A warm welcome to everyone coming from Moms Favorite Stuff! I hope you’re enjoying the festivities leading up to Toy Tuesday, December 8th.
If you’re just now joining us, we’re having virtual play time (or a blog hop) and sharing our favorite toys, toy trends, and places to buy them for the best bargains of the year.
After my tips on making Christmas Day more fun for everyone,
learn how to enter to win a $250 gift card
AND a $500 in products to your favorite charity or school!
I have 3 boys, two of which are only 22 months apart. There can be some serious competition and disappointment on Christmas morning if I neglect to keep a few things in mind while toy shopping. Therefore, I thought I’d share with you my philosophy on Christmas toy buying which makes Christmas morning more fun for everyone.
The Tip Junkie’s Christmas Toy Philosophy: Limit your gifts to 4-8 (depending on cost) for each child. Make sure there are a variety of good quality toys so nothing breaks and there’s plenty to do throughout Christmas day. This ensures no one is disappointed or is bored an hour after opening presents.
1. First, know what your child wants. I take into consideration my boys’ wish list and their likes and dislikes. You can have the best variety of toys imaginable but if it doesn’t cater to their special interests then it’s still a no-go.
2. Next, I like to make sure my boys each get:
- Something to build
- A video game to play
- A toy for their imagination
- An item to build on whatever they are collecting
- Something to play with outside
- A board game
- A big gift from Santa
Any of these qualities can be combined for one toy. For instance my boys’ favorite Christmas gifts have combined “something to build” with “a toy for their imagination”. Having a wide range of toys expands their uses, creativity, play time, and excitement throughout the day.
Things to Build:Â Marble Run, K-nex, Bionicles
Favorite Video Games: My Sims Agents, Star Wars Legos, Mario Kart
My Favorite Toys We’ve Collected:Â Anything Star Wars, Imaginext, Legos
From Santa: Santa gifts are usually large and go for the shock value. I don’t go overboard on price but I do try to make it fun and unique.
Other options to consider:
- Art supplies: to paint, draw, or create. Play-Doh, Pixo’s, and craft kits
- Electronics:Â MP3 player, DS, radio, spy gear, watch, Funkeys, computer game
Entertaining Toys:
- Zoom-o (surprisingly fun for $10)
- Anything Nerf
- Air Hogs (the new ones are more durable)
5. I try to keep things fair:
- The same number of gifts or price range for each child.
- Size matters with boys! So I make sure each kiddo has the same number of “large” wrapped gifts. Even if I have to put a toy inside a larger box. {{evil laugh}}
- Same number of items in stocking and I try to have larger items next to stocking for shock value when the boys come down the stairs.
So what’s your toy buying philosophy?
Feel free to leave a comment which automatically enters you to win a $250 gift card. Details below.
Huge thanks to Bill Me Later for organizing such an informative and fun play time. Feel free to check out all the blogs participating and their favorite toys and money saving deals. They’re worth the read.
What is Toy Tuesday?
Toy Tuesday will occur on December 8th and is a one day sale event held over on Bill Me Later’s website. You’ll find all kinds of amazing deals to wrap up all your holiday shopping from these stores:
| Toys R Us | Walmart.com |
| eToys | Mercantila (trampolines) |
| FAO Schwarz | Drugstore.com |
| Little Tikes | HP.com |
| Overstock.com | MacMall |
| Step 2 | and moreÂ… |
Bill Me Later wants to get YOUR attention and to do so they’ve not only come up with a really fun campaign that introduces you to some new bloggers and new toys, but they are putting up some serious CASH and discounts!
Bill Me Later has made it really easy to enter to win a $250 gift card AND $500 in products to the winners favorite charity or school. They aren’t messing around and are taking good care of everyone involved. They’re buying some toys from Wal-Mart for my boys AND they’re paying YOU some hard core cash to get your attention.
A $250 gift certificate to FAO Schwarz and a
$500 product donation to the school or charity of winners choice.
Share what toys you are most excited about giving this year
or your toy buying philosophy in the comments.
This giveaway will only last until midnight Saturday (CST).
P.S. Toy Junkie’s, tomorrow head on over to Bargain Briana for her toy tips and another $750 in giveaways.
My son is three and i am most excited about the art supplies he is getting for Christmas this year. He loves to color and play with playdoh so he is getting some great new supplies to add to his collection. My gift philosophy is to keep it simple I like the wow factor, but I also like to have gifts that are practical and will last with them through the years.
We have four kids 7 years old and under, so we try to make Christmas fun and affordable. Every Christmas Eve we open new PJ’s and this year we are adding a new movie too. To keep the price down, I actually sew the PJ’s and this way we can all match (even Mom and Dad get a set to match the kids).
Our oldest wants a spy kit…which we are still looking for. The older girls want jewlry boxes which my wonderful hubby hand built from some scrap wood. (They turned out beautiful!) And then the baby will barely be one, so her big box item will be diapers, and then some smaller toys to play with.
We still need to find a fun video game or two for them to share and I am hoping to find the time to sew some dress up clothes (capes, masks, and tutus). My kids all love to dress up as superheros or princesses, so that should be a big hit.
Then this year we want to fill their stocking with drawing supplies…notebooks, markers, crayons, and maybe some stickers.
I’m most excited to buy my daughter a cash register. This is the first year she really understands what Christmas is and knows who Santa is. She’s been talking about a cash register for months, we wrote our letter to Santa last week asking for the cash register, and she even tries to whisper it to him whenever we pass him in the mall. I’m very excited to see the look on her face when she finally opens it!
My kids are still pretty little, 5, 3 and 1 so they still ask for pretty inexpensive toys. My 5 year old wants a giraffe webkinz. Check! My 3 year old wants a Spider man costume. Check! My one year old will be getting a little tool bench that I think he will go gaga for! For the rest of the gifts this year we are going handmade-quilts, quiet books and then the kids are making handmade gifts for each other. We do get the kids family gifts from Santa such as board games and Wii games and DVD’s. Then we go to Grandma’s house, and for some reason Santa goes crazy there, and leaves way more then he does at our house….Strange huh?
since my daughter is still young I only buy her wooden toys (no plastic, eeck), puzzles, books or a doll. I am not huge on big presents cause we dont like big stuff at our house. her nana goes for the santa shock value, so that has been good so far.