Overall, I think we did fairly well on the present front, not too much tat. In a way, we are lucky that my family is overseas and posting presents is extortionate. So they, tend to send money for me to buy presents for our daughter. I really like this as it allows me to control what she gets and I tend to know what she needs/would like. We did our best not to spoil her but in hindsight she did get a lot. Here are her top 5 Christmas Presents.
Number 5
A Princess Tent from Santa, as a family we were torn on how to handle gifts from Santa. Too be honest, we didn’t want him taking all the credit for our hard work. At one point we were just going to have him bring the stocking, but in the end we decided one main present from him would be good.
The Princess Tent is designed for the garden but for the time being, we are going to keep it inside until the spring. At first, I was a bit worried that it would be too small for her but boy was I wrong! At the moment, it’s dominating our rather small lounge. It was fairly easy to put together and you can feel the quality, the canvas cover is robust and the wooden frame is sturdy. At the moment we haven’t secured it with the screws as we may want to put it up and down. As you can see it’s gorgeous and I’m sure her and her friends will have fun playing in it.
Number 4
Kerplunk – a game that I loved to play as a child; it’s changed a bit but still great fun. We’ve really been enjoying playing it as a family, but we’ve noticed that my daughter has a very competitive streak and likes to change the rules as we go along. I think she gets this from her Grandmother who is fiercely competitive when it comes to games.
Number 3
My daughter’s main present, after a lot of thought, was a Puppet Theatre, but what I really like about this one is when you turn it around it turns into a shop. At the moment she tends to prefer the shop. We spent the evening playing Toy Store; however, I find her shop very expensive as everything costs £50 and she doesn’t take IOUs!
Number 2
Prior to Christmas, I tried to ask her what she wanted for Christmas and I really struggled to get something sensible out of her. The last time I asked she said she would like a yellow dress, red handbag and pink bunny costume. Luckily, a friend of mine who has a penchant for Prada and the colour red jumped in and offered to sort out the red hand bag. Phew!
Number 1
To go with her Puppet Theatre we bought a collection of Hand Puppets from the Puppet Company. As she is currently in a Princess phase we opted for Fairytale Characters. As you can see they are absolutely gorgeous. Mummy and daddy could use some work on their puppetry skills, but we are getting the hang of it. Last night we did renditions of ‘we’re off to see the Wizard’, ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’, ‘if you want to be a Prince stand up tall’ and ‘I’m a Little Princess’ sung to the tune of I’m a Little Teapot. We’re looking forward to many more productions.
Wishing you all the best in 2012!
Disclosure: For the record Santa did not bring the Princess Tent. It was a gift from the company.
