The Best Experience Gift Ideas For Kids

The holiday season is a time to celebrate with family and friends, but it’s also about giving. Most people think of gifting toys to kids, but these add more clutter and don’t always bring lasting happiness. So, how do we show love to our children this holiday season? Here’s a list of fun experience gift ideas for kids. Instead of gathering dust, these gifts will become treasured memories.

What are the best experience gifts for kids?

In a hurry? Here are our top 10 experience gift ideas for kids.

Geocaching
Monthly Treat Club
A year of dates
Getting messy on purpose
Making something together
Movie tickets
Family Art Night
Invitation to Hogwarts
Mail Order Mystery
Escape Puzzles

This is a long post. Use the table of contents to jump to the sections that interest you the most.

Experience Gifts that Get You Out of the House
Experience Gift Ideas For Kids That Build New Skills
Experience Gift Ideas For Kids With Membership Benefits
Experience Gift Ideas For Kids That Come in A Box
Experience Gift Ideas For Kids To Do At Home
Make Something Together
Gift Certificates and Coupons
Why Should We Avoid Too Many Toys?
What Are The Benefits of Experience Gifts?

It is Beginning to Look Like Christmas

Everywhere I turn, I see advertisements for Christmas gifts. We don’t watch cable television, but the ads are everywhere. They are in flyers, our mailboxes, magazines, and newspapers. There’s even a deluge of gift-buying guides in our Pinterest feeds.

To be honest, it leaves me feeling grumpy. I hate the constant bombardment from every company I’ve contacted. Telling me that Christmas will only be complete if I spend money on their product.

And it’s only the beginning of November. We haven’t even reached Black Friday yet!

But Here’s the Problem

Stuff weighs us down. Clutter is suffocating. It’s more to clean up, and it’s more to organize. And you know what? More toys do not bring more happiness. There is a fascinating reason for this. It is something economists call The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. Interested to know more? Jump straight to the explanation at the end of the post.

But Christmas is a time of gift-giving. It’s an opportunity for family and friends to show their love for each other with gifts. There is nothing wrong with this. But do we want or need more toys? Particularly if those extra toys lead to less joy and not more.

Call me Grinch if you want, but the whole situation has me wondering. Do we need to do things a little differently this year?

How about if we find a way to give gifts and keep our homes free from overwhelming stuff?

What can I give instead of toys?

Could we change our gift focus? Is there a better way to do gifts? What would it look like if you gave your kids memorable experiences with you instead of toys? Sound good?

I started doing this when my boys were in their late tweens. It can be challenging to find good experience gift ideas for kids. Some of the things I tried were absolute duds.

Still, I got the hang of it, and now I am a pro. I kept track of what worked and what did not. Today I am sharing my favorite experience gift ideas for kids.

A word of caution: A word of caution: this list may completely change the way you do Christmas. It could also drastically reduce the number of toys that come into your house. Ready?

39 Experience Gift Ideas For Kids

Experience Gifts that Get You Out of the House

Outings

Our boys loved going out on special outings as a family. Their favorite place to visit was the waterpark at the West Edmonton Mall. A family day pass would delight them. Other ideas include.

Indoor rock climbing
A theme park
Art museum
Animatronic Dinosaur park
Indoor gym
An amusement park
Aquarium
Skating rink
A train ride

Need something to wrap? Pop copies of the tickets into a gift bag. (It might be wise to keep the original tickets safely tucked away. You don’t want them to be accidentally tossed into the recycling!)

Explore the Outdoors

Get everyone outside and enjoy some family time with this experience gift idea. You can go for a hike or do something different. Try

How to Wrap It: Print out the scavenger hunt or our printable invitation. To take it one step further, you can create a small outdoor adventure bag. Start with a small canvas bag. Jazz it up with some outdoor adventure patches. Fill it with a small water bottle, a flashlight, and a first aid kit. A small pack of wipes is helpful, and maybe a bag of trail mix.

Go Geocaching

Join the world’s largest treasure hunt! It is fun. You get to hunt for hidden treasure in the great outdoors! What’s not to love? Kids love it, and it gets everyone outside. The best thing of all? It is free to sign up. Create an account here and download the app.

Need something to wrap? Make a simple geocaching kit to wrap up. Start with a small canvas bag. Decorate with some geocaching patches. Pack a small bag of little treasures to swap out when you find a cache. I love these semi-precious gems, but kids will probably love something like mini erasers. You also need a log book and a pencil. A flashlight and a small pack of wipes are helpful. A small first aid kit to go is also a good idea.

