What do your 6-12 year olds want for Christmas?

As a lucky Mummy who gets to review lots of lovely things I wanted to produce a Christmas Gift Guide for my Mummy Matters readers. Each year I find the task of choosing gifts gets harder and harder because these days children already have so much but whilst looking around for ideas I came across the results of a survey by Shopzilla who asked the question “What do 6-12 year olds want for Christmas” and I have to say I wasn’t at all surprised by the results.

I have tried thinking back to the kind of gifts I was receiving between the ages of 6 and 12, there would definitely have been a few craft projects as I have always loved being creative, there would no doubt have been music of some description because you can never have too much music. I would have received clothes and perhaps a new doll or a game of some description but when I was that age we didn’t really have techy gadgets, they didn’t come along until later. But these days its what our children are used to, my son Beanie Boy can already find his way around a few of the games on my iPod Touch and I don’t think he’s far off mastering the remote control for the TV (much to Mummy’s dismay!).

The problem of course is, technology does not come cheap. Last year for Christmas I quickly had to jump in with an explanation for Curly when he looked at the three piles of Christmas presents in the lounge. His was the smallest and he made the comment “wow, Little Bean and Beanie Boy have done well haven’t they”. I reminded him that all three receive the same value of presents but that his toys are far more technical which means they cost more and therefore he has the smaller pile. He seemed happy enough with this explanation although I did hear him discussing it again with his Dad later who gave him the same explanation as I had done.

In the poll by Shopzilla the average spend per child was highlighted to be approximately £167, with boys expecting their presents to total £183 and girls coming slightly under at £155.

Our children look up to us as parents and want to be mini versions of us with their own mobile phones, digital cameras and laptops. My husband came home from work a few nights ago saying that one of his colleagues was astonished that his 11 year old son had come home and told him that he wanted an iPad2 for Christmas. His Dad has responded by saying “do you know how much those things cost?” and his son said “yeah but I want one”, needless to say he won’t be getting one. Children definitely think that money grows on trees, I had a similar discussion with Little Bean a few days ago when she asked if we could go out for lunch. I told her that we couldn’t as I didn’t have any pennies, she replied with “Nanna has lots of pennies, you can just get some from her”. Nanna found this highly hilarious!

In the survey 14% of the children said they no longer played with their top present and 12% couldn’t even remember what their top present was!!

But to help you out a little this is what the children surveyed said they wanted for Christmas:

Top 10 most-wanted GIRLS toys and gifts:

1. Laptop/tablet

2. Digital camera

3. Nintendo 3DS

4. Electronic pet

5. Cars 2 Toy

6. A real pet (not a toy)

7. Mobile phone/smartphone

8. Games for a computer console

9. Lego

10. Games Console

Top 10 most-wanted BOYS toys and gifts:

1. Laptop/tablet

2. Electronic pet

3. Nintendo 3DS

4. Digital camera

5. Cars 2 Toy

6. Games for a computer console

7. Lego

8. Mobile phone/smartphone

9. Games Console

10. Moshi Monsters

 

So what about your children? What are they asking for this Christmas and more importantly, will they get it?

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