Giving Kids the Gift of an Experience
Our kids get receive one gift from us under the tree and one gift from us (Santa) next to their stocking.
One of our favorite things to give them is the gift of an experience. One year Miriam opened her present to find riding boots and a hat. Inside was a promise of horse lessons for the coming year.
Ballet lessons were on Emma’s list and she discovered ballet shoes under the tree with a surprise to make them extra special: ballet lessons.
For both Miriam and Emma that year their presents lasted much longer than any of the gifts they unwrapped. Not to mention that they made new friends, learned new skills, and discovered new talents.
Their gifts that Christmas created great memories for them throughout the year…and now they have stories to tell.
Getting to have an experience builds kids in a way a store bought gift can’t…
As Miriam learned to ride a horse she became more confident, grew to love her horse, Butterscotch, deeply and care for her every time she went to lessons. Miriam would talk about what she would try next time to push Butterscotch or to help do better at the next practice. Her excitement over the horses and everything she was learning were awesome!
Emma had been wanting to take ballet for ages. Once she was in class she wasn’t sure she loved it as much as she thought she was going to…until they started practicing for the ballet school’s Hansel and Gretel performance. That’s when things changed. Emma loved the thrill of performing and wearing her costume.
How to gift an experience:
Football camp…wrap up a football and some catching gloves (put a note inside the gloves with a poem saying they’re going to football camp)
Voice lessons…wrap their favorite sheet music that they’ve been wanting to learn…hide a note inside that says they’ll be learning this song with their new voice lesson coach
Golf courses…give a bucket of balls and at the bottom of the bucket put a note that announces their new golf classes.
Please share in the comments (I’d love to hear):
- What are some Experience Gifts that you have you given to your kids?
- How do you wrap your gifts that are an experience?
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Davina Fear is a Familyness Adventurer. She is addicted to self-help books and listening to Christmas music.
She blogs at davinafear.com and believes the real life is the best adventure.
6 Comments
You always inspire me! Keep going! We need your gentle reminders! :))))
Thank you, Laura! I so appreciate you!
I LOVE the idea of gifting experiences!!!!! I opted for this for our family this year and it’s been so much fun! We’re going to concerts and weekend getaways for our presents and I couldn’t be more excited! Making memories rather than creating more clutter in my house 🙂 Loved this post!
I agree! Less clutter is a good thing. 🙂 We’ve had our kids make a bucket list type of list so that we can start fulfilling dreams and having awesome experiences. I’m so excited about some of the things that they want to do!
oh! i love this!!!
i am not a fan of adding to the clutter and “stuff” in our house. last year we got bikes 🙂 this year Liana will get a computer so she can start blogging and researching all the things she wants to learn about. a little bit of a different experience, but certainly not video games or plastic rubbish toys!
i also ordered the set of books from Keri Smith (wreck this journal etc), one for each of us so we can work through them over the summer break!
What great gifts, Renee! Bikes are so fun! And I love that Liana is going to get the opportunity to start a blog this year. Wow! I got a Keri Smith journal too! 🙂