production and she’s going to LOVE it. Not only is it perfect with music and storytelling and more, but M has been saying for about a year that she wants to be an astronaut (like Mae Jemison). She’ll be delighted!
M has never had any little dolls. Paper ones feel a bit old for her, but this magnetic one is so sweet for her age. I love that it has dress ups for lots of different professions, too!
I’ve seen and loved this book before, and think she’ll find it so fun to get up close and personal with life-sized animals in book form.
I thought about skipping an experience for S since she won’t know or care much, but then I saw this Adventure Babies event at the Natural History Museum. It’s a sensory storytelling class with play and music and she’s going to absolutely LOVE it, and I’ll love doing it with her.
I love a shape sorter for a baby and we don’t currently have one. I was enamored the second I saw this Hamley’s London bus verison! If you’re not in the UK, this wooden one is perfect.
She obviously won’t need a book stamp quite yet, but I’m sure she’ll want it soon enough. I also got her this Gruffalo finger puppet book, which WOW, is way cheaper in the UK! (Makes sense, since the author is British.)
Okay, she definitely doesn’t need an abacus, but she definitely didn’t need an umbrella that we were gifting the older kids with the family trip. I think these are so fun for babies and I found one for just a couple pounds at the thrift store. (This simple one is perfect.)
I really appreciate transparency in how much things cost, so here’s a quick recap of the breakdown for us. For their gifts, their toys were all $15-25, and each book + book stamp was around $35, for a total of around $50-60. Their experiences were anywhere from $15-80, depending on the activity. The stockings came out to somewhere between $20-40 each.
That brings the total per child to around $70-130, or $90-150 including the umbrellas they need for school that we included with the family trip gift. They’ll also have a gift each from their sibling gift exchange. I’m pleased with how it worked out!
Any questions about our kids’ Christmas gifts this year? Feel free to drop a comment!
