I don’t have any children (that I know of, heh) and very few of my close friends have kids, but I believe that children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way. Which means you want kids to be smart and interesting and creative and so on, and not just pawns in a corporate conglomerate chess game, where every cartoon is a secret marketing ploy for a made-in-China non-bio-degradable thingamajig that will only be entertaining for three hours on December 25th. As a kid, I spent a lot of time in museums, and I think some of the best presents for kids can be found in an institution devoted to arts or sciences. Yeah, that’s right, I’m one of those people who believes in edjumacational gifts, okay? Here are some suggestions…
Chances are, the kid’s parents are going to get him something that requires batteries, that has gears and lights and a motherboard and bells and whistles. So I feel like it’s cool to go the opposite way and offer something aggressively low-tech. Wood and magnets. That’s it. You have to use your imagination, pretend the carpet is a bubbling brook, and there might be flesh-eating piranas out to get you! Simple never goes out of style, never breaks, and a kid could pass this charming fishing set down to his kid. Plus! Have you ever held a well-loved piece of wood in your hand? Such a great feeling.
Wooden fishing play set, $35, MoMA store.
I would so get this for a little girl who loves adventure. Comic book superheroes are fine, but they’re not real. If you want to fly high, you just need some math skills and discipline! Totally attainable goal!
Junior fighter pilot suit, $49; Astronaut suit, $49, Smithsonian store.
(Throw in the Space Shuttle construction set for a truly out of this world kid.)
I spent a lot of third, fourth and fifth grade being obsessed with Egyptology. In my day, they didn’t have archaeology kits where you have to interpret hieroglyphs to unlock a pyramid, and use a hammer, brush, and chisel to excavate a replica of a tiny sarcophagus and some mini canopic jars. If they had, I would have lost my mind. So damn cool.
Egyptian pyramid archaeology kit, $25, Metropolitan Museum Of Art.
I did have Fun With Heiroglyphs when I was a kid. It turned my journal, gift tags and notes to friends into super-secret language missives.