2011 Holiday Gift Guide – Suggestions For Kids/Tweens
(Be sure to check out all the other great Gift Guide items and giveaways here.)
Are your kids interested in finances? Do they wonder how money is earned – and how to spend it? Would you like to give a gift that’s not only fun, but educational, too?
If the answers to those questions are yes, then you may be interested in the products that make up the Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace for Kids line. The products – which include books, a bank, and a kit full of items – help kids develop financial expertise in fun, easy-to-learn manner.
The book series is based on Junior, a young boy who learns the valuable lessons of giving, sharing, and spending. There are six illustrated books in the series that cover lessons like “Junior Discovers Spending,” “Junior Discovers Work,” and “Junior Discovers Integrity.” The books are also available in an audio format and come in an aluminum lunchbox with Junior and his friends on the front.
The Financial Peace Jr. kit comes with wet-erase boards to keep track of savings and commission; an activity book with stories and games; magnets for giving, saving, and spending; a kid’s sized calculator; envelope system; and an instruction manual for parents. The kit helps parents teach kids how to implement the principles they read about in the book series.
Junior also has a bank, divided up into sections for Giving, Spending and Saving, which lets kids apply in real life what they are learning. The bank features the characters from the Junior book series and is clear plastic so that kids are able to see their money grow. The kit is great, too; the activities
I think these products would be great for any kid who is starting to be curious about how money works. I especially like the bank with it’s separate sections. Teaching kids from a young age to set aside money for both savings and charity is an important lesson, in my opinion. I also enjoyed that everything was approached in a fun way, and not “oh-my-goodness-if-you-don’t-save-now-you’ll-wind-up-living-in-a-box-during-your-retirement” kind of way. Honestly, I would have loved to have had this set when I was a kid.
Where to Buy:
All items are available from Dave Ramesy’s website. The set of 6 Junior books is available for $59.99; the audiobooks are available in a collectible lunchbox for $39.95; Financial Peace, Junior retails for $19.95; and the bank is available for $19.95. You can purchase all three as one set if you purchase theKid’s Monster Pack which is on sale for $49.95 (save 58%!).
Want to Win?
One winner will receive the Kid’s Monster Pack! To enter, fill out the Rafflecopter form below. You will notice something new with the Rafflecopter form. You can either log in with your Facebook account OR enter your name and email (the link to click is just under the Facebook log in). Once you log in, you will see the mandatory entry/entries. After completing the mandatory piece, the optional entries will show. You can complete as many or as few as you’d like. When you come back each day, the items you’ve already completed will be grayed out and only the ones still available for completion or the daily options will show. Logging in just allows the Rafflecopter form to be record for you what you’ve already done – so that you don’t see a giveaway two weeks later and say “Did I do that already?” or if you have to leave the page and finish entering later, you can pick up where you left off.
If you’re looking for a tasty addition to your food table for the holidays – or if you’re looking for a special gift for your favorite foodie or the has-everything-friend – then may I suggest that you consider Rigoni di Asiago gourmet organic jams and spreads. Rigoni di Asiago has based it’s entire company on producing from organic farms. They started with their honey, then proceeded to the Fiordifrutta jams, added the Nocciolata chocolate hazelnut spread and has recently started to produce ready-to-eat fruit desserts.
Each jar of FiordiFrutta jams and fruit spreads is made with 3 pounds of organic fruit and is sweetened with DolciDi apple juice (no added sugar). They use a special low-temperature cooking method when producing them that helps retain the vitamins, minerals and aroma. The jams come in 17 tasty flavors; some are traditional, like strawberry and apricot, and others are more exotic, like bitter orange and Cornelian cherry.
The Nocciolata spread is a special chocolate hazelnut spread that blends dark chocolate, hazelnuts, brown sugar, skim milk powder, cocoa butter and sunflower oil. It’s a creamy version of the spread that you find in your local grocery store, containing less sugar, no palm oil and 15% more hazelnut. It’s a labor of love; the processing phase takes 60 hours!
The spreads and jams are really quite excellent. We sampled the strawberry, raspberry and apricot jams and thought they were all well-worth the reasonable cost of $5-$6 per jar (each jar contains almost 9 ounces). My FIL’s favorite spread is raspberry so we had him try it while visiting one afternoon and he was very impressed. We also sampled theNocciolata spread and if I could have licked thte knife, I would have. I love chocolate and hazelnut as a flavor combination and this was so good. I can’t wait for a lazy weekend when I can make stuffed french toast with it.
