Hello! I have been assigned my Secret Santa children for this season, and I am extremely excited. Also: I have some questions to put to the group-mind.
ONE! Do you use air-freshener thingies in your car? And if so, what would you say are the superior ones—good scents, really work, last a nice long time, not too overwhelming, maybe a little pricey? And separately, do you know which are the COOL ones—like, if you were a teenager?
TWO! If you were looking for a good “dress-up / pretend play” gift for a 2-year-old girl who wears size 4T-5T, and you didn’t know what she might already have, what might you choose? We also know that she loves pink, and dinosaurs. I purchased a couple of really good Melissa & Doug dress-up outfits when my own kids were little, but that was when I knew exactly what they wanted to dress up as (knight, pirate), so I was willing to plunk down a chunk of money on just one outfit. It’s more difficult when I’m not sure. Should I buy one dinosaur suit? Or an assortment of tutus? Maybe she already has the princess/mermaid set. Maybe she’d prefer more of a doctor/construction/astronaut/firefighter set. WHY DON’T THESE FORMS HAVE MORE DETAILED INFORMATION?? I feel like if I were signing up my kid, I would have to be physically stopped from filling up multiple pages.
It’s extra difficult when I can’t even give you an approximate budget. We’re supposed to spend about $100 total per child (I will tell you privately that I fudge this and go higher), and we pick from a list including practical things (bedding, clothes) as well as fun things; so what I typically do is get a whole bunch of ideas for all the categories, and then start narrowing down, depending on what I feel like I have the Best Ideas for. So maybe I will find a dress-up set for $70 and it is the most perfect thing I have ever seen, so I will prioritize that; or maybe I will feel too uncertain about any of the options, so I will skip it and buy other things instead, or I will get a much smaller $10 dress-up item. My FAVORITE is a nice distribution among the categories, so I guess for a dress-up set I would be imagining $20-30.
You might think, as Paul immediately did, that I should prioritize the fun things. But there are TWO Secret-Santa-type programs: one is TOYS ONLY, and that is served by all the toy-collection bins that show up around town, and that is a fairly hearty program. The other is THIS program, which is supposed to have an emphasis on more practical items—but then they list toys, too, which leaves me a little uncertain. I generally LEAN toward the practical, but I try to make them fun (i.e., FUN/character bedding set, COOL clothes), and then I always include items from the toy list as well.
I have gotten distracted from my list and I still have one more question:
THREE! Do you have any particular Little People sets to recommend—especially considering the child is 2 and likes pretend-play? I was browsing the options, and it seemed like some were FUN but I wasn’t sure about the play-value (tree animals, Christmas wonderland); and some had more play-value but it feels more likely the child would already have that set (school, house). On the other hand, we’re supposed to provide gift-receipts, and we bring everything in a couple weeks before Christmas, so there’s no such thing as a an utter disaster: if I accidentally buy something the child already has, the parents can exchange it. I could also do a character/animal set, making the assumption that those could be integrated into existing sets OR played with even without a set.
What a fun post! My kids are 3 and 6 years old, with that in mind they get the most use out of ACCESSORIES, not full costumes. Think: witch hat, witch cloak, tiara, crown, sword, butterfly and angel wings, magic wand, helmet, nurse/doctor stuff etc. Animal masks are also a big hit right now. It takes a lot longer to really grow out of a crown or a sword and it can match a lot of different interests.
This is so extremely helpful and has sent me on an absolute frenzy of adding possible items to my cart. Have you found a particular set of animal masks you like? It’s hard to tell which ones are party favors that might fall apart immediately, and which might be better for long-term play. (I should say…I AM willing to shop on Amazon for this.)
We got our animal masks as hand-me-downs, so unfortunately, I can’t tell you which brand they were. While looking it up I also found a unicorn headband, a pirate-themed hat and eye patch and an animal themed flashlight. The latter wasn’t originally meant to be an accessory for our costume treasure chest, but our kids use it a lot while playing (pirates use it while hunting for treasures or fairy’s use it while looking for unicorns in distress… or something).
Agree with this! a tutu + a tiara + a wand + ~wings~! (I have a 4 yo)
WIGS. Just regular adult-person wigs. They love them so much, at all ages!
I second this! My 4 kids, all preferred the accessories. My 4 yr old took a hatchet to the store today.
Butterfly wings
Belt with pouch (looked like an old WWI belt) was extremely popular.
A wig my daughter called “hair hat”
Mardi Gras beads and leis
Sheriffs badge
skirts – kids can put on top of their clothes (ballerina/princess/spin worthy)
Home Depot like Apron with big pockets
Cape
Glasses
We had whole costumes but no one ever put them on. Just the accessories.
Can’t give more perfect advice than that for the dress up question! I am sadly very far out of the Little People years but I feel like vehicles were always a big hit and useful for so many different types of play. For air fresheners, I personally enjoy a noticeable fragrance and like the Bath and Body works ones (the clip on visor ones are better than the mirror hangers imo). The teens still seem to be into the BBW scents too.
