48 Sure-to-Please Holiday Gift Ideas

It’s fun to shop for presents—but it can also be exhausting. So why shop the stores (or spend hours online) when you can consult our guide to the best presents ever? Kids are bound to love these gifts because we filled our list with winners.

For Kids Who Love Make-Believe

1. Fire hats, police badges, character costumes, and dress-up clothes
2. A child-size kitchen set with plastic food to “cook and serve”
3. Pretend home-repair and housekeeping items, such as plastic tools, pots and pans, utensils, and cardboard or plastic grocery-store favorites
4. A dollhouse, complete with furniture and rooms to decorate
5. A pretend tea set for entertaining

For Kids Who Treasure Quiet-Time Play

6. Farm- and zoo-animal play sets with richly detailed features to encourage learning about nature
7. Plastic dinosaurs (because it’s just so super cool to have a dinosaur collection)
8. Awesome new collectibles, including anime figures, superheroes, shiny coins, rocks and minerals, palm-size trains, tiny planes, and mini cars with moveable parts, character dolls, baseballs, hockey pucks, and, of course, any or all accessories
9. Tabletop puzzles
10. Giant floor puzzles
11. Puzzle books
12. Beads to string
13. Interlocking blocks for building
14. Wood shapes to stack and sort
15. A sand table, buckets, and strainers
16. A water table and cups

For Outdoor Adventurers

17. Kid-size binoculars, a telescope, or a microscope set
18. Made-for-little-ones gardening tools, a watering can, and seeds
19. Pail-and-shovel combos
20. A wheelbarrow
21. A tunnel to crawl through
22. A wagon

For Kids Who Love to Move

23. A swing set
24. A slide
25. A tire swing
26. A mini basketball hoop and ball
27. A balance beam
28. Kid-size golf clubs and balls
29. A monkey bar
30. A climbing wall
31. A jungle gym
32. Fitness hoops
33. Sports gear for youth T-ball, basketball, lacrosse, or soccer

For Creative Thinkers

34. Modeling clay
35. A guitar
36. A keyboard
37. A xylophone
38. Maracas
39. A harmonica
40. An accordion
41. Tambourines
42. Jazz, tap, gymnastic, or ballet shoes
43. Books. Books. And more books
44. A digital watch
45. An analog watch
46. An awesome backpack

For Kids Who Like To Snuggle

47. One odd-looking but totally huggable giant stuffed animal
48. Just-perfect-for-bedtime small stuffed animals; fabric and lifelike dolls; and age-appropriate miniature figures to  take care of  and carry around