Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Our Favourites and Our Bests 2: Quick and Dirty

Some quick ideas for Christmas presents.

1. We don't have a doll's house. We did have my old one from childhood, but it began to fall apart - sob. We really had no room for it anyway. But we do have lots of dolls house furniture, some from ikea and some very sweet wooden stuff that we picked up from a garage sale. You don't need to have a dolls house to love the furniture, there's the floor, or you can temporarily clear a space on a bookshelf, or use a shoebox. Lots of little toys you already have will probably fit on it - Polly Pocket, teeny tiny knitted toys like these ones from Little Cotton Rabbits...

2. Drawing stuff. Well, der. But my kids start every day with drawings at the dinner table. One of our favourite things are watercolour pencils. Also black lead (graphite) pencils and plain white paper. And the other day after watching this video (below) we got out the pastels and Fred and Una both produced some lovely lovely drawings.

3. Mia is great. Una and Fred both spend a lot of their computer time playing free games online - mostly at Poisson Rouge and Boowa and Kwala. But we bought Mia's Language Adventure a while ago (then lost it then recently found it again) and it's ace! It's a bit more involved than a lot of the online games, and Una really enjoys it. We'll get the science one too sometime.

4. Board games. Our kids love Uno.

5. CDs and DVDs. Our biggest hits with the girls this year have been Mamma Mia (be prepared to answer questions about 3 daddies) and the Jimmies (and stuff the kids, this is MY favourite song at the moment):

Music-wise, both the girls are listening to the Jimmies, Ralph's World, Abba, Hannah Montana and, on constant repeat at bedtime, Down to the River to Pray from the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. Their favourite collective song is the Rolling Stones song Wild Horses as covered by Iron and Wine.

6. I asked on Twitter the other day if anyone had perfume samples and got a lightning fast response from the lovely Gabrielle Wang. So they will be going into Fred's stocking. Una will be getting a packet of bandaids in hers. And we'll probably get both girls a new toothbrush. What? New toothbrush is a big event in this house!

3 comments:

  1. I am currently writing an essay...

    (oh doesn't that sound posh, in fact its little more than writing out my thoughts ;) )

    ...on the weird mashup that is the Christmas nativity story vs the mamma mia obsession K has at the moment.

    p.s Our kids are getting electric toothbrushes in their stocking. Not that I approve of electric toothbrushes, really, but Adam went out and bought them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. oh damn, why didn't I hold back the toothbrush for Christmas? They're an exciting thing around here, especially as they are one of the things that slip through with merchandising on them....

    am a bit stuck for a few little things for the stocking that are cheap, useful, thrilling and not just useless plastic crap. Although I think I may lash out and get some new farm animals - had forgotten about the drawing stuff - G normally buys that but like you said it's an obvious one and we could do with a refresh there....

    ok starting to get a bit excited now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, bandaids, hair ties, cute soaps, new school socks. Father Christmas is a very practical stocking stuffer in our house too.

    ReplyDelete