No More Toys: Inexpensive, Experience, and Subscription Gift Ideas for Kids

Don’t worry, I’m not a mega grinch, I promise. But I do feel pulled into a very commercial world each time Christmas rolls around, so I thought I’d compose a post full of inexpensive, experience, and subscription gift ideas for kids! I’ve researched ideas, I’ve asked wonderful bloggers for their thoughts, and there’s so much out there to choose from! Read on to find out more…

 

No More Toys: Inexpensive, Experience, and Subscription Gift Ideas for Kids

Now I’m not saying no to toys this year, in fact you can check out our Children’s Gift Guide over at Our Transitional Life. However, I just feel I want other options for George and Molly, not just one off toys. I want experiences, I want time, I want regular joy, and the things listed below fill these gaps. I really hope you feel the same!

 

Handmade Gifts

We love handmade gifts. They are the most sentimental, rewarding, and magical ways to show your children (and other loved ones) just how much you love them. We’ve made the following things over the years:

 

• Scarves
• Bath bombs
• Ornaments
• Felt creatures

 

I really love the ideas over at It’s Always Autumn, so many beautiful ideas. I really want us to try out the DIY Pumpkin Soap, and I think the 12 Daytz of Christmas could be easily adapted for children too!

Clare from Wild Tribe Feasts has a beautiful idea in the form of a little DIY growing package, full of seeds, seed trays and markers, ready for the New Year. I love this idea so much! Merith also has lots of party craft ideas that would easily transfer to ideas for inexpensive Christmas gifts…

Making things together could also be a big part of creating Christmas traditions, or even incorporate all these things in an advent for your children. Check out our advent ideas over on Our Transitional Life…

 

Free Gifts

I love this list from Mommy on Purpose. Even though I’m not religious, the other ideas and sentiments are so perfect for the festive season. Think about downing tools and taking a break from the Christmas hype to spend quality time with your child(ren), play games, bake, listen to music, read Christmas stories…

Family Budgeting also have a fab post with 5 Free Christmas Ideas, so don’t forget to check it out!

Cardiff Mummy Says has an awesome idea for children this Christmas. ‘Last year, we invited my children’s cousins over for a sleepover. We took them to the cinema, for a meal, made and decorated gingerbread cookies, made bedroom dens for them to sleep in. It was so lovely to see them all hanging out together, as they only see each other a handful of times a year. I hope it’s something they will remember for years to come.’

We love this idea! You could save money by having a movie night and meal at home too…

Recycling can also be a big way to re-use items and gift them to your children. Create saving jars, snow globes, terrariums, and more with all your leftover jars and craft bits you already have around the house.

 

Experiences

When it comes to experiences, there’s loads on offer around the UK (and beyond). Some I’d love to arrange for George and Molly include:

 

• Pottery sessions
• Archery
• Golfing sessions
• Cinema vouchers
• Shopping vouchers
• Theatre tickets

 

Who’s the Mummy has lots of ideas for experience gifts at Christmas too!

 

Memberships

Here’s a selection of annual memberships you could consider, depending on where you live…

• National Trust annual passes have been suggested by Wild Tribe Feasts
• Zoo membership could be another idea, thanks to Something About Baby
• Cadw as suggested by Our Transitional Life

 

The Penniless Parent has also taken the time to compare different family annual memberships, so head on over to find the best deal for you and your family!

 

 

Subscriptions

There are so many subscriptions to choose from, and our favourites have to be Letterbox Lab (as loved by Merith too!) and Mila & Pheebs. They’re both worth every penny and offer fun, creativity and education in one package!

 

Bloggers love:

 

• Wild Explorers Club, as favoured by Laura from Sidestreet Style, who says, ‘It’s American based bit it’s all online so doesn’t matter where you are – it basically gives weekly outdoor challenges and assignments that are fun, educational and help connect kids with the outdoors – worked well alongside Home Ed’
• Mud and Bloom for all the wildlife lovers, check out A Rose Tinted World’s review
• Kerry from Blissful Domestication loves the One Third Stories subscription. Kerry says, ‘It basically helps teach your kids a language by having a story and gradually introducing more and more words. My little one has picked up so much Spanish from one book I decided to continue with them.’
• Magazine subscriptions
• Kate’s daughter loved this Astronaut Themed Subscription Box
• Mum Times Two recommends Toucan Box and The Baked In Baking Club
• Witty Hoots suggests Mysteries in Time, a ‘history subscription each month covering a different period. You get a world map with timeline stickers, a story book and a fact book. You can pay a little extra for the craft version which comes with a craft etc.’
• Classics like The Beano are loved by Maggie from Red Ted Art (and Zoey absolutely loves The Beano and The Dandy too!)
• Mummascribbles recommends Whizz, Pop, Bang! She says, ‘It’s brilliant. Has experiments, learning stuff, and then activities like coding stuff, wordsearches and things. Really good.’
• The Incidental Parent loves Whirli, ‘It’s like a toy library where you can keep them or exchange them depending on the level of subscription etc. It starts at £9.99 and seems like a good idea if you have kids that are easily bored or as they get older.’
• That Lancashire Lass loves Kiwi Co (STEM kits for different age ranges) and MEL Science (science experiments)
• Check out this piece about a magazine subscription for Kookie from Kate on Thin Ice
• Thimble and Twig loves The Word and Aqulia magazine subscriptions
• Nellie Williams suggests The Preservation Society for their subscription boxes, National Geographic, and Bert’s Books
•  First News is another fab choice from Style Brief‘s Jen. ‘It’s great and the tweens love it. Full of informative news ideal for kids, and from their perspective too. Comes through the letterbox on a Friday and she spends all evening reading it!’

 

You could also look at signing up to certain apps and online fun…

• Victoria from Healthy Vix says, ‘I recently signed up to an app called Epic for my kids. It’s £6 per month and the kids have access to around 30,000 kids books, audiobooks, comics and videos. For my youngest there are videos and audiobooks and for my oldest lots of fact books, origami and craft books, as well as comics which she loves! It sends me a weekly email too so I can see what they’ve been doing on the app.’
• Alina from We Made This Life uses the local library app, this is our local Cardiff one. You can use it to look at magazines for free, how fab is that?!
• Meandering Wild suggests a fun geocache gift idea. She says, ‘I bought my two a travel bug each which we released into an amazing geocache near home and they now follow them around the world as they race each other back. We asked whoever found it to send a picture online or a postcard. Think the bugs were about £5 each!’ You can find out more here.

 

We love all these awesome ideas, from the free sentimental ones to the monthly subscriptions, there’s  something for everyone. We also love the idea of cutting back overall over Christmas to avoid overwhelm. Have a read of this blog post all about the four gift idea, and this poem will help focus your mind whilst you write your Christmas lists for the children this year (and beyond, hopefully…):

 

Something they want, 

Something they need.

Something to wear,

Something to read.

 

We hope you’ve found some joy and inspiration from this post, please pop any other suggestions or thoughts in the comments below…