Top Ten Gift Ideas for Young Nieces and Nephews

When my brothers and sisters began to produce nieces and nephews for me to spoil, I promised to never give the children any gift that used batteries or had a collection of accessories and clothing to buy later. Although it eliminated some popular toys, especially dolls, this turned out to be an easy promise to keep. As a side effect, because I stayed out of toy stores, it was also the inexpensive way to find gifts that sparked their creativity.

Here are ten of the gifts that got the best response from the kids, and two rules to guide you:

Rule 1: Children like large quantities of almost anything, and if you can find unimaginably huge quantities of fun stuff for a gift, it's even better. Don't buy the usual dinky packages at the stores in the mall. Go where the pros shop. Look in your yellow pages for stores that sell school supplies and shop for classroom-sized packages of goodies.

1 - A 5- or 10-pound box of craft sticks (popsicle sticks) and a big bottle of glue.

2 - A huge bag of pipe cleaners, hundreds of them, as fancy as possible.

3 - Huge pads of paper, or a large variety of fancy papers.  Get these from printing supply stores or art stores. Call a few printers and ask if they have barrels of scrap they sell by the pound.

4 - A huge box of books suitable for their reading ability and a year or two older. Shopping at garage sales and used book stores will take the sting out of this purchase. If you cooperate with another adult, they can give the bookcase for your gifts.

5 - Pounds of assorted buttons (great for beads) are available from fabric and trim clearance shops.

Rule 2: Children like to have grown-up things for their very own. It doesn't mean they will use them in the way an adult does, but they like these better than the kiddy version made of plastic.

6 - Office supplies:

Stapler, staples, and a staple remover. Make a firm rule that only the child's papers are to be stapled to other papers. The little brother, the cat, and dad's shirts are NOT to be stapled to anything.

A big corkboard to provide a safe place to staple papers.