I hope that this post will not give you the impression that I disapprove of candy at Valentine’s Day, or that I avoid it. FAR FROM IT. I give my own kids a candy gift, and I like that they come home with a little assortment of treats from school, too: it’s nice to have a candy holiday in between Christmas and Easter, just to keep the spirits up in the cold sad part of winter.

But I know enough from seeing/hearing OTHER people discuss it that not everyone is of the same mind. For those who are trying to avoid candy for various reasons but still would like to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a gift for the kids, here are a few ideas:

Sticky Mosaics heart box (photo from Amazon.com). I have mentioned Sticky Mosaics often enough that you already know we’re fans at my house. This heart box is a fun project we’ve also given as birthday-party gifts.

Hide ‘n’ Peek Chocolates game (photo from Amazon.com). If you look at the reviews, you’ll see that a lot of people thought this was a good Valentine’s Day gift for a child, and that unfortunately there is one main problem with it: the lid doesn’t fit on right. So it kind of depends on how important that feature is for the game to be a success. If you’re going to store it in a bin anyway (if you’re like me and wouldn’t want to assemble the toy every time you put it away, for example), it won’t matter—but it might be disappointing anyway.
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Henry is going to a birthday party in a couple of weeks. I asked him what the birthday boy likes, and he said “NINJAS!!” So we are looking at ninja ideas.

Ninja costume (photo from Amazon.com). I bought this costume for Henry, for Halloween next year. It might also make a fun gift idea. But when I bought it for Henry, it was marked down to $8.50 on a post-Christmas clearance; now it’s $16-something. I find it difficult to pay more for things I could have gotten for less. Also, I’m not at all sure about the quality: the reviews are quite mixed, and for me it was worth the risk for $8.50 and for my own kid—but I feel more nervous spending $16+ and giving it to someone else’s kid.

Matryoshka ninjas (photo from Amazon.com). This was the very first search result, which is good because I never, ever, not in a dozen years of ninja birthday parties, would have thought to look for such a thing. And yet—this is exactly the sort of toy I would have found enduringly interesting as a child. Hm. Well, we’d be unlikely to be duplicating someone else’s gift!
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One of my favorite days of the year when I was a child was Valentine’s Day. Decorating the cereal box mailbox with doilies and hearts and stickers was one of my favorite crafts. And the concept of “If you bring valentines, you have to bring one for everyone” must have been established by then—or in any case, I don’t have any traumatizing memories of not getting as many valentines as other people. There was the inevitable “Someone got a BETTER and/or more SIGNIFICANT valentine”—but deciding what makes a valentine good/significant is Big Fun for some of us. (Fortunately, classroom valentines are over by the time there are serious hormones to consider.)

Little Owl valentine cards by Letter C Design on Etsy (photo from the shop). We are fond of owls at our house. It is nice to have on-trend tastes: there is so much merchandise available.

Superhero girls and boys by LuckyLu Creations on Etsy (photos from the shop). The trouble with something hand-colored is that you pay extra for the hand-coloring when maybe you would have been just as happy with the color coming from the printer. Happier, perhaps. But I would have a lot of fun getting a set each of girl and boy superheros and trying to match hair color to as many kids in the class as possible.
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Nothing. There isn’t anything. Gift card, maybe.

As we enter the Land of Teens, I’m finding it more and more difficult to choose good gifts. It’s partly that the things teenagers would like to receive are usually out of our price range now. And it’s partly that teenagers seem less delighted in holidays and gifts in general.

Well, we muddle though as best we can, relying heavily on these ideas:

1. Stuff from Zazzle (screenshot from Zazzle.com). I started messing around making custom things on Zazzle, and the children were RIVETED. You could make your OWN STUFF?? And then HAVE IT?? And then they started browsing, and of course they were cracking up at every lame joke the rest of us have heard a hundred times, because the world is all fresh and new to a child, and that world includes rude homework/gassiness jokes. Zazzle stuff is pretty expensive, but they have sales all the time for 50% off in a particular category, such as mugs or t-shirts. I have the kids send me links to things they like or things they custom-designed, and then those make good gifts.

2. Game/movie/book tie-in stuff. This is where we generally find the greatest riches. Is the teenager a fan of Minecraft? Portal? Harry Potter? The Hunger Games? Then it is your good fortune to live in a capitalistic society, because if there is any product that can be tied in, it will exist.
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I chose my kitchen wall calendar: it’s the Art of Valentina one I mentioned in this year’s calendar post. I put it up yesterday at midnight, after spending part of the evening doing my usual New Year’s Eve tradition of copying all the birthdays and anniversaries from the old calendar to the new. (I made a mistake right on the first page and had to scribble it out. Excellent.)

I also have a second calendar on its way to me: a Wallpaper calendar (photo from Amazon.com). I’m not sure about it, though; from the picture it looks like it might be iffy quality (the font does not inspire confidence, especially on the front cover), and there aren’t any reviews. I got it on a nice enough price that it was a gamble I was willing to take in case it’s awesome. In the meantime, I still have other choices in my Amazon cart, and as they drop to half price I might get a different one. It’s just for next to my computer, so I don’t need it first thing on January 1st as I do with the kitchen calendar.

Page-a-day calendars are the same way: I don’t mind catching up on the first couple of weeks all at once. Paul and Rob wanted puzzle ones this year, so I got two (photos above from Amazon.com) when they dropped to 50% off, and now Amazon keeps suggesting more page-a-days. I haven’t had one in recent years, but I might like to.
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