Events

Admission to a play, sporting event and concert tickets are exciting experience gift ideas for kids. They make for great memories! I still give my adult boys tickets to a Broadway show or live theatre. We usually go out for a meal together for a complete evening out.

Need something to wrap? Print out copies of the tickets and wrap those.

Plan a camping trip

If you aren’t ready to head for the wilderness, try camping in your backyard. Don’t have a tent yet? There are all kinds to choose from. All these tents have great reviews, and there is something for every budget. Kids will love this experience gift idea.

How to Wrap It: Fill a box with some camping things. How about the ingredients for smores? Flashlights, a simple compass, or a book of ghost stories. Not sure your kids are ready for spooky tales? This book of campfire fun for kids has loads of good ideas.

Can’t quite face camping? Believe me, I totally understand! Try this adorable indoor campout kit with free printables. It would be so much fun, and you don’t have to worry about bugs! This is my kind of camping!

Ice Cream for Supper

Who wouldn’t like ice cream for supper once in a while? Find an ice cream place that makes fancy sundaes and go all out. Maybe you can share the biggest one they have. Don’t live near one? Do it yourself and set up an ice cream Sundae bar with all the fixings. Invite everyone to go make the sundae of their dreams!

Need to Wrap It? Fill out one of our printable invitations.

Playground Crawl

This is one of my favorite experience gift ideas for kids. What is Playground Crawl? In a nutshell, you plan to visit every playground within a specified distance of your house. You pack up all your usual park paraphernalia and lots of food. Then spend the entire day moving from one park to the next. This is another one that is great for younger kids and is best if you live in an urban area.

Need to Wrap It? Fill out one of our printable invitations and wrap it with a small day pack and sunhat that can be used on the day.

Go to a Posh Tea Room

Dress in your finest clothes and go to a posh tea room or fancy restaurant for a special date. It is not something you do each day, and it will surely be an experience to remember.

Need to Wrap It? Fill out one of our printable invitations and pair it with a tie or a new hair decoration.

Try Some Foreign Cuisine

Take your children to an ethnic restaurant and try food from another culture. This is a better choice for older children with an adventurous palate. Take it further by learning more about the country and customs when you get home. The library is an excellent place to start.

Need to Wrap It? Fill out one of our printable invitations and pair it with a kid’s book about other countries like this one.

Do something new

This is the time to try something you have never done before. Perhaps it will become a new family pastime. Whatever you choose, it will be an experience to remember. It could include things like

Paintballing
Laser tag
Escape room
Roller skating
Glow in the dark bowling

The great thing about these places is that they have all the equipment for rent. This means you don’t have to buy a whole bunch of stuff to try it out.

Need to Wrap It? Pair one of our printable invitations with a brochure or flyer

Get Your Kids Behind the Camera

Most kids love cameras. Point-and-shoot digital cameras have made photography so much easier and cheaper that children can start taking pictures at a very young age. There is something magical about capturing a moment in time and preserving it as an image. There are all kinds of fun things you can do with them. Things like photo stories, picture safaris, or picture time capsules. See the chapter “Camera Fun” in my free e-book Unplug for details.

Need to Wrap It? Fill in the printable invitations and pair them with an inexpensive digital camera.

Go on an Adventure

These are outings that involve something a little more adventurous. There are all kinds of exciting adventures for the whole family to enjoy. An adventure can be one of those unique experiences that your kids will remember for a lifetime. Obviously, it depends on where you live, but adventures might include things like

Helicopter ride
Digging for Fossils
Horseback trail riding
Indoor skydiving
Science Center
Boat ride
Rafting down rapids
Visiting a copper mine
Zip lining
Visit an Aerial park
Hot Air Balloon Ride

Need to Wrap It? Most of these adventures will advertise with flyers or brochures. Wrap one of those brochures with a small day pack and a sunhat to use on the day.

A Night at a Hotel

This may not sound like much, but it was the biggest treat ever for my kids. I would look for a hotel with a fantastic pool (maybe even a water slide) and book it for a night. Enjoying the pool, watching pay-per-view kid’s movies, and dining on junk food was my boy’s idea of bliss!

Need to Wrap It? Fill out one of our printable invitations and pair it with some new PJs (or swimsuits) if the hotel has a pool.

