Ideas for German niece and nephew please

[redpanda66]

My BIL is bringing his family over to the UK from Germany this Christmas. We will have a big family get together on Boxing Day when all the children will get their presents.

We are moving in November so I want to get all my shopping done early and preferably on Amazon. I have chosen books for all the others but not sure what would be suitable for a girl aged 9 and her 6 year old brother. English is their third language after German and their mother's Slovakian. I suppose what I'd like to find are books with fairly simple English but not too babyish if possible. Or would DVDs with subtitles be better?

I would be very grateful for any suggestions.

DVD's are always a hit - personalised things like swimming bags or pencil crayons etc might also be fun

The girl may like clothes and they boy maybe some spiderman or transformer toys.

I have just got some great personalised swimming bags off ebay for my two.

Thanks for some great ideas .

DH agrees that DVDs are probably a better option than books.

SueW: Our DS is only 15 months so we will probably get toy trains and cars that nephew no longer wants lol. Ligretto sounds great tho.

Shame we are only buying for the children this year as BIL is very easy to buy for. All he ever wants is British baked beans, sausages and Cheddar cheese!

I live in Germany and these are the things that my DCs love but find it more difficult to get over here:

DS Superman, Transformers, Spiderman
DD anything girly, how about something from Girlsheaven?

DVDs are often English/French, rarely English/German, so check them first. The only problem with a DVD that is not in German, it means when they have a friend to visit then they cannot watch the DVD.

M&S do fab dressing up outfits, we have got DS the Spiderman one for his Christmas. DD is getting the Snowwhite one. They do some good Harry Potter ones too. You do not get anything like that here. I do not know where they live but if the celebrate Karneval/Fastnacht then they will need dressing up stuff for that.

Kindersurprise: great ideas, thank you. They live in a village between Paderborn & Kassel if that helps? I know all the children dressed up for a nativity 'play' in the church but we've only visited them once (at Christmas 4 years ago) so not sure what else they celebrate.

I think a Spiderman outfit might be perfect for our nephew. At least he's a few years younger than his cousins so getting him something different will be ok. All the older ones are getting books, so maybe we will give niece some Euros so she can choose her own. She is also very small for her age so I would have to ask what size for clothes.

Hmm, not sure if they celebrate Karneval in that area. Most areas do, or at least the children have parties and stuff.

Ok, have googled, looks like they do celebrate carneval!

You must go and visit them at Karneval when your DS is a bit older. It is great fun for the children.

I'd second the dressing up idea as here in Austria it's virtually impossible to buy any "character" dressing up stuff outside of Fasching (Canival) in Feb. Last year DS was desperate for a Batman costume, I had to buy it online from the UK.

Carnival even...