Christmas Gift Ideas for Kids

This will be our 6th Christmas as parents and it's totally different as a parent than as a kid but honestly, just as fun if not better as an adult! I don't think my 10 year old self would have agreed with me back then though.

This year we decided to get the boys their own Kindles. I have gone back and forth on this for probably the last year but honestly the breaking point, pun intended, was when Skylor dropped my phone and broke the screen a couple weeks ago at Home Depot.

Decision made.



We are Apple people but kids don't really care about the difference in tablets just as long as they can swipe to find a game or video, so we went with a Kindle. I admit, I was really confused at what the difference or "point" was to get a "Kindle Fire KIDS" over the normal one. Especially because Amazon had the normal ones on sale for $33 on Black Friday and the kids ones were $75. The difference is worth the extra money after I did some research and questioning on social media!

The kids Kindle does everything the normal ones does but it also comes with a kids proof case (a $25 value), a 2 year no questions asked warranty (what, HELLO!), parental controls and hundreds and hundreds of games and things for the kids to do already loaded on it for you!

DONE.

I then debated, do I get a green and a blue or two greens and let them put a sticker on their own to tell the difference? The reason this is such a debate is because I've gotten different colors in the past for other things and they both want the same color, GO FIGURE. So this year I got two greens and they can use stickers from their stockings to decorate their own. Parent win, or at least I hope it goes over well.

I've pulled together some other ideas that either we got for them or I've told others to grab this year. In the past I've tried to do the something along the line of 1 bigger gift, and then something to wear, something to read, something they want, something the need. Some years it works out and some it doesn't but that is my main focus usually.

Regardless if Tracen's birthday fell 4 days before Christmas or not I really don't believe in buying kids a million things for the holidays. It can make them greedy or expect it to always be like that and that's not the kind of humans I'm raising over here. We buy the boys things here and there through out the year and we do a little something special on holidays but I want them to learn it's about spending time with family and friends, eating good food and being together no matter what financial situation you are in.

Yes, the Kindle is a need. I realize that sounds dumb but we are headed to Europe in a few months and I've never been on a plane that long with children before! Headphones are a nice stocking stuffer too.

Tracen is almost finished with his current search and find book so I grabbed him another one. These are like eye spy books but with about 25 things to find on each page and about 100 pages! These are fun for both parents and kids and sometimes even I can't find everything in the pages!

Tracen really wants a snowboard (spoiler, my mom got him one!) and a diving suit, yes, he wants to go deep sea diving with an air tank and all. He thinks we could buy him that. We're not buying that, sorry kid. We are going to go with flippers instead, hopefully that fills his want there! Sky has brought home a few different projects from preschool using the dot paints so I figured it would be MUCH better to have these in our house then normal paints!

Both boys are growing so fast so and hating wearing jeans lately so sweatshirts and jogger pants are the only thing they want to wear. So I picked up a couple cute ones so they don't look like bums in sweats everyday all day.

With 11 days till Christmas, I should probably finish up the shopping!