Experience Gift Ideas For Kids That Build New Skills

Cooking class for kids

Most kids love to bake and cook. It is a fun activity to do with them, and you are teaching an important life skill. How is that for a parenting win? Does your family have a top-secret recipe? Now is the time to pass it on to the next generation.

No family recipes? Try the Kids Baking DIY Activity Kit with premeasured ingredients. Try cake pops, granola bars, or bug cupcakes.

Need something to wrap? Pair a kid-sized apron with a printed invitation to bake.

Need some easy recipes to try with your kid? Try these.

Sign them up for a class

Do your kids have any interests? Classes are the perfect way to encourage children in their hobbies. It also lets them know that you pay attention to them and what they enjoy. They are brilliants experience gift ideas for kids. Look at what is on offer locally. In our little town, we have music lessons, martial arts, art, swim lessons, yoga, jewelry making, puppet making, dance lessons, musical theatre, all manner of music classes, and gymnastics for kids.

Need something to wrap? Print out the flyer and wrap that. You could also include a page from a calendar with the days marked. If the class requires specific supplies, buy them, and wrap those.

Plant a Garden

Most kids love planting and growing seeds. Me too? There is something almost magical about planting a seed and watching it germinate. So, let’s give them the opportunity to plant a garden. It is a fabulous experience gift idea. Maybe they will even eat the vegetables they grow. Want to do something extra special? Try making a runner bean tepee or sunflower house to use all summer? Don’t have a garden? Plant something in a pot, or try balcony gardening.

Need to wrap it? Pair some seeds that grow quickly with some kid-size tools. A Word of warning! Not all garden tool sets are equal. There are loads of “play sets” available. A poor-quality set will be frustrating. After checking dozens of sets, I settled on this one. Made from glass-fiber-reinforced polypropylene, they are lightweight, strong, and non-rusting. Pair it with one of these growing starter packs. There are 6 different options to choose from.

Swimming Lessons

Swimming lessons are a great experience gift in themselves. But learning to swim is a valuable life skill and is excellent exercise.

Need to Wrap It? Put the class schedule in a swim bag with fun goggles, a new swimsuit, and maybe a special towel.

Experience Gifts Ideas For Kids With Membership Benefits

Memberships make fabulous experience gift ideas for kids. They are a gift that keeps giving and the first suggestion could be free!

Library Card

I have worked in a library for six years now. I can tell you that younger children are always thrilled when they get their library card. This is the ultimate clutter-free gift. It will get your kids books, movies, audiobooks, music, and magazines, and none of it stays in your house.

Need something to wrap? Pair it with a cute book bag and a written promise to visit the library at least once a month.

Mysteries by Mail

Sign your kids up for a Mail Order Mystery. Choose a mystery for the year. Your kids will receive monthly deliveries of “Perplexing puzzles. Curious clues. Twisting plots.” The idea is that the storyline develops in installments. These are aimed at children aged 8- 13, but they have a few mysteries suitable for 6–9-year-olds. This service is based in Canada, but they ship worldwide.

Need something to wrap? Order early and wrap the first installment. If the next installments come before Christmas, put them aside to “arrive” monthly. The company puts numbers on the outside of the parcel, so you can keep them in order.

Annual Memberships

Community attractions such as local zoos, museums, water parks, art galleries, aquariums, and botanical gardens often offer a season pass for families. A family membership is an excellent option for the entire family. This is the experience gift idea that keeps on giving throughout the year.

Need something to wrap? Put the pass cards into a gift bag.

Give the Gift of Music

Give tweens and teens a subscription to Amazon music unlimited. They get access to 70 million songs and can make their own playlists.

Need to Wrap It? Create a card announcing the membership. Include the username and password. Go further and buy an Echo Dot, which has a great sound and will connect with your Amazon music.

Tip: The Echo Dot often goes on sale on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. I got mine for under $20.

Subscribe to a Kid’s Magazine

Kids love getting mail, and you’ll also build their reading skills. Plus, most kids’ magazines include activity and craft ideas for kids. Try Ranger Rick, Highlights, National Geographic For Kids, or anything in the Cricket magazine family.

Need something to wrap? Buy the current issue locally and wrap that. Tell them that they will be receiving a new one each month.

Give the Gift of Stories

This one is for older kids. We know it is important to keep reading to kids even when they can read themselves. However, I found it harder to read chapter books aloud to my kids. Don’t get me wrong, I loved sharing the stories and spending time with my kids. Still, it took longer to read one or two chapters, and I was often tired at the end of the day.