I received one or more of the above product in order to facilitate my review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are 100% mine and my family’s.
The smell of an evergreen tree…cookies baking…hot chocolate…baked ham…mulled cider…there are so many scents during the holidays that are tied to wonderful memories, fun times – or that just plain smell great. If you’d like to have those scents float through your home all year – or if you have other favorite smells you’d like to treat family and guests to – Scentsy is a great way to do that.
Stacy Mayo is an Independent Scentsy Director who loves her company’s products and the great opportunities with which those products provide her and her team. Scentsy products are wick-less and flame-less meaning no soot, no lead and no worry. Scents are created by placing wax bars in the dish of each ceramic warmer; the dish sets over a light bulb that slowly melts the wax, allowing the fragrance to be released. There are a number of fragrance collections with over 80 scents to choose from in all – everything from Baked Apple Pie to Christmas Cottage to Newborn Nursery.
Scentsy also has room sprays, travel tins, hanging scents for the car, solid perfume and the adorable Scentsy Buddies. The Buddies are sweet stuffed animals that safely hold a scent paks inside. If your little one has a favorite scent, he can take it with him wherever he goes via his Buddy.
2011 Holiday Gift Guide – Suggestions For the Kids
(Be sure to check out all the other great Gift Guide items and giveaways here.)
If you were to ask anyone in my family if I have “Christmas spirit”, they would probably laugh at you. Not because I don’t have any Christmas spirit, but because I have so much. I love everything from the lights to the decorations to the songs to the movies to the feeling in the air.
So I know that my younger self would have loved the new Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town video game (available on the Nintendo DS or the Wii). I know this because my older self thinks it’s pretty cute, too.
Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town is inspired by the classic ABC claymation TV show of the same name. The show tells the story of Kris Kringle and how he became Santa Claus; debuting in 1970, it’s one of the longest-running holiday specials of all time and is watched by millions each year. The game lets you join in the fun as you join Kris Kringle and his friends as they escape the Burgemeister Meisterburger and bring toys to the children of Sombertown.
The game play (we tried the DS version) is simple and straight-forward. It’s basically a platforming adventure game (run, jump, collect things) with a fun Christmas theme. You get to collect snowflakes and deliver toys as you move through the storyline. There are three main adventures to play and over 20 mini-games – everything from puzzles to mazes to coloring.
If you have kids, are a kid at heart, or have kids on your shopping list, I think this would make a nice purchase this year. Both versions are under $20 which makes it nice, too.
One winner will receive a copy of Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town for the Nintendo DS! To win, just fill out the Rafflecopter form below. Reminder: Rafflecopter can sometimes take a moment to load; if you don’t see it after a minute, please try refreshing your browser.
ENTER HERE:
I received a copy of the game in order to facilitate my review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are 100% mine and my family’s.
(Be sure to check out all the other great Gift Guide items and giveaways here.)
I think that most – if not all – women like a little bling. I prefer my bling to be silver, usually, and so I love the items at Something About Silver (they do have a few gold items, too, if that’s your preference). Not only are they, well, silver, they’re customized and unique.
The Something About Silver studio is located near the sunny beaches of Clearwater, Florida, where they fabricate all of their custom hand stamped jewelry. They offer a wide selection of keepsake necklaces that would make a perfect gift or could become your own most cherished piece of jewelry. If you don’t find exactly what you’re looking for, you can even email them and they will work with you to create a piece that is perfect for you or your gift recipient.
Their site has so many pretty things that it took me hours to choose my favorite and even then there are at least a half-dozen other items I really want (are you listening, Santa?). What I did choose is The Family Tree necklace. It’s a 1 1/4″ washer with a tree charm that hangs inside it. Mine came on a ball chain (various lengths available) but you can also choose a link chain if you prefer. We had our last name engraved on it; you could also do each of your kids’ names, or all the grandkids’ names as a gift for Grandma.
The finished product was exactly how it looked online – really beautiful. They’re also really well-made. Depending on what you choose, it could easily become a family heirloom.
Their packaging is really nice, too; it makes it feel like you’re giving yourself a gift (or if it is a gift, it will feel extra-