Hanukkah Gifts for Kids: Eight Nights, Eight Kinds of Gift
Eight nights is a structure, not a shopping list. One main night and seven small ones, with a price range and a job for each night.
Gifts for a Friend’s Child That Fit
Buying for a friend’s child is the lowest-information gift situation there is. You know the age — roughly — and not much else. You are not close enough to ask…
Gifts for Nieces & Nephews: Aunts and Uncles
Aunts and uncles have one real advantage over parents as gift buyers: no maintenance. You can buy the messy thing, the loud thing, the thing that takes over a corner…
Gifts for Grandchildren: From a Distance
Buying for a grandchild is a different problem from buying for your own child, and the difference is not sentiment — it is information. You may see the child a…
Back to School Gifts: Useful, Not a Chore
Back to school is the one gift occasion where the present has a job. That is also its risk: anything that looks like homework gets treated like homework, however good…
Easter Gifts for Kids: Beyond Chocolate
Easter has an unusual shape as a gift occasion: the gift is small, it is usually one of several, and the setting is outdoors in spring. Those three facts decide…
Stocking Stuffers for Kids: Small Gifts Under $25, by Age
A stocking has two limits and neither of them is about the toy: it has to fit inside the sock, and it has to stay under about twenty-five dollars. That…
Birthday Gifts for Kids: Age, Then Interest
A birthday is the simplest gift problem on paper — one child, one date, no budget to split — and the easiest one to get subtly wrong, because there is…
Christmas Gifts for Kids: 10 Ideas by Age
Christmas is the one gift in the year where the deadline is fixed and the shops get worse the closer you leave it. That changes the decision more than most…
Gifts Under $100: Buying Equipment, Not Toys
A hundred dollars is the band where gifts become equipment. Scooters with real brakes, balance bikes, easels, 100-piece block sets, a fitted helmet — the things a child keeps for…