Then we discovered audiobooks! Listening to professional narrators reading our favorite stories was so much easier! Often, I was the one insisting on one more chapter! I wanted the connection time, though, so we would listen together.

You can buy and download audiobooks onto your devices and play. If you want to go a step further, consider an Audible membership. Kids can choose one book monthly, so you can build a nice library of titles.

Need to Wrap It? Create a card announcing the membership. Include the username and password. Go one step further and buy an Echo Dot, which has excellent sound and will connect with Audible.

Tip: On a budget? Many libraries offer audiobooks through their digital resources. Wrap up a library card with instructions for downloading and playing books.

Monthly Treat Club

Choose something your child loves to eat or do and create a monthly club around that. It could be a cookie, craft, special snack, or movie of the month. Every month they receive a different treat to enjoy. By the way, there is no rule that says these must be homemade. Many store-bought cookies are delicious. You know, the kind that is much too sugar-laden/expensive to get every day? They are perfect for an occasional treat.

Need something to wrap? Wrap the first installment and pop in 11 coupons for each successive month.

Experience Gifts Ideas For Kids That Come in A Box

This next set of experience gift ideas for kids all come in a box. But don’t worry, they are not expensive at all.

A Day in a Box

I love this homemade experience gift idea, and it is perfect for younger kids! Basically, you find a little box. Attach a notice on the top. Then fill the box with little notes and pictures that explains what will happen on your special day. It is so creative! Firstly, you and your child get a special day together, and secondly, it avoids more toys. Get all the details here. This one is easily wrapped.

Create a Movie Night Kit

Fill a gift box with everything you’ll need. Popcorn, a microwave popcorn maker, and fancy reusable cups with straws. Don’t forget gift cards for movie rentals and pizza delivery. This one is easy to wrap.

A Year of Dates

Your kids want to spend time with you. This is like the day in the box, but it is a monthly date. You prepare 12 cards, one for each month. On each card is the details of a date. Try cooking a recipe of the child’s choice, a fun science experiment, playing one of their favorite board games, or going on a nature hike. This one is easily wrapped!

Experience Gifts Ideas For Kids To Do At Home

Sometimes it is just nice to stay home. This set of experience gift ideas for kids provides lots of ideas for experiences you can enjoy from the comfort of your home.

Plan a family art night

Check out this epic list of family art projects you can do together. Pick a date, and print out an invitation to get creative. Make a special night of it by serving snacks and mocktails.

How to Wrap It: Fill out our printable invitation and put it in a box with some fancy new art supplies.

Invitation to Hogwarts!

Invite your child to spend some time at Hogwarts with an afternoon of magical science experiments. Attend potions class, explore magical creatures, or enjoy some herbology. You can even try your hand at charms and transfiguration! Isn’t that a fantastic experience as a gift?

Need to wrap it? Customize and print a Hogwarts letter. Pair it with a wand, and you are good to go!

The Gift Of Time

How many of us mean to spend time with our kids each day but don’t quite get around to it? Make it easy with these printable play activity cards. Each card has a suggestion for one easy play activity. They do not need any preparation or special materials, so you can get going immediately. And the best part of these play activities is that they’ll bring you closer to your kids in just 15 minutes a day.

Need to wrap It? Download a set of play activity cards, and put them into a container. See some suggestions here.

Introduce Your Child to Journaling

Buy a journal and take turns writing back and forth about what is happening. It is a great way to connect and discover what is happening in your kid’s heart, mind, and life. Any journal will do, but I like these as they contain prompts, coloring pages, and free creative space. This makes it easy to get journaling.

This one is easy to wrap.

A donation to a charity

Has your child raised money for a cause close to their heart? Do you have an animal lover or environmentalist in your family? Have they expressed concern about wildlife or children in need? Why not donate to a charity in their name? My favorite charity is Kiva.

Need to Wrap It? Many charities will give a card for gift donations that you can provide. If not, Canva has many card templates you can adapt to create your own.

Host an un-birthday celebration

Invite your child to host an un-birthday party in your home. Let them help plan the theme, menu, and activities.

Need to Wrap It? A personalized invitation with a specific date and details would be enough. If you want something a little more, wrap up a party decoration kit.

