To gift experiences rather than presents?

I won't gift experiences any more as both my father and my eldest son have not used the vouchers so it was wasted money. Somehow in my brain, giving them an actual thing that they may or may not use is totally different to gifting them an experience that they don't then use
Its such a minefield though - what you think may be awesome turns into a nightmare of planning for the receiver as they have to factor in (maybe) childcare, dogcare, transport, food and drink etc etc.

For me personally, when DC were young, experiences were just something I did as a parent, not a gift in itself. I wasn't particularly well off but a day out was something aside from gifts. So it's not something I would have done. I think they would have been disappointed if I had but then they only ever got gifts from me. Maybe if you have lots of family also buying gifts, it would be ok.

I disagree. Most of the kids I know that went to Disneyland under 8 don’t remember much about it. My kids hardly remember all the ‘experiences’ we orchestrated. What stays with them is the excitement of coming down on Christmas morning to see proper presents of things kids actually want.

Don't do it op.

If there’s other things to open and the experience is something they’ll be excited about then yes.

I was gifted £x for an afternoon tea experience at a hotel chain. The £x would have covered the cost of MY afternoon tea but I didn’t fancy sitting there alone so had to fork out the same amount to bring my mum. It was a VERY random hotel chain too that didn’t have anything in London so we had to get a train and then a taxi that cost £££. It was a super chintzy hotel full of pensioners having 2 4 1 fish n chips and the afternoon tea was literally the food and tea in a conservatory attached to the bar. No champagne. When I said I’d pay extra for a glass I was treated like a meth addict and a single glass of Prosecco was produced after about 20 minutes and much fanfare and whispered conversations between staff.
That ‘gift’ was basically a summons to spend several hundred £s to eat crap cake and sandwiches in someone’s grans drawing room.

We always gift experiences- but they get presents alongside it. Kids like having things to open and it’s so anticlimactic to wake up on Christmas morning to nothing under the tree.
This years experience gifts are Disney on Ice tickets for the little ones and concert tickets for my older ones. We also have a group gift which is a trip to Disneyland Paris in January. They will still get a Santa sack of gifts on Christmas Day.

Could you stretch to still getting them stuff and do the wear/read/want/need thing?

Yes, we did this and asked grandparents for vouchers for things rather than "stuff". Kids were aged 7 plus at the time. They did one of those high ropes Go Ape type courses, pottery painting, the oldest went for a posh afternoon tea with her best friend when she was about 13, they got cinema vouchers, and also when they got a bit older things like escape rooms.

Is there any chance you could do a bit of both? I love doing trips and experiences over the Christmas period with my teens (probably a hangover from when we used to go to the panto and see Santa etc on December weekends when they were young) but this is separate to their gifts. This month we’ve been to a comedy club, ice skating, an outdoor spa and we’re going to a musical this weekend as a family so nothing particularly Christmassy but still quality time together.

It depends on their age I think, an experience gift some time in the future is a bit abstract to really register for a young child and they’d rather have something for the then and now.

I wouldn’t gift things that should be normal family activities. Nothing beats the excitement of a pile of presents for young children , in fact any age . The only caveat I would make is some gifts / some money in savings .

It depends on their age and whether they have any interest in these experiences.

Football mad teen nephew would be delighted with Premier League tickets and drama student nephew would love theatre tickets, but imo, for young children the big experiences are much more for the parents than DC. The children are happy just to have time with parents, it doesn't need to be at expensive attractions.

It really does depend on the child, their age, and what it is is. My 12yo, in March, got tickets for the World Cup final (Womans Rugby) in September. A long wait... but she then had the anticipation of England making the final in the build up... then winning. Turned into an even bigger gift than we thought.

A random Musical for a smaller child... they aren't really going to connect it.

How old are they? Mine are older We do an experience gift eg theatre show, but we print off a voucher or photo of activity and wrap it up. So they are still opening something. It’s then fun to together.

