Help me win the hearts and mold the minds of my faraway niece and nephew
November 24, 2013 2:52 AM   Subscribe

I'm spending the holidays with my sister and her family and need gift suggestions for her son and daughter, ages 8 and 6 respectively. Bonus for gifts about animals!

I'm planning to bring them two gifts each, since, besides Christmas, they both recently had birthdays. I live in California and they live in Ireland so I hardly ever see them and don't know much about their current tastes and interests (and my sister has been no help). However, I usually try to get them animal-related gifts, since they're natural animal lovers, as is my sister, but more importantly because I'm a vegan and I want to help them learn to recognize animals as sentient beings and individuals worthy of empathy and respect. (In the past I've gotten them these, for instance.) I'd also be interested in anything (non-animal-related but) educational or creative/artistic/musical.

Difficulty level:
• Must fit in my luggage or be shippable (is that a word?) to Ireland
• Must arrive before December 10 (if being shipped to me)
• Looking to spend about $50-$100 per kid

Thanks!
posted by désoeuvrée to Shopping (11 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Have you seen Hearthsong.com? when I was a bookworm PBS watching squirt that catalog would send me into a Christmas list making frenzy big time! They have a website now, and maybe a shop in Sebsdtopol ?
posted by jrobin276 at 3:03 AM on November 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't have a suggestion for a specific one but what about a digital microscope? I have seen them at various price points and I remember really loving looking at various things under an analog one as a kid. (including storing it outside overnight and then using it to look at snowflakes on black cloth)
posted by sciencegeek at 3:33 AM on November 24, 2013


Seconding a microscope, I really loved it when I got one in primary school.

Less exciting, but easy to pack: a couple of cute animal-themed wall calenders. Here's one from Etsy and another one from Marimekko.
posted by wavelette at 3:52 AM on November 24, 2013


Choose a favorite children's book or collection, and record yourself reading the story. You can even ring a bell when it's time to turn the page. Give them the book(s) along with a CD and/or jump drive of your recording. I did this for my nephews, and they loved it.
posted by ReginaHart at 5:47 AM on November 24, 2013


A good set of watercolour paints, pans, not tubes and/or a set of watercolour pencils. Three or four good watercolour brushes, a tablet of watercolour paper and a book like this. Add a few snap and open frames so work can be framed, hung and easily rotated.

I also like a lot of the stuff at seedling toys if pre packaged is easier.

The microscope is a great idea too.
posted by Cuke at 7:25 AM on November 24, 2013


Something I've just got into (after seeing a brain 'expansion' short local doco series) is juggling. I'm of the idea that it would be a great present, especially for girls, who tend to get socialised away from dexterous pastimes as they get older. Juggling you can learn and practice alone and it's good for the hand-eye as well as development of peripheral vision. Soooo.. I'm getting packets of balloons and a kg or 2kg of rice for a couple of family kids and they can make their own. (yes you can buy hacky sack type 'balls' or other devoted juggling 'objects', but they're pretty expensive from my searching.. unjustifiably so imho). And there are videos around to teach you them how to juggle and also how to make the 'balls' from balloons and rice. It will cost next to nothing, but maybe the novelty make-your-own-present aspect will sit well with both kids?
posted by peacay at 7:50 AM on November 24, 2013


My eight year old niece loves the knockoff Spirit Hood I gave her, and they seem to hit most of your points. Whether these are still trendy or not, I don't know.

(Also, the aforementioned knockoffs I've seen on Amazon are an order of magnitude cheaper and still pretty nice.)
posted by Vervain at 9:55 AM on November 24, 2013


To address your title question about winning the hearts and minds I would try to be very low key and subtle about your vegan lifestyle. Live/eat what you want but don't make big value statements about meat being wrong or exploitive. With family you don't often see this could go really badly.
posted by saradarlin at 10:09 AM on November 24, 2013


Legos! I love them because the kids keep playing with them for years and years. Not sure if there are a lot of animal-related lego sets but I did find this one and this one.
posted by eleyna at 10:54 PM on November 24, 2013


Any chance you could take them shopping for their gifts, and offer to ship them? I know my nieces love to pick out their own presents.
posted by MichelleinMD at 8:54 AM on November 25, 2013


Response by poster: Thanks y'all!
posted by désoeuvrée at 4:46 PM on November 29, 2013


« Older What are some gender stereotypes that used to be...   |   Murder Mystery/Thriller buffs, I need your help... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.