Present-a-month idea for DD

[Kombuchainmykoffee]

Dd 8 loves getting post, parcels etc and having something to open every month.
Unfortunately where we live there are quite limited subscription options for kids, and what is available is very expensive.

Have thought up the (hopefully) brilliant idea of gifting her a 'present-a-month box' for Christmas so am thinking if I start planning now I'll have lots of time to make it fun and filled with things she'll love.

I'd like to have a bit of a theme for each month/make it seasonal e.g. I'm thinking for the October present I'll get a halloween costume or cool decoration, so will look for that this week now that everything is on sale.

Dd loves reading, lego, harry potter, imagination and adventure games. Ideally budget would be £100 max but I'm very happy to buy on vinted/charity shops etc.

All ideas appreciated! Thanks 😊

What about sponsoring / "adopting" whereby you get regular photos and updates in the post? My late DM used to love getting updates about her sponsored rescue chimp in a shelter.

Buy her a book every month, wrap it up and do a bit of a treasure hunt for her to find it, with clues.

I get what everyone is saying about materialism and I do kind of agree, but surely no child can have too many books?

You could stick a craft activity in with the book as well if you like - kids can't do too much craft either, in my opinion.

I would just avoid toys and things like that - I think a new toy a month, that she hasn't had to save up for or anything, is verging on excessive materialism. (Sorry, I don't mean to sound like a total judgy cow).

I’ve done this for both my niece and goddaughter in the past.

both times with books. My children are a fair bit older than them. As a family we carefully considered a selection of books, one for each month and where appropriate we themed them to the time of year (eg September = a book about school)

they were all individually wrapped in brown paper, with the months written on the spines, then on the cover we all wrote about why the book was chosen, what it meant to us and why we think it’d appeal to them.

the stack of 12 was then wrapped with a ribbon to finish it off.

both have gone down well. I used a combo of new and good quality charity shop books if I could source them.

DS loves this too