Ideas For Holiday Giving With Kids

Today I’m partnering with Walmart to share ideas for holiday giving with kids. Last year I was discouraged when my son was whining about some of the gifts he received for Christmas. I promised myself I would be a better role model for the true meaning of the season – giving to others.

While I can’t change my children, I can show them what the season means for me, and hopefully help shape them into adults who recognize you will never become poor from giving. This year more than ever we are buying a lot to give. I’m also buying my kids a couple things each and I thought it might be helpful to share some of their favorites over the years for those of you shopping for kids under 7.

Thanks to my followers I decided to organize an Angel Tree this year to help bless local families who are less fortunate. An Angel Tree is a way to find local families in need who provided a wishlist of items they’d love to be blessed with over the holiday season.

I simply sent a few emails to the Salvation Army to get this organized. I knew my friends would want to help too, but maybe just didn’t know how to get started. I figured if I found the names, they’d help us reach even more families in need this holiday season.

We won’t get our Angel tree picks until around Thanksgiving, but when we do, we will be doing all of our shopping for them at Walmart. While I love the convenience of online shopping, I know some families don’t even have internet access so I wanted any gift exchanges to be simple to do in store. Did you know you can order a gift receipt when you order gifts online at Walmart.com?

I also knew Walmart gift cards would be a blessing for the adults in these families who aren’t needing for toys, but perhaps simple things some might take for granted like clothes and groceries. Walmart has just about everything and most people can get to one fairly quick! If you want to donate Walmart gift cards to your local shelters you can purchase them here.

Holiday Favorite

I’m going to share our advent calendar tradition in a couple weeks, but I couldn’t resist this Lego advent calendar that my kids actually used to count down until the Elf on the Shelf makes is arrival. This would be a fun pre-Christmas surprise for any Lego lovers.

Walmart carries tons of this season’s top rated toys like the Spiderman Web Shooter and the Barbie Dream Plane so I knew we could check off not only my own kids’ wishlists but also the Angel Tree wishlists all in one place. I have a new giving tradition (calling it the GIVING TREE) that I’ll post about in a few weeks along with what we get for the Angel Tree assignments. For today I’m sharing what we donated to another local toy drive and my kids’ most loved toys over the years. As a boy mom I was excited to get some toys for little girls! Here’s what I grabbed to donate:

If you don’t have a specific list of what to get for a child you can also search toys by age! I use this feature when shopping for school birthday parties. Buying birthday party toys online means no whining to buy ALL. THE. THINGS. in store!

I also wanted to share a few of their favorite toys (Cam is 4 and Mac just turned 7) in case you’re shopping for a loved one or looking to donate toys that will be well received.

New Favorite Toy

I’ll share a quick video of how this Hot Wheels Car Wash works on my Instagram Stories. Water is involved so we usually use it on the kitchen island, but when they’re not using the “washing” parts my kids play with this anywhere. It’s light enough that they can move it around the house.

Our Favorites Of The Ages

Again, I’ll share some videos of my kids using these over on Instagram stories. A lot of you have asked me about the Root Beer Float Challenge because you’ve seen us playing it when we have friends over. It is THE MOST FUN GAME! All our friends who played with when they were over went on to purchase the game for their own homes. It makes a great hostess gift!

I also wasn’t going to include our Arcade Basketball Game since Mac’s really only just starting to be able to use it, but so many of you asked for the link when I shared Chris and I in a head to head competition on Instagram stories. We got this basketball set for my brother’s 40th birthday. He’s going to be living with us temporarily so it’s provided a lot of adult fun, but it’s suitable for kids 6 or 7 and up. Can you believe it’s under $60!!!???

I’d love to hear from you guys what toys have stood the test of time in your families! Drop a comment below! And for more holiday content, I’d love for you to check out my holiday shop page for gift gift guides, outfit ideas, and more.

Thank you to Walmart for sponsoring today’s post.