My alternative this year for family is book a restaurant in January and I’ve told them to save the date. I’ll wrap up the reservation details as they have no idea what I’ve booked so will be a nice surprise for them and something to look forward to in January.

How old are the children?

I can see that some children would enjoy a theatre trip or water park, an understand that that is their Christmas present.

I would not say that going to see illuminations would be a Christmas present.

I'm taking my son to a concert of his favorite band as a Christmas gift. It is a surprise just before Christmas. I have no doubt he will love it way more than anything I could buy him. I think experiences make memories - most material things don't!

Depends on their ages. Once they are teens one gift experience is fine, but i’d get presents too. I got my son and his gf a couple of gift experiences last year and they enjoyed them both but I also got other things to open. Daughter this year I got strictly tickets.

That would be a huge anti climax on Christmas Day. Plus the rest of the family, including you, would get to go on their present, so it doesn’t really seem like a gift. If you want to do experiences then do them, but not at the expense of your kids Christmas presents.

My kids are 11 and 13. My 13 year old particularly likes doing things rather than owning things. He has lots of tickets as part of his gift - 4 different events.
he will definitely love it, but I would be careful not to do events that happen before Christmas. It will be very anticlimactic on the day I think. ‘Merry Christmas! - remember we saw the lights and went ice skating, that was your gift’
It would be much better to say ‘we are going ice skating and to the panto tomorrow’

For young/teen kids, giving them one less present to spend the money on doing something nice is not a bad idea but I think they’ll still want gifts to open on Christmas Day.

For adults I have mixed feelings about “experience” gifts. They are great if they’re very thoughtful. For example we were gifted £25 national trust vouchers because people knew we go to one or two properties each year, that’s great because we will use them. We were also gifted afternoon tea vouchers for a town people knew we frequently visited and you could use the voucher on a Saturday, also great.

But we’ve also been gifted activities which we would never think about doing without a voucher and are an absolute pain to book (like a racing day where you have to drive hours to get to it, pay extra for a Saturday booking, pay extra for insurance to the point it’s not worth doing) or a voucher booklet for a selection of options none of which really appeal or work for us and we end up scrabbling around for anything we can do in the booklet that does not have a loads of stipulations in the small print. We once drove 2 hours to a wine tasting just because you could go on a weekend, it just wasn’t worth it at all.

For retired couples with lots of time and flexibility they’re probably a great gift but for two very busy working adults with no time, what people are gifting is often a headache. But for the gift giver it’s a very easy gift to buy, pick it up from a stand at a department store or simply download it online, you can even sort it on Christmas morning if your really unorganised. So I get why people give them but I also get why loads get unused every year.

But thoughtful experiences are a good gift as long as you know the person will enjoy it.

It does depend on how your kids are and what your family lifestyle is. If they like going out and doing things then yes. Ine if my friends always does this for her kids but it would be things like walking with wolves or kayaking somewhere because they’re a really outdoorsy family.

We did experiences but as individuals. Eg keeper experience for the animal lover, speedboat ride for the thrill seeker. Things they could do for them. (And not as only present, or when very young).

Experiences can be a great gift for adults but I think most kids would prefer the presents.

I think it’s one of those ideas that sounds lovely but would be a bit anti-climatic on the day. I’d only do it if I was confident that they had enough other stuff to play with/be excited about on Christmas morning, which could potentially make it more expensive than you’d planned.

They remember experiences longer than presents.

My Dd would be very excited at that but it would have to be something she wanted to do. Like go to a cat cafe or go horse riding so that’s what her gift was.
I would still give Xmas presents but scale them down. Save some money and spend on doing something instead. We do that anyway.

I did this for a sibling from when they were about 7. Big age gap, they could choose a day out and we’d go between Christmas and new year. They loved it.
They didn’t have to wait very long, it was exciting planning it, and they had lots to open from other people though. Not sure they would have been happy if that was it.