This kind of program is also my answer to the sadness of being done with the fun kid Christmas years. Highly recommend to anyone feeling the same….we get families through our children’s hospital.
Yes to the Bath and Body Works air fresheners! They have really cute holders that clip in a vent or onto a visor. I have a succulent air freshener holder that I love.
I see that all the play sets you chose were plastic, but when my older daughter was 2 or 3 she received a set of wood Haba blocks with a lot of plain wood shapes and an assortment of very simple painted figures (adult people, kid people, farm animals, trees). That set had TONS of play value, and age wise lasted a long time. My girls are elementary age now and they still use the blocks for various constructions. I see that Haba brand sets are quite expensive, but the simplicity is the idea because it’s not just a City or a Farm or a Store. It can be whatever. Happy shopping!!
Yes–it’s because the parents specifically mentioned Little People on the wish list! I want to make sure I get compatible items.
I bought a lot of dressup items for my youngest daughter for Christmas when she was three. I ended up going to a cheap resale shop and buying a variety of sparkly accessories and totally random clothes. Not costumes, exactly, but things like a long sparkly blue dress in her size, a fedora, a sparkly red baseball hat, a bejeweled skirt, and butterfly wings. I ended up with about 10-15 items for $30, and then I packed them up in an old suitcase so she had a place to keep them. It was so much fun to put together.
My kids loved the Little People farm, and I think we had the bus too. My parents had the castle, and that wasn’t as popular with my kids as one might think. I remember them playing with the car garage at a friends’ house and they enjoyed it a lot – the kind that has an offramp. But then, they were super into cars. Oh! I just remembered! The Noah’s ark was a bit hit, with all the animals!
It might be too late but checking Target or Walmart or some other similar store for their discounted Halloween costumes and accessories would be good for dress up items. Have the Spirit Halloween stores closed yet?
I got my youngest’s favorite dress up costumes on the sale rack after Halloween. They were $3 each. She wore the heck out of them. One was a dinosaur that she paired with a set of fairy wings to become a dragon.
Little Adventures makes the best dress up clothes for little girls! Comfy and they hold up well. As for the Little People, whatever set has the most actual people, not the random accessories. My kids always played with the people the most. I asked my teenager about the car air freshener and he did not know, and neither do I.
For #3, my kids love the Little People Everyday Adventures Airport and the School Bus Musical Toddler Toy Vehicle. It’s fun to get some extra people too.
My kids have a set of colorful tutus, satin skirts, and vaguely Disney Princess satin tops. They add some Sarah’s Silks playsilks and a good cape and turn the combos into EVERYTHING.
I’d love to get my very dress-up-y daughter a fancy dress and a matching doll dress, eg
https://littleadventures.com/collections/dress-ups/products/deluxe-rapunzel
And
https://littleadventures.com/collections/doll-dress-ups-stuffed-animals/products/doll-dress-classic-rapunzel
I am also eyeing this cotton firefighter costume
https://mylittleuniform.com/shop/childrens-firefighter-costume/
And doll
https://www.ebay.com/itm/277299047345
That firefighter costume looks amazing. My daughter is a firefighter and it looks very realistic, just like their turnout gear.
One of the longest lasting costumes we had was a good quality black and pink satin witch hat and cloak. It was used from age 2 to 12+.
For the car air freshener, in Australia we have “Smelly Balls” (haha) and they are very popular. Another brand does a “felt flower air freshener” that’s similar
DRIFT Car Air Fresheners. I prefer the TEAK scent, but they are all excellent. The fun thing about it is that an annual subscription is about $10 a month and I think that’s a great gift because the recipient will receive a new one every month all year. They can set it to send the same scent every month, or they will get the “scent of the month” for something a little different.
When the new insert arrives ($10 a month is for the wood one. There’s also a “stone” one that’s a little more expensive.) the leftover one still has quite a bit of fragrance left, so I use those to scent up small spaces like desk drawers, my gym bag, and my purse. The wood version is about the size of a business card and very lightweight so it’s portable.
My senior in high school daughter likes the air fresheners from Bath and Body Works, it has a clip to the vent holder and you can fill it with different cartridges. Like this: https://www.bathandbodyworks.com/p/black-matte-026637387
My same senior in high school daughter LOVED and I mean LOVED the greatest gift my MIL ever got her, which was a kind of plastic chest filled with random dress up stuff. She bought stuff as she found it right after Halloween, so there were plastic beads in there, cute princess shoes, random crowns and hats, an apron, some dresses, a doctor jacket and stethoscope, it was adorable and that girl played with it for hours and hours at a time. I loved it because then I had a place to put random dress up things and add to it. It was really great.
I don’t have a specific Little People set but I know that 100 years ago, my siblings and I never stopped playing with the school or the farm we had. There’s something about a school!
