Last week I talked about the gifts we were getting/considering for Edward, who is turning 8 next month. This week it’s Elizabeth’s turn: not “girl gifts,” but gifts for a child who is, as it happens, a girl.

Owl apron (photo from Amazon.com). The one I bought her was from Home Goods and has an all-over pattern of owls, but I can’t find it online and this one is cute too.

Personalized street sign (photo from Amazon.com). She’d expressed enthusiastic interest in it a number of months ago as a gift idea for a friend’s birthday party, saying she’d want one for herself, too. But then we realized with the shipping time it wouldn’t arrive before the friend’s party, so we gave up on the idea. When Paul and I discussed still using the idea for Elizabeth’s birthday, we got hung up on not knowing what the quality of the sign would be like, and not even knowing if she’d still want it now—especially if her friend didn’t have a coordinating one. Plus, I know this is a gift for HER and SHE likes the pink, but if _I_ were getting a personalized street sign I’d want it to be GREEN. And I’m not sure that shade of pink would go well with her magenta walls. So anyway, we’re not getting it for this birthday. But maybe I’ll mention it to her again and see if she still wants it at Christmas.
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I have TWO 8-year-olds to buy for, so I’m going to split it up into two posts. Today will be the things we’re getting for Edward. I dislike saying “Gift ideas for an 8-year-old BOY,” even though he is in fact a boy and there’s nothing wrong with that, because a ton of stuff the twins are interested in is neither “boy” nor “girl.” I’d hate to imply that just because I’m buying a gift for a boy, that gift would only be right for boys. So let’s call it “Gift ideas for an 8-year-old who is like Edward.” That’ll get the search results.

Scholastic 2013 Book of World Records (photo from Amazon.com). He saw this in the Scholastic catalog from school, and I made a mental note and then ordered it secretly.
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We did end-of-year teacher gifts our first few years of having schoolkids, but now I don’t typically do them. I’m more likely to put all the teacher-gift eggs into the December-gift basket.

But I do sometimes do something for end-of-year, especially if there’s something significant about the particular year/class. For example, last year one of my children’s teachers was retiring, and she’d taught another of my children as well. I had copies of “first day of school” pictures printed from both kids’ first days in her class, and enclosed them with a thank-you letter and a Target gift card and a card wishing her a happy retirement. (Forty years teaching first graders. Can you imagine? No, don’t try.)

Mid-year, I think classroom items can be a nice thing to donate—but at the end of the year, I suspect teachers just want to PACK IT UP. No more pencils, no more books, no more children’s dirty looks! I aim instead for things I think they might be able to enjoy over the summer. A gift card to Panera, for a time of year they might be able to go to lunch. A gift card to a book store, for a little recreational reading. A gift card to the over-priced-but-delicious ice cream store. A gift card to a place that sells iced coffees (photo from Starbucks.com), for keeping them cool in August when they’re reassembling their non-air-conditioned classrooms.
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My youngest baby is turning 6 next month. Let’s not talk about how strange that feels; let’s just talk about what I’m considering getting him for his birthday. Perhaps you have a similar child turning 6 (or 5 or 7), or perhaps you have a birthday party to go to.

Penguin bank (photo from Target.com). We give our kids a bank and their first allowance at their 6-year-old birthday party. For my first two kids, I chose a bank for them; but with the younger three, it’s worked better to let them choose one. I discuss it with them casually while at the store display a few months before the birthday, and then go back later and buy the one they liked. Henry chose this penguin. (I would have rooted for this owl if they had it in the stores.)

Webkinz lion (photo from Amazon.com). After last week’s post, it will not surprise you to hear that he is getting a Webkinz. Every other family member (well, except Paul) has or has had one, and now Henry wants one. He said “lion” immediately when I asked what animal, but then later on he said, “Wait. Do they have sharks?” (They do.) So there may need to be more deliberation.
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Gift ideas for guys seem to fall into the same category as gift ideas for teenagers: with so few ideas, sharing what little we have can only improve matters. So here are some of the things I’ve given Paul recently, in case they’d work for your guy too:

Cooking for Geeks (photo from Amazon.com). I was irritated but affirmed when I bought this for Paul for an upcoming holiday and then saw he’d checked the same book out of the library.

