- A cheap calculator (ze still loves this!)
- A watch (these are popular until lost)
- Books (depending on the size of your stocking)
- Small stuffed animal (popular probably until school starts up again)
- Logic puzzles (including tangrams)
- Small video games
- Slinkie (popular until it dies a contorted bent mess as all slinkies do)
- yo-yo
- Balls
- Kite, jump rope (really better for Easter baskets)
- Markers/colored pencils (if I were smart I would have picked up some from back to school sales)
- Other office supplies, like post-it notes
- Stationery? (Santa wouldn’t be mean enough to put in thank you cards, would he?)
Do you have any suggestions? Santa wants to know.
December 11, 2012 at 2:56 am
-stamps and ink pad, my oldest loves these
-play doh
-cars
-Christmas ornament
-hair accessories (pretty gender specific and something one of my kids would love but not the other)
December 11, 2012 at 9:42 am
Good ideas. Face paint?
December 11, 2012 at 9:45 am
If you don’t mind the laundry
December 11, 2012 at 11:17 am
Obviously some of these are not very nerd like, but I also like to indulge in non- nerd like gifts:).
December 11, 2012 at 5:20 am
mind teaser objects like a rubix cube or interlocking piecey thingies (omg that was vague like these http://www.frik-n-frak.com/Brain-Teaser-Puzzles-Index_c_59.html bed bath and beyond has sets for $5 and $10)
December 11, 2012 at 7:32 am
Wait, there’s a stocking stuffer that will keep my kid stationary ;) ? Where do I get it? Can I buy in bulk?
Amazon has nice, small (stockingstuffable, at least for ours) maze books, cheap ($1.50), and I think they’re currently buy-3-get-one. Ikea has a nice wind-up flashlight here: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30190857/ . Madlibs are popular in our house, though they require parental help (for our kid, now) and are probably too big to stuff. Dominoes are always wonderful, but again, stuffability probably varies.
December 11, 2012 at 7:35 am
Man, I always spell that incorrectly. Good with a lot of homophones, but not that one.
December 11, 2012 at 8:00 am
Yeah, it’s a doozy. And so much fun!
December 11, 2012 at 7:34 am
Santa usually brings one toy that is bigger than the rest in the stocking- I suspect this year it will be a small LEGO set (less than $10) for Pumpkin and a cutting workbook for for Petunia, who has been totally enamored with scissors lately!
December 11, 2012 at 9:44 am
mmmm legos. There is also a small, handheld, circular 20-questions machine for slightly older kids (and adults!). Fun socks with silly designs, if your kid is into that.
December 11, 2012 at 10:06 am
My then-six-year-old daughter loved her fingernail stickers last year and baseball cards are fun for my son. My area Target store has a dollar area and you can find lots of silly fun stuff there. It’s also great for Easter baskets.
December 11, 2012 at 10:40 am
Our Target had fun kids socks and glow sticks in the dollar section, which I picked up for little nieces and newphews.
December 11, 2012 at 11:04 am
Silly putty (and also http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f103/), bubbles, kaleidoscope, playing cards, giant microbes, glow in the dark stars for putting up constellations on the ceiling, geeky stickers (google found many such- but some are not suitable for geeklets), origami paper, dice (including non-6 sided ones), magnets/magnetic poetry.
Also, cards from http://www.etsy.com/shop/electricboogaloo
Gah. I was doing so well with not wanting to buy stuff too.
December 11, 2012 at 11:29 am
Silly Putty! Totally.
Also, kitschy/funny wind up toys that hop.
December 12, 2012 at 6:21 pm
ooh, I love dice! My mom sometimes gets us random dice in our stockings. Stamps are fun (I got a lot this year because I always stamp my students’ homework, and my mom has made it her mission to give me enough stamps for each day of the school year, it seems). I also got a little flashlight, some stickers, socks, a fun pen, a nail file, a fun change purse (owl shaped!), and some temporary tattoos. Man, from that list, you’d think I were a little kid too, except for the nail file.
December 14, 2012 at 2:01 am
[...] Blog roundup – PF related and other interesting articles from around the web Nicole and Maggie on great ideas for stocking stuffers if you still haven’t done your Xmas shopping yet Modest [...]
December 14, 2012 at 4:56 pm
In my 5 yr old’s stocking: dinosaur that gets bigger in water (totally into dino’s and LOVE watching the current Christmas tree grow), DIY paint & assemble wooden airplanes and a Matchbox helicopter.
In the 3 yr old’s: shoelace threading wooden butterflies, glitter letter A and foam flower stickers (both to decorate one of her gifts), and a princess pencil with princess eraser.
We made out with $5 or less for each and just enough to make opening a stocking exciting, lol.
December 17, 2012 at 1:58 am
[...] mentioned before that we don’t buy Christmas presents for our children other than stocking stuffers. This year is no exception– I still need to buy candy and I picked up some fun smaller [...]