Sigh.
I write these older-kid gift posts not because I feel like they contain Such Incredibly Awesome Ideas, but rather because there are SO FEW ideas of ANY CALIBER, it seems like we should put ALL the ideas OUT THERE. If I tell you what my 12-year-old boy is getting for his birthday, and if you tell me what your 12-year-old boy is getting for his birthday, then between us we have TWO ideas!
Spherification kit (photo from Amazon.com). We got this idea from Catherine Newman’s post. The gist, I gather, is that you add this stuff to liquid, and it turns the liquid into spheres. This seemed like the perfect present for a boy who spent one million hours with the water marbles he got for Christmas.
Magic Books and Paper Toys: Flip Books, E-Z Pop-ups, & Other Paper Playthings (photo from Amazon.com). We have a 12-year-old of the crafty/projects variety, and this looked like his sort of thing.
Geek/game shirt (photo from ThinkGeek.com). The kids find shirts like these and think they’re awesome, but then I look and say, “TWENTY DOLLARS FOR A T-SHIRT??” So they make good gifts.
Beartato and the Incredible Event (photo from Amazon.com). This is a comic strip the kids read online; I thought he might like to have it in paper form.
Fly Stick Van de Graaff Levitation Wand (photo from ThinkGeek.com). My parents gave William one of these for Christmas and it was a huge hit. Really weird and fun—like science MAGIC!
Life Picture Puzzles: Spot the Difference (photo from Amazon.com). I thought he might like these (he likes the ones in my People magazines), and it was bargain-priced so it seemed like a good way to try it.
Coin pocket pages and cardboard inserts (photo from Amazon.com). This does not make the most exciting photo for a photo-based post, but I think he’d really like this: he’s recently been very interested in pennies, and he’s been getting rolls from the bank and picking through them looking for good ones. I’d thought about getting him a special penny-collecting book, but right now his collection is more “all the old ones” rather than “one each from every year.” I think I’ll combine the pages and cardboard holders with a binder and something like ten rolls of pennies to pick through.
I was immediately going to suggest snorgtees.com but see that you have t-shirts covered. I can usually find some witty ones on Etsy even cheaper but you run the risk of sizing issues.
My almost 12yo likes one of those 1 month gc to a particular online game like Club Penguin - you can find those at Target or WaWa or Game Stop.
Amanda | February 27th, 2013 at 1:00 pm
I do have a boy turning 12 in a few months but it’s not the Next Birthday (that one is the turning-7-girl), so I can’t focus on it yet. He plays percussion in the school band so we go him a triangle for Valentine’s Day and he liked that. His main Christmas gift was a gift certificate (from us and extended family pooling $) that almost covered a new iPod. He had to kick in a little of his own money for that. He always wants books, often in whatever fantasy series he’s reading at the time.
StephLove | February 27th, 2013 at 1:28 pm
If your kids like Nedroid they might also like Gunnerkrigg Court http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/ , Bad Machinery http://www.scarygoround.com/ , and Monster Pulse http://www.monster-pulse.com/ if they aren’t already reading them. When I was 12 pretty much all I wanted was books and geology stuff.
Brigid Keely | February 27th, 2013 at 3:15 pm
Times like this when I wish I belonged to some strange religion that preached no giving of gifts on birthdays after the age of 10 or so. Oldest turned 10 this month and it was a small struggle to find good. We ended up doing some soccer gear since that’s his bag and buying a rather expensive Lego set. The problem is that he is of an age when he still likes Legos, but sets that will challenge him are ungodly expensive. I don’t look forward to 12 when I’ll have no clue what on earth to get him. Sigh.
Maggie | February 27th, 2013 at 8:46 pm
My son turned 12 last month. He is a big Magic The Gathering player - they come out with new sets every few months so that’s always a hit, no matter how many cards he already has.
Otherwise, the other gifts he got were cash and gift certificates to Amazon, Gamestop, and iTunes. Highly appreciated.
There are some good board/card games for this age, though. I highly recommend several real games: King of Tokyo, Dominion, Race for the Galaxy, Small World, Ticket to Ride, and two hit fun and silly card games: Fluxx (or Zombie Fluxx, etc), and “We Didn’t Playtest this at All” (and other versions).
lynn342 | March 2nd, 2013 at 1:40 pm