The Little People set I was going to recommend is not being sold right now but it was a jungle safari set that lights up and makes noises. It was so immersive, and my boys could play with it as crawlers and walkers. There were sound effects like thunder and rain, music, and a zipline for the animals to ride in a basket from the trees to the bridge I think.
Dress up accessories for the win! My son got a magic hat at age 4 and had fun pulling things out of the hat; he also loved being a pirate. At 8 he still plays with swords, and uses animal print scarves or robe ties to make a tail when he’s being an animal. They also turn winter scarves into leashes, reins, a teddy bear carrier, and even a magician’s rope to tie up their hands and see if they can escape.
That reminds me of the waldorf movement where parents get their kids silks to play with as a pretend play accessory. Some people get really into the expensive ones, but a set of colorful scarves would be fun to pretend with. They could be used as a cape, or for juggling, or throw them in the air like leaves.
Little People Farm was the longest-running hit in my house, and my niece and all her friends love the airplane (the friends reliably try to bring the airplane home with them after play dates).
I have a 5 and 7 year old. If I was going to get just one set – I would think seriously about the Melissa and Doug vet costume! So cute and comes with doctor kit items so kind of two and one. Maybe that plus some butterfly wings, a crown, and a tutu or something.
Re LIttle People – could you get a duplo set instead? Many of the same elements but then can also be used for building down the road. This construction one has been a big hit in my house: https://www.target.com/p/lego-duplo-town-truck-38-tracked-excavator-toy-10931/-/A-78929927#lnk=sametab. Or the farm one?
If you are looking for a standalone car freshener product (vs the ones with refill cartridges), I use the Yankee Candle ones in my car – usually I go for the coconut scent and it lasts a long time (https://www.yankeecandle.com/yankee-candle/car/car-air-freshener-styles/car-jar-ultimate/coconut-beach/SAP_1536293.html). They are inexpensive so you could get a couple of scents to try, and sometimes I can find them at local stores like BJs. As a 48-year-old, though, I have no idea which particular scents are popular among the teens ;-).
Another option: While searching for the YC link above, I stumbled on these car fresheners that look adorable – I am tempted to get some for my daughter for her stocking: https://cecraft.co/collections/car-fresheners.
I would do a Skye paw patrol costume!
Little People – in my experience the most play came from the people and vehicle sets. At my inlaws they have the farm and the Frozen castle which were beloved. I have smaller pieces, not full sets. The school bus and tractor have always been a big hit, and my nieces played with the smaller vehicles with people for a long time. (The mini ice cream truck and helicopter were played with for years beyond infant/toddler)
https://www.meijer.com/shopping/product/fisher-price-little-people-small-vehicle-assortment/19473517048.html
https://www.kohls.com/product/prd-5764990/fisher-price-little-people-caring-for-animals-tractor-gift-set.jsp
https://www.kohls.com/product/prd-7532583/kohls-cares-mattel-80th-little-people-ice-cream-truck-2-pc-playset-with-figures-books.jsp
I wonder if Swistle or another reader who remembers could put in a link to how Swistle found this program? I would love (LOVE) to buy $100 (ish) dollars worth of things for 1 or 2 specific kids not my own, but I can’t seem to find a similar program near where I live. I would like to see if I can replicate Swistle’s looking process to find the right program.
Oh, interesting. For me, the organization running it is a well-known one in town, and they do a good job of advertising. I don’t remember how I first found out about this specific program, but probably on Facebook or something similar: I’ve seen it advertised both as a service (“sign up now if your family needs help”) and as an opportunity (“sign up now if you want to help”). It’s also mentioned on their website under ways to donate/help. They call it “adopting a family for the holidays,” if that phrase might be helpful.
If I were new to an area and wanted to find out if there was something similar, I would probably start by looking up local food/clothing pantries, and browsing their websites to see if they had any information on something like this. I might also contact the local department of social services—anywhere involved with foster care programs, welfare, financial assistance, shelter, etc.; they would likely know which local organizations were filling this need. Or I might go down to the library and see what was on their bulletin board: many social-benefit organizations post on library and town/city hall bulletin boards.
This is very helpful! Thanks
The Angel Tree program through the Salvation Army is the one I’m most familiar with, but I’m sure there are others.
I haven’t tried these but they were just advertised to me on Instagram and I thought of you: https://olauto.com/collections/1
We received a used Little People school bus when my kid turned 2 and she lost her damn toddler mind over it. She is about to be 6 and it is still used very regularly and is the most popular toy when other kids come over. Anything with wheels will be well loved in my experience!
Hi, from a late to the game mom of 2yo and 4yo girls. Another vote for accessories, even better if said accessories come with a small, practical storage container. Doctor and vet sets are big in our house right now. As are cat ears. So many cat ears…
We are a Little People household. The school buses are the most played with by my kids and visitors. The large one with a pull handle is especially popular. ALL the Little People get stuffed in and taken for rides. The girls fight over the wheelchair passenger.