What cheap afterthought gift has ended up a massive hit?!

[doodleschnoodle]

For us, it's two 'mummy bunnies' who have babies that appear in their toy hutch (some weird mechanism where they drop down from the roof). They were mega reduced on Amazon last week so I bought one for each DD, even though it is really tat and I try to avoid tat mainly.

Well, the absolute amazement and joy when DD1 checked her hutch to find four babies in it. She's been playing with them for 30 mins now. DD2 about to be awoken from a nap and will see what she makes of it.

Anyone else had some surprise hits?

A fairly cheap and tat-y no-brand toy washing machine from Amazon. (planet, I'm sorry) Ordered a few days before, as DS2 (severe autism and LDs) was spending a worrying amount of time watching videos of washing machine toys online... Thank god it was a good call and he's been very happy with it. It actually uses real, wet water (if you want) to wash tiny clothes, so I foresee a lot of flooded floors.

Thank you so much! Really appreciate it. Hope you had a lovely Christmas xx

Not in my family, but I heard from a friend that there were sleeping masks from Claire's Accessories in everyone's stockings. Everyone kept thinking of more and more games to play with them, such as who could keep their eyes covered the longest. Most children got bored after a few minutes and did other things, but one child managed nearly two hours without cheating, and simply enjoyed hearing everyone having fun around her; the others gave her objects and edible things to guess. They had to stop the children doing silly things like walking around blindfolded: they imposed a rule that if you were alone wearing one, you had to be sitting down.

Holographic tape from hobbycraft. 5yr old DD loves cutting and sticking to make random things and I got fed up of her using the actual sellotape, so bought her that as a bit of a daft idea and she spent all day taping the in used wrapping paper together to make some presents for her teddies

Arh, I meant to get my dd a candle making set, was it with the toy section?

Two lemons I put in his stocking!

My son is only 2, but he carried them around all day

For DS18 I put a little key ring in his stocking that says ‘don’t do stupid shit, love mum’ and he loves it, shown everyone who visited and was snap chatting it to his friends. Expected it to be put to one side and maybe never even make his keys.

For DD12, I mum got her a personalised overnight suitcase and she absolutely loved that! Just keeps pulling it around randomly. DS also said, oh you could have got me one of those Grandma too.

A £6 phone tripod. 13 year old wandered around all day holding onto it and messing about all day.

A cheap “pick up sticks” game in my daughter’s stocking. She’s 7 and we played it multiple times, she loved flicking the sticks to get them off the pile.

A 50p stretchy sticky hand in DS stoxking. He practised aiming it and seeing what different things he could pull towards himself all day. Up until it got stick in the mechanism of another present and broke. Have now ordered him another 12 for £3 off ebay 🤣

A T-shirt from AliExpress with the Windows 95 logo on it. Cost me about a fiver. Dd(16) is a huge Eurovision fan and LOVES Windows 95 man, (this year's Finnish entry). She's going to see him in London next year and is now chuffed to bits that she's got something to wear.

This year the most popular gifts have been

DC1 (19) - a set for baking Camembert from Next

DC2 (15) - a very soft dog from Tesco (he has had a toy dog in his stocking since he was a toddler and still asks for one now!)

DC3 (14) - the magnetic game with the string and plain magnetic pieces that I saw on Facebook

My husband bought 3 emergency Christmas jumper kits (discounted to 40p each) at Morrisons on Christmas Eve. Stick on felt shapes and fairy lights. Lots of fun over Christmas dinner and some classic Christmas photos for the album.

I was planning gifts since last sept
Buying monthly
Trying to get deals

The most successful gifts

Pack of balloons

3 pound baby and stroller from a charity shop

And a one pound bubble machine

So next year

I'm all about the pound shops and the charity shop gifts

DSs Godmother added a little tic-tac-toe game to their parcel. It's been played with loads by both kids (9 & 12) and us parents.

It was a Christmas one I think for adults on a display of Christmas things like candles and pot poured at end of an aisle

*pourri

This one

Thanks for showing me.

A smart games iq puzzler (from the Christmas bargain thread) in DS (19’s) stocking. It has barely been out of his hands! It was an afterthought really yet he loves it.

Robo snake it was under £10 and has been played with constantly. Only annoying thing is that it uses up batteries quickly and keeps breaking down.

A £1.50 peppa pig painting set, little sponges and tubs of paint. Dd played with it for over an hour today. It was messy

This has been a massive hit this year in our house too. Also a squeezey penguin that shoots foam bullets out of its mouth £5 from Tescos bought while I was taking a breather from the masses of shoppers in the food aisles on the 22nd.

A fake tub of Pringles with a surprise spring thing inside when you open it (from Shein of all places). Also those glasses that have a straw attached so the liquid goes all around your face before you ingest it (worse description ever 😂)…also Shein.

A joke book for my 5 year olds stocking. Everyone she has come across has had about 10 jokes read to them. I ordered it as a last minute thing in the last few days before Christmas.