help! have you got any ideas for presents to send abroad?

[fifitrixibell]

I have a couple of good friends who live abroad and I would like to send their DCs some Christmas presents - they range in age from 4 to 12 and are a mixture of boys and girls.

Have you any suggestions of what I could get them that would be light and easy to post (posting abroad is £££). I am aware I need to do it very soon! Thanks.

Ooh, I feel your pain! We have neices and cousins in Europe and America, so I know how hard this can be.
I've sent clothes, lunchboxes and even wooden toys before (you also need to consider whether the gifts will survive the journey).

Do your friends send gifts for your dcs too? If so, this may be the solution: we cheat now, and send handwritten gift tags only in with the family christmas cards. Then we buy extra gifts for our own children, to an agreed amount, and then wrap and add the tags so that the children think they have travelled from afar.

that's a great idea! One friend works for a charity so no they don't send our children gifts and no way would I expect them to. It's just a token thing really - something to let them know we are thinking of them and miss them.

.

Books?
That's what I'm sending my friends DD in Australia.

Hi,

I'm overseas and I second the books request, it's really hard to find English books, they are limited in choice and expensive.

But also puzzle books, etc?

Jigsaws are quite light? That's what my gorgeous Auntie sends DS.

the book depository deliver overseas for free.

llook into ordering things oon the internet

amazon will deliver free with the supersaver thing to a large list of countries. You have to spend over a certain amount in the one transatiion but it's not a huge amount and choose only supersaver iitems.

They wrap and too for fee and add a gift tag (never used this myself though)

Just looked into amazon (seeing i only use it for buying stuff to go to my address in Ireland)

The countries you can get things delivered to with the supersaver delivery are:

Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Andorra, Finland, Gibraltar, Greece, Iceland, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Vatican city, Poland.

Any the delivery has to be over £25 to each address. Didn't know that bit!!!

My husbands brother and family moved to America a few years ago and each year my sister in law and I compile wish lists on amazon for our dcs. That way they get what they have written on their Christmas lists. Inlaws in Wales also use the wish list too. They have moved to china now so not sure how we are gong to get pressies to them this year!

Story cds?

What we do with dh's family in France is use amazon's french website and order stuff using our credit card and it is then sent with no postage charges. You do need to speak the language of whatever the local amazon website is though.

www.johnlewis.com/275674/Product.aspx

I am getting my 2 nieces in Hong Kong these. Hope fully they will be very useful. They are very slim just like a bookmark. Some of the Ebay bookshops sell this too. I paid £16 for them and got 8 for my daughters, nieces, godson etc.

I am also getting them some Klutz books from Amazon. They are not too big in size and extremely fun , got the friendship bracelets books and the thumb printing books.

I just sent my friend in America an Amazon gift card. I ordered it via email on the .com site and paid for it here using my ordinary .co.uk Amazon details and it worked beautifully. It's not exactly the same as getting a parcel, but the money I would have spent on postage got added in and meant I could send a bigger voucher and they get nicer things in the end.

I've had this same problem! Really difficult to think about what you can buy year after year that's fun and interesting.

I came across this website www.international-gift.com and they have tips and advice galore which you can filter by country.

Marking my spot for ideas!

If anyone is giving gifts in South Africa you can buy on the South African Woolworths website and pay with a British debit card no problem.