Paul kept complaining about (and breaking the handles off of) my “sucky” measuring cups, so I did a post asking for advice on a good manly set. To my surprise and dismay, the comments section filled up with suggestions for measuring cups that cost about triple the amount of money I’d had in mind. But I thought about it and got used to the idea that maybe better quality = costs more, and then there was a sale combined with a free shipping deal, and so I bought him a set of the Williams-Sonoma measuring cups and spoons (photo from Williams-Sonoma.com)—and Paul LOVES them. On the next gift occasion, he hinted that he would also like the odd-sizes set, so I got him those too. (He was slightly cheesed that the two sets of measuring cups don’t nest together, but it wasn’t a big deal.)
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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.
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Paul and I have had a smoother marriage since I stopped wanting us to exchange gifts on Valentine’s Day and anniversaries: Paul doesn’t like buying gifts for those occasions, and I don’t like getting gifts that come with a heavy sigh of obligation, and it’s hard to buy a similarly romantic/significant gift for a guy, and I get uptight about money—so overall it started feeling like it wasn’t a good idea for us as a couple.

Every so often my wish for a Significant Gift outweighs this, as for example on our tenth anniversary when I said ahead of time that I would like Expensive Earrings of His Choice, please, to wear sentimentally on all subsequent anniversaries, and I got him something unromantic for his computer—but for the most part we skip it. I still enjoy giving the kids a Valentine’s day gift, and I enjoy the fun of their classroom exchanges, and I still like Valentine’s Day decor and wearing pink/red that day and so forth.

I’m always interested to hear how other couples handle it. Some people who like to buy flowers are partnered with people who like to receive them. Some people who like to go out for dinner are partnered with people who like to, too. Some people who like lingerie are partnered with people who feel like it’s a gift for themselves. …And some people are not paired quite so neatly, and have to figure things out.

What I’d like to know today is what you’d LIKE to receive for Valentine’s Day—if for example you could have your same significant other, but replace the cells in their brain responsible for Valentine’s Day gifts. I’d also love to hear what you normally do, or what you’re likely to get instead—but I think it would be fun to do a sort of Fantasy List. My own tastes, as you will see, run toward the Classic: chocolates, flowers, jewelry.

See’s Pink Satin Heart (photo from Sees.com). I don’t think I even actually DO want this, even though it was the first thing I thought of when I turned my mind to the question. I DO love chocolates, ESPECIALLY heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, and I pined for this one as soon as I saw it—but $40 for not even a pound and a half of chocolate? And the box is so so pretty, but what would I use it for after the chocolate was gone? I used to save heart-shaped boxes, but I never did find a way to use them so I finally tossed them out in our last move. Still. If I were in a dating relationship, not married, I think this would be my favorite gift to get. I’d enjoy the extravagance of it, and I’d keep love notes and ticket stubs and photos in the heart-shaped box.
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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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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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Here is the problem I run into at Christmas: I want to show you gift ideas, but some of my family members read this blog, and some of the things I want to show you are things I bought for them. Solution, after much brow-wrinkled concentration: tell family not to read blog this month.

Bent Objects (photo from Amazon.com). Paul saw this book somewhere and bought it for my brother’s wife (that sounds so biblical, but if I say “my sister-in-law” it could be Paul’s sister, and it would be less interesting that he’d impulsively bought a gift for her). He thought it seemed perfect for her. It seems to me that it would also be great if you need a fun and whimsical gift for someone who’s a little difficult to buy for. It’s a good “everyone will pass it around” book.

Miracle Fruit Tablets (photo from Amazon.com). Oh, these look SO As Seen on TV! But do you remember awhile back when it seemed like all the magazines/shows were doing pieces on this special berry you could chew that would make sour things taste sweet? There were, like, PARTIES where you could partake of this miracle berry? And I thought, “This sounds so cool! Where can I buy this product?” and the answer was “Nowhere! Someone has to bring it to you after visiting some other country!” OKAY THEN. But here is a packet of it! On Amazon! Clearly I have bought a packet, and we will have a party.
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