Escape Puzzle Night

Have you discovered the Ravensburger Escape Puzzles yet? They are more than just a puzzle. There are a whole series of these. You read the story, assemble a puzzle, solve the clues, and figure out your escape. It is the perfect experience gift idea for tweens.

Need to Wrap It? You could just wrap the puzzle, of course. Why not fill out our printable invitation to go with one of the puzzles and some snacks?

Get Really Messy (On Purpose)

Invite your kids to wear old clothes and come with you to make a massive mess on purpose. We have 25 gloriously messy science experiments to get you started. But you could wait for a wet day and play in the mud or slide down some mucky banks. I grew up near a river with sandy banks. Our idea of bliss was a day spent sliding down the sand banks. We got so dirty!

Need to Wrap It? Fill out one of our printable invitations and pair it with the ingredients for the experiment and some new towels. You are going to need them for cleanup afterward!

Make Something Together

Do you like making things or arts and crafts? Find some simple projects that you and the kids can make together. Make it easy on yourself by purchasing ready-made kits with everything you need. Here are my favorite Art and craft kits and some ready-made science-based kits

Want to make this a monthly event? Try a coding subscription box. You will get a new coding project in the mail each month.

As a supplement, consider giving one of these books to inspire new projects year-round.

Awesome Robotics Projects for Kids
Amazing Lego Creations
Kitchen Science Lab (science you can eat!)
Dad’s Book of Awesome Projects (although Moms could easily do these)

Need to Wrap It? Wrap ready-made kits. Otherwise, gather all the supplies you’ll need for the project.

Gift Certificates and Coupons

Gift Certificates

My boys love receiving gift certificates to fast food restaurants, Google Play, or Prime Video. These cards give experiences that don’t bring home more stuff.

Need something to wrap? Pop the gift cards into a cute pillow box.

Movie passes

Movie passes are perfect for those horribly miserable days when you need to get out of the house.

Need something to wrap? Use a cute pillow box and put it in the tree branches

DIY Coupons

A book of coupons your children can “spend” at any time is always popular. A week without chores and a batch of favorite cookies were the top favorites at our house. As far as my boys were concerned, those were the best experiences in the world. Any of the ideas in this post could be put on a coupon.

To make things easy for you, I have created some cute coupons for you to use. Grab your free printable here.

Need something to wrap? These are great for stocking stuffers. Otherwise, put them in a pretty gift box.

Buy a Small Extravagance

I am very frugal and found lots of ways to do things inexpensively. However, occasionally I would buy my boys a small extravagance as a special treat. It didn’t happen very often, so it was always a special occasion when it did. I found that these made perfect experience gift ideas for kids. Here are some suggestions.

Those exquisitely decorated cupcakes.
Luxury soap, bubble bath, or cream from a specialty store.
Makeup from a high-end store.
Customized face painting applied by an artist.
Specialty ice cream. I’m talking about the kind that costs triple the cost of the no-name stuff.
Professional art materials from an art store

Need to Wrap It? Gift cards are the best way to give these kinds of things. When it comes to extravagance, my boys liked to pick out their own treats! The ice cream was gifted via a coupon!

This is the end of my list of experience gift ideas for kids. It is a continual work in progress, and I will add to it as I think of other things.

Why Should We Avoid Too Many Toys?

There is a secret that toy makers do not want you to know. More toys do not bring more happiness or provide more play value. In fact, there comes a tipping point where they do the opposite.

We’ve all seen this playing out in our kids’ lives. Let me ask you a few questions. How many toys do your kids actually play with day to day? Count the number that sit unused on a shelf, in the closet, or under the bed. Do you hear your kids complain they have nothing to do despite all those toys?

You may find yourself wondering if you’ve been a bad parent. I want to reassure you that there is nothing wrong with your children. They aren’t ungrateful or greedy. You are witnessing something called The Law Diminishing Marginal Utility.

What The Heck is The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility?

This is an economics term. As consumption increases, the happiness gained from getting more of the same declines.

Let us give an example using chocolate. The first bit of good chocolate is divine, right? In fact, it’s so good that when we’ve finished it, we will often take another. The second bite tastes lovely but is less satisfying than the first. We can continue to eat it but reach a point where the extra bites do not add anything to the experience of pleasure. Furthermore, consuming more can eventually take us in the opposite direction. This effect is so well established that it is referred to as the “law of diminishing marginal utility.”

What Does This Mean For Parents?

As the number of toys increases, the satisfaction or happiness of each new toy decreases. There comes the point at which children become overwhelmed. This decrease in happiness is measurable. Receiving more toys provides zero increase in joy.

Have you ever seen a child open a massive pile of gifts on Christmas morning? The first few gifts obviously bring a lot of excitement and pleasure. However, you quickly reach a point where you see the light go out in your child’s eyes. After that unwrapping, any more presents become mechanical and joyless. This is the law of diminishing marginal utility kicking in.

I have tried to find a reason for this phenomenon. What is it about the human brain that causes this phenomenon? So far, I have not found any studies or theories. I suspect our bodies intuitively know that excess is not good for us. So, it is our brain’s way of trying to protect us from that excess. Unfortunately, we sometimes fail to listen to that intuition and keep consuming anyway.

Another Reason to Give Experiences Rather Than Toys

There is another reason the new toy fails to give as much play value as we hoped. Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology professor at Cornell University, has been studying this phenomenon for two decades.

We buy things to make us happy, and we succeed. But only for a while. New things are exciting to us at first, but then we adapt to them.
THOMAS GILOVICH

New things (including toys) are exciting at first, but kids quickly get used to them being around. Then they start to fade into the background and become almost invisible. This is particularly true of novelty toys that can only be played in one way. Open-ended toys provide more play value because there are many ways to play with them. This means they don’t fade into the background so quickly.

What Are The Benefits of Experience Gifts?

There is an assumption that a physical object will give more pleasure than an experience. The thought is that the object lasts longer. Surprisingly enough, scientists have found this is not the case. In fact, the overall satisfaction with things goes down over time. This is due to the law of diminishing marginal utility and the process of adaptation.

But here’s the interesting thing, this does not happen with experiences. In fact, experiences seem to provide increased satisfaction over time. Experiences become part of our identity. They become a part of us. In many ways, we are the sum of our experiences.

But wait, there is more! Shared experiences connect us to each other. Think about it! You are more likely to feel connected with someone that took a great art class with you. You will not get the same sense of connection with someone who bought you a set of expensive art brushes.

When we share experiences with our kids, they become a shared memory. They become part of the stories we talk about to each other later. I can’t tell you how often my boys express gratitude for what we did together. This is powerful stuff.

Need Proof?

Think back to your childhood. What do you remember the most? I bet it is probably an event.

I know I had many toys growing up, but I only remember a few.

However, I do remember the weekly “seeing and doing” outings with my family. My parents had very little money, and we had no car. Still, every Sunday, we went exploring in our small town. We wandered along the old Roman road to see where it went. Explored the train station and watched the trains. Our local museum has free admission, so we spent hours looking at old toys and Roman coins. We spent the day at the ruined Norman castle and walked along part of the Pilgrim’s Way.

These experiences are part of my childhood and live on in my memories. I also remember the family gatherings and how spending time with my extended family felt. Reminiscing about them is part of what connects me with my siblings and parents. Those experiences have brought us far more joy than any toy ever did.

Should We Stop Buying Any Toys?

The bottom line is this. Giving your kids more, more, more stuff for the holidays or birthdays is not the best use of your money. Sure, it’ll give your kids some joy at the moment, but in the end, it will not give them lasting happiness. In fact, it may do the opposite.

To be clear, I’m not telling you to ban all toys. Go ahead and get your kid some toys this Christmas! But remember that the more toys they get, the less they’ll appreciate any of them.

My boys are adults now. They will sometimes reminisce and share stories from their childhood. I love to hear them talking. They have never spoken about a specific toy they got. What they talk about are their experiences and the things we did together.

Gifts of experience will provide your family with strong connections and shared memories. Those are the things that stick with you for a lifetime.

Still, Need to Convinced?

Ask your children this question. What was the thing you liked the most about last Christmas? Then listen to their responses. Do they talk about a specific gift, or do they talk about something you did together? They may say “The presents!” But unwrapping gifts is a shared experience of sorts. They will only mention a specific toy if it is something you play with together. This tells you everything you need to know.

Some Final Words

We, parents, have one main goal. We want our kids to grow up to be good people and have a happy childhood. What could be more important? Toys are a part of that, for sure. But the bottom line is this, more toys will not bring more happiness, but family experiences will. So, what does this all mean? Surprise your kids with a few well-chosen toys, but focus on giving experiences. Trust me. You’ll be glad you did. We hope our list of experience gift ideas for kids has given you some inspiration. What do you think you might try this year?