All 4 of my kids are into scratch but are sort of hitting a wall doing it online, and they also have expressed interest in robotics, so I did research on the two and came up with the mBot series of robots.

For the 11 and 9 year old: the mBot Ultimate (https://www.makeblock.com/pages/mbot-ultimate-robotics-kit)

For the 7 and 5 year old: I wasnt sure whether to go with the mBot Ranger or the mBot2 Rover and went with the Rover (https://www.makeblock.com/products/buy-mbot2-rover-emo-robot)

3 wheeled scooters and a Switch 2

Lego and Sketch book with coloring pens.

My daughter (29) is getting a filing cabinet and pastel folders. And a cute EDC kit with knife, pen, and screwdriver. My grandson (2) is getting books, little people, and a cheap drone that floats and is controlled by hand movements.

My 5-year-old loves the British series Numberblocks, and they have lots of licensed toys.

beyond the normal stuff: a microscope, speks mini magnetic balls, 3d pen, japanese snacks.

My kids are 23 and 28 and both live on their own. We gave them $1000 each. One to help move and the other to get tires for his car.

A subscription to ChatGPT of course. Not like they'd ever get a job in the new world anyway...

16 nearly 17

Chromebook

Some paper books

Battlefield 6

Board game

One 8 y/o one 3y/o This year:

- Transformer robots

- Origami book & papers

- Some ski gear

- Metal detector

- Climbing harness & slings etc (small climbing frame in the grander they like to attach to and just kinda swing about)

- Kids Cookbook

Past Years Winners:

- Magnatiles - both have loved these, one of the most used toys and reasonably open-ended

- Diablo - the circus toy thing

- Modu - https://modutoy.com

- Potions kit - just a bunch of small pots etc with random glitter and what not in them. pretty good one for an upcycling project

- Playdough - classic for a reason, also DIY'able Little printer roll instant print camera

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5 year old - laser tag, brain rot toys 8 year old - roller skates, make up/face paint

And just random stocking stuffers / books, etc.

One neat thing we found was a frog dissection toy - https://www.thewarehouse.co.nz/p/slimy-dissect-mini-frog-wit...

A wooden train set for my toddler-aged son.

Microbit for my 7yr old kid.

I think it will be B&N gift cards for my just-about-to-be-teen daughters. It will encourage them to buy and use something physical whether drawing supplies or books. Fingers crossed.

I've been giving cash and encouraging them to put it into diversified exchange traded funds. I may offer to match any returns for a year this time, so they are less likely to spend it all. It's a tough sell for young people but I want to help them develop good habits early.

College tuition

I am giving my 6 year old girl an old acer netbook that boots directly to pico-8. This will be her first computing experience. She never had access to phones or tablets.

My daughter and her boyfriend - matching headsets for gaming (one black and one pink). My son (who is a Marine) a box full of snacks that he cant get overseas.

Another year of life (I have zero kids)

My 10yo wants a shirt of footballer Alcavo Carreras and my 9yo a book about earth minerals. I refused them a 1.2E payment to Roblox.

I don't have kids and my family is abusive, so I'll probably find the homeless folks I used to vent to during COVID around the neighborhood and pay them to listen to another airing of grievances with pizza on Festivus[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus