Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Christmas

From present ideas to party food, find all your Christmas inspiration here.

Original poster

Surprise gift hits you would never have bought

47 replies

SpringSpringTime · 06/12/2020 18:17

Trying to think outside the box here as there’s really nothing big 2.5 yo dc would want. This summer he was given a sticker book which I never ever would have picked for him but absorbed him for hours and hours. What have your kids been surprisingly in to? Feel free to chuck in examples for other family members, I haven’t done any shopping yet Grin

OP posts:
FortunaMajor · 07/12/2020 22:48

My nephew was obsessed with Pingu aged about 3. I saw wind up penguins in Superdrug that pooped out little brown sweets as they walked along. It cost something daft like £2.99 and was all he wanted to play with. My sister was fuming that his big expensive toys were not as popular.

BeaLola · 07/12/2020 22:49

Slightly different tact but over the years have bought my notoriously hard to buy for older brother lots of great presents - the two things he loved the most and goes on about

  • a cuff link box
  • the reindeer place setting I made from a knife/fork holder bought in £1 shop - he loved it so much he asked to take it hind with him Hmm
HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime · 07/12/2020 22:49

Oh another huge hit was giant playing cards when DD was about 8, cost a couple of quid from B&M, she spent hours trying to make card towers, playing higher or lower etc

BeaLola · 07/12/2020 22:51

Even take it home with him Grin

Rainydays14 · 07/12/2020 22:51

When mine were little my son was obsessed with measuring tapes, the sort with a metal or plastic case and spring action. We were extending our house so doing lots of diy. Every trip to B and Q involved buying one of these and he would measure all sorts.

scottishgirl98 · 07/12/2020 22:58

A packet of pocket tissues with the characters of sesame street on them. We also got her a Tickle Me Elmo but no, the pocket tissues with literally just a picture of the sesame street characters on it was the winner. She also refused to open them to blow her nose. Just carried one whererever we went (and I mean everywhere, we couldn't go on a little walk around the neighbourhood without one). The day her dad accidentally put one of the packets through the wash as she had left it in her pocket, you would have thought the world was ending. Apparently her dad had a similar obsession with a pencil sharpener around the same age.

NoProblem123 · 07/12/2020 23:35

A pretend dog poo that cost £1

I hate it as it keeps ‘appearing’ and I always have to check.
Kids never get bored of it and it’s been on several visits to friends’ houses and school Blush

caringcarer · 07/12/2020 23:49

My sports mad child in lockdown learned how to play chess and got really obsessive about it researching opening moves and defences. He went from level 0 to mow level 8 he plays people online now and is working his way up a chess leaderboard. He used it as his DofE skill too. Before lockdown he played cricket 7 hours a week, 1 hour karate, 2 hours swim training, going for a run twice a week and we were really dreading the first lockdown with him. He blew us away with his calmness.

MaverickDanger · 07/12/2020 23:50

SIL says my nephew’s favourite thing is a hi vis vest we bought him with his name on.

He’s obsessed with the binmen and construction workers, so wears his all the time - it was £4 from eBay.

Bamboo15 · 08/12/2020 00:19

Plastic slide - £30 for dd2 and 4 - must have climbed up and slid down 100 times each on Christmas Day. We keep it inside taking up room in the sitting room til spring then put it outside. Then they spent all summer sliding down it into the pool!

AldiAisleofCrap · 08/12/2020 00:28

The Wiltshire farm food catalogue that dd age picked up in the health centre. Both her and her 9 year old sister played with it for days until there were virtually no pages left. They made menus and played cafe , so lots of cutting sticking and role play.

pinkksugarmouse · 08/12/2020 03:00

As a child I used to love collecting all the Christmas gift guides. I would pour over them making my lists the family I intend to have when I grew up. My favourite was the Argos catalogue. My sister I spent many a happy hour going through them. One each of course.

Cantchooseaname · 08/12/2020 03:35

Box of brightly coloured plasters from pound land and kids first aid kit- smaller proper bandages. All the dolls/ toys have had injuries ministered to.

LooneyLovefood · 08/12/2020 06:37

I've thought of another...bath full of actual bath toys of varying prices, what does DS play with most? A sponge! He'll look for it every bath time and spend ages filling it with water and squeezing it out shouting "it's having a wee wee!"

Equimum · 08/12/2020 09:07

Paint sticks! I thought they were a bit gimmicky, but DS got some for his 5th birthday and we have bought him a bigger set for Christmas as he uses them daily!

letsgomaths · 08/12/2020 09:41

My brother loved his Dymo tape labelling device in the 1980s, and said he'd write stories with it, even though writing a couple of words was quite an effort!

Here's what a girl I know loved most: not the bike she received for Christmas, but the pretty sleeping mask (given as a small present) that was used to blindfold her while she was led to the bike. It gave her the Pavlovian thinking of "eyes covered = bigger presents". She loves the funny masks at Claire's Accessories, and she always likes to wear one before receiving her birthday presents. She was delighted to learn that people often wear them on planes.

Mrsjayy · 08/12/2020 10:09

I had a label maker i labelled every thing ☺️

sashh · 08/12/2020 10:15

Light up balloons, I got some as an extra for a teenager, they ended up distributed to half the street.

When I was teaching I got the cheapest felt tip pens I could find - they
happened to be Disney, frozen pens. It's amazing how 17 year olds react to Disney.

I put them in a box with frozen characters on, I got some other pens, there was always a discussion about who got the frozen pens, groups will shut up, behave, offer to fetch coffee if they can have frozen pens.

II have an instant camera that is popular with kids, I've taken it to a couple of family dos, the camera is probably too expensive for a toddler but very few toddlers have ever seen an actual photo that they can put it in their pocket.

That and some bubbles that you can catch gave me the name 'magic lady'

Ormally · 08/12/2020 10:22

All these are making me smile, especially the pastry brush!

A few years ago a flashing toothbrush from Santa became the present of the year (made it into the school news report).

Rowenberryjelly · 08/12/2020 11:51

Large empty boxes (preferably big enough to climb inside) and blu tac are always winners here.

OhTheTastyNuts · 08/12/2020 13:22

A marble run (neither had asked for one, but present-opening was abandoned for a couple of hours while they set it up and played with it).

A Hape mosaic puzzle. Still gets played with regularly five years later.

A telescopic duster purchased from an ex-offender doing door-to-door sales. DS2 was obsessed with it!

sortmylifeoutplease · 09/12/2020 01:22

Festive cake moulds. Toddler carried one everywhere with her for months!!

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread