Stocking ideas please

[Newsenmum]

2 preschoolers
me and DH (first time doing them for us too!)

Id love some ideas please!

Stockings should be traditional for your family IMO so the same type of thing every year so I'd start from that point.
Satsuma in the toe / Terry's chocolate orange
small toy to entertain the children before you go open the main presents. Hobby craft used to do lovely wooden finger puppets, slime, Rubix cube as they get older
Christmas activity book / colouring book and pens
Small box of Cocopops from the Variety packs etc for breakfast.

For the preschoolers:
Bubble wand
Playdoh and playdoh cutters
Toot toot vehicle
Soft toy
Small book
Bath toys (e.g. foam shapes)
Joie egg cup
Chocolate coins
Toomies nesting eggs

Yeah agree with this to an extent - I remember loving that we always got an annual 😂

Our stockings pretty much always have:
books
yoto cards
something edible
bath stuff
crafty stuff - paint, playdough, brushes, pens, stickers
games or puzzles

This year our only preschooler also has kinetic sand, a soft toy, hair bands and hair clips.

I love doing stockings 😊

I always go with a mix of stuff they'd need anyway and fun stuff, for example:

Pants/socks
Hat/scarf/gloves
Swimming hat/goggles/cricket ball/shin pads/goalie gloves
Pens/paper/felt tips/glue/blu tack/sticky labels/stickers/glitter
Bath stuff/flannel
Toothbrush and toothpaste (a character one because it's from Santa obviously)
Chocolate/sweets/tube of pringles
Magazine
A few novelty Christmas items
A few small toys

It's a good way of having lots of parcels, but not piles of crap or excessive numbers of toys. They're always excited to see what pants/socks Santa has chosen for them this year!

Stockings are also a great place for small presents that might get lost amongst wrapping paper in the main room.

I love doing stockings. Obviously not bought all of the below but some ideas I had to choose from. I always had a big stocking growing up which we got to open in the morning. Then had to wait until after dinner for tree presents around 4pm. Stocking a mix of fun and practical and enough to keep us entertained until tree presents later.

Paint sticks
Monster truck
Bath bombs (B&M have spiderman and hulk ones)
Bath dust ( from The Range)
Lush play soap
Squirty foam soap
Mini Photo album with family pictures from the year
Yoto cards
Magic snow
Whoopee cushion
Voice changer mini megaphone
Kinetic sand
Scissor skills book
Siku mini car or truck
Squidgy centipede
Chocolate coins
Small lego set
Skillmatics guess in 10 or found it game.
Stickers/sticker book
I spy book
Pants
Socks
Sea monkeys
Robo alive pet
Wipe clean activity book
Dinosaur dig egg
Homemade mini 'potions' set
Cupcake making kit
Usborne wipe clean activity book
A bauble (every year we buy our DS a bauble or 2 so that when he leaves home he will have a full set to take with him for his own place)
Fun sprinkles for Cupcake making
Galt activity/craft sets
Orchard toys games.
Phonics cards.
Roll of sellotape or washi tapes (lol)

Try "toys for a pound" website for cheap stocking fillers, alot of similar sites like it. Sostrene grene and rex london have some lovely more unusual bits all reasonably priced. Sometimes I get some second hand brio train accessories to go in too or second hand books off Ebay.

We keep it quite simple for stockings. In our family, everyone (me, DH, DS-5yo, DS-2.5yo) gets:

• chocolate coins
• an orange
• socks
• pants
• toothbrush (or replacement toothbrush heads)
• pens/stationary/art supplies/etc (relevant to person, obv)
• bath stuff

Then DH and I will usually get each other a new card game/travel board game/recipe kit/baking thing/small activity to do together type of thing and that'll be it.

For the children there is also usually a small cuddly/animal/baby (we've done maileg mice/teddies, squishmallows, olliella baby dolls, etc), something horrifyingly noisy (harmonica, whistle, recorder, etc), something sensory-play related (slime, play doh, kinetic sand, etc), bubbles and a new pair of shoes with sweets inside (the latter is traditional in DH's family so we do it too lol).

My pre-schooler has

Snap cards (numberblocks)
A small lego set
A kaleidoscope
3x small tubs Kinetic sand
A dino book with figures
Spidey jigsaw
A hotwheels car

My kids used to wake up at stupid o'clock. One year DD woke us up 2 hours after we got to bed. So we would give them something to eat, something to drink, small toys and a book. It gave us a precious few hours in bed.

So far my 3 year olds stocking has:
Cat sunglasses
Chocolate lolly pops
Dinosaur stickers
Ferrero Rochers
Hot Wheels Slime
2 x Hot Wheels cars
Jelly Bean Factory tube
Mystery bouncy ball
Paw Patrol plane and lollipop bag
3 x Paw Patrol figure, sticker and lollipop bags
Snowman shaped chocolate

So far my partners stocking has:
After Eight Winter Fondants
Cappuccino candy
Christmas Building Blocks Penguin
Christmas Squashies sweets
Coffee candy
Ferrero Rochers
Gaming coin flip
Gaming socks
Jelly Bean Factory tube
Mint chocolate flutes
Razor shaped peeler
Snowman shaped chocolate
Cosy socks