What NOT to get for kids for Christmas
Christmas gifts are supposed to bring joy and good… cheer? Let’s go with cheer. Merriment and happiness and delight. But for some reason some gifts can ruin the holidays. At least the holidays, maybe even the the start of the next year.
And for some reason, many of the gifts with potential for catastrophe are the ones your children receive. Let’s have a look of some common Christmas gift mistakes, and what NOT to get your kids, and especially for other people’s kids.
First, the classic, you forgot to get batteries for the toys that needs batteries to be entertaining at all. And this usually happens when you go have Christmas in some far away cabin in the middle of nowhere, with not one store or gas station anywhere near, to get the forgotten batteries. A good tip when going on a Christmas vacation away from home is to bring batteries with you, all the sizes and models and whatnots. Or just leave the electronic toys at the store!
We do actually recommend you do that anyway. Leave them at the store. Because electronic toys = noise. A lot of noise. Some toys are fun enough to make a crap-ton of noise even without batteries. No one, and we mean NO ONE, in their right mind wants their child to receive anything that makes any noise, ever. Sometimes, when you’re a new parent or in a moment of temporary insanity, you might buy something like that, but you will soon realize that you have made a huge mistake. Ringing, dinging, roaring and other sound effects, and the endless loop of sing-a-long-songs and jingles, with the added bonus of your child chiming in with screams of joy… No thank you! And who was the sadist that came up with the idea to sell kids drum sets etc. anyway?
Kids love slime, and making slime! Parents do not. Like we didn’t already have enough messes to deal with. This also applies to glitter jars, and craft kits and activity books with gazillion stickers, and anything that involves scissors really. Yeah the kids love them, and they’re super educational and all that crap, but we can not handle any more mess!
Photo by Ricardo Viana.
Things made out of million tiny things also have a huge potential to ruin Christmas. Like for example puzzles (at least one piece goes missing), legos (at least one piece goes missing), and games (at least one piece goes missing).
Clothes are also worrisome. Is it the right size? Is it the right color? Is it the right character? And even if the mom will absolutely love the pair of woolen socks their child receives, the child doesn’t care for them one bit. And then you feel bad because your child doesn’t appreciate the work grandma put into those socks, and then you feel bad because you feel bad. Isn’t it enough that the child enjoys the toys and you enjoy the socks?
Smartphones, games, gaming consoles, movies, dvds etc. also bring a lot of guilt with them. The kids love them, but you feel like they should be dancing around the Christmas tree instead, or be outside sledding or something. Whatever kids did before social media and those gaming things. Things were a lot better when kids just got apples and stick figures for Christmas! (Or pine cone cows!)
— Editors
The writer of this story is a member of the Mom of Finland community.
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