Christmas present ideas for 6 month old and new traditions?

[AuntieMaggie]

So this Christmas will be ds's first Christmas and I have no idea what to buy him - he will be 6 months old - do you have any recommendations?

I also thought it was a nice opportunity to start our own family traditions - are there any you love that I could do?

Btw I do realise he won't know it care but think it would be nice anyway!

we have a nice tradition. Every Christmas I buy my ds a christmas tree ornament. I put the date on it somewhere, and their name.

dcs are now 11, 9 and 6 and each has a shoe box or their own ornaments. It is really lovely.

aww that's lovely thank you - last xmas I bought one of the harrods decorations with the date on it but dp broke it!

What type of decoration do you buy?

Here, we do advent activities, so each day in December DD opens a chocolate coin and a piece of paper with the day's Christmas-themed activity. These are things like:

• visit to Santa
• visit to reindeer at the garden centre
• christmas crafts (making snowmen from cotton wool etc)
• making reindeer food (oats mixed with glitter) to sprinkle over the garden on Christmas Eve
• eating snowman pancakes for breakfast

On nursery days when I know she will be tired her activity is to read a Christmas book or dance to/sing a Christmas song with me. DD is 2.5 now and really enjoyed these last year - I'm not sure how many you could think of for a 6mo but maybe something you could do as a family on weekends? For us it's not only a nice way to build up to Christmas but also nice for us and DD to have guaranteed interaction time.

present - a few scraps of wrapping paper, a box and 2 wooden spoons. At 6 months, he'll love them.

Christmas hat and/or Christmas jumper
Books: We have 'Father Christmas and the Donkey' plus 'Christmas Eve at Appletree farm. I still read these without fail to my youngest D every single year (and she's now 15...)

Special stocking or pillowcase

all sorts.
sometimes a pretty ball, sometimes a santa with springy legs, sometimes an angel.

One thing I realised early on was not to buy cutesy baby ones, but to choose classic ones, or ones that would still be funny when you are 10.

I try and make them unusual and to fit the children. I also buy within a colour theme (but then our tree is christmas colours too) so all ours are green, red and gold.

We also do christmas story at bedtime on christmas eve. (we are christians so like to remind kids of the actual story) so we snuggle in pjs on sofa, read a lovely copy of the story, then then go upstairs and put stocking up.

We have a nativity wall hanging and add one person per day during advent. Then on christmas morning before we do the tree they add baby jesus to the hanging.

For advent we have a string across the kitchen wall, with 24 blank cards on it (I cut them out of paper) They are pegged on with numbered pegs. Through advent they paint and draw pictures on the cards, we leave them turned to the wall until the date and then they turn them round. Their own home made advent calendar.

At 6 months you'll be starting to introduce him to solid food so maybe a nice spoon and fork. Also maybe a christmas book that you can read to him every year.

Similar to steppemum, I am buying DD a christmas ornament each year until she is old enough to choose one for herself. Last year I got her a swarovski snowflake for the year of her birth and this year I got her a silver one with her name on from Clinton Cards. I am going to keep them in a separate box from our normal decorations so she knows which ones are hers.

Some nice presents for a 6 month old:

• a personalised stocking (I've seen them on Not On The High Street with baby's name sewn on to them)
• melamine plate & bowl set
• knife/fork set
• lift-the-flap books
• bath toys (stacking cups are great for this. Also squirty toys)
• his name to go on his bedroom door (you can get some lovely wooden ones)

A jumperoo!

Love the ornament idea. I already buy something each year for my house and the two parents houses. Plus it means when your DC moves out they have a box of ornaments for their own tree!

Here's one useful tip I picked up from another thread...

Don't buy a super large sack for presents. As they get older the presents get smaller and you end up buying large crap items just to fill the sack. Much better to have a small sack/stocking and have it overflowing.

Also I am going to stick to this guide for the santa, mummy and daddy presents...

Something they want
Something they need
Something to wear
Something to read

With a few extra smaller bits and bobs as fillers. I had a very poor upbringing and I know that it doesnt take stacks of presents to make a happy christmas. I figure young children get so much they dont need more than the above. Obviously not relevant for a 6 month old as they wont care either way as they will be happy playing with boxes and wrapping paper anyhow

and I already have DDs present a giant nearly new mamas and papas rocking animal I got for £2.50 on local facebook selling page, at 6 months she won't know where it came from

I brought dd a tree decoration off eBay last Christmas and they personalised with her name and dob it's really lovely

We bought 'the most expensive teddy bear we could afford' for DS's first Christmas. 'Roosevelt' is still part of the family 20 years later.

I really wish I had bought my four a lovely stocking or present sack for their first Christmas.
Christmas books that you can bring out next year would be good too.
Mine always get a small Christmas themed cuddly toy, they sit on the stairs through December although with 4 DC the eldest being 14 we have run out of stairs now

Roosevelt's younger brother.

Something they want
something they need
something to wear
something to read

Love this!!

I had some great ideas for my DD's first Christmas last year. I bought a stocking from notonthehighstreet.com in a lovely Liberty print fabric, a wooden advent calendar, and a bauble from one of those ceramic places - I had DD's footprint painted on it.

DD had other ideas - she gave us all gastroenteritis

intrigued about what Londondecs wrote!

Thank you for the lovely ideas :)