M
Mike_from_NJ
Guest
I know there are plenty of aunts, uncles, and grandparents here. And I know for some when getting gifts for kids (especially older ones) they have to resort to buying gift cards because you can’t tell what the want, need, or already have.
I’ve done something for the past two Christmases for my six nephews and three nieces (ages 11 to 21) enjoyed.
You need:
The second year I played around with it. The envelope contained riddles to open the padlock (e.g. The number of "la"s in the first verse of Deck the Hells, The number of green Advent candles). Inside the toolbox was a ziplock bag with scrabble tiles and a CD. The CD had some Christmas sound bites as red herrings. The tiles unscrambled to read “play track ten” and that was a few notes from the song “Christmas Wrappings” (a la Name That Tune). They checked the wrapping paper I used and saw in tiny print the next clue. The answers to the last clue were 7, 7, and Matthew. My two altar boy nephews quickly knew it was “Matthew 7:7” (“Ask and thou shalt receive…”) When they read it out they asked for their present and I gave them the gift cards.
And with something like this it’s easy to shape it to the kids. I’d just say keep it light. Be ready to give hints quickly to keep things moving. Keep it short, with no more than 4 or 5 steps in total. Most importantly just have fun. I really like this because it gets all the cousins to work together and keeps them off the phones all that time!
I’ve done something for the past two Christmases for my six nephews and three nieces (ages 11 to 21) enjoyed.
You need:
- A small toolbox or other container that can be shut with a padlock (I got one at Loews for $20)
- A combination padlock (again, cheap at Loews)
- Some spare time
- Permission from the party host to open your present early and have the kids be busy for 15-20 minutes
The second year I played around with it. The envelope contained riddles to open the padlock (e.g. The number of "la"s in the first verse of Deck the Hells, The number of green Advent candles). Inside the toolbox was a ziplock bag with scrabble tiles and a CD. The CD had some Christmas sound bites as red herrings. The tiles unscrambled to read “play track ten” and that was a few notes from the song “Christmas Wrappings” (a la Name That Tune). They checked the wrapping paper I used and saw in tiny print the next clue. The answers to the last clue were 7, 7, and Matthew. My two altar boy nephews quickly knew it was “Matthew 7:7” (“Ask and thou shalt receive…”) When they read it out they asked for their present and I gave them the gift cards.
And with something like this it’s easy to shape it to the kids. I’d just say keep it light. Be ready to give hints quickly to keep things moving. Keep it short, with no more than 4 or 5 steps in total. Most importantly just have fun. I really like this because it gets all the cousins to work together and keeps them off the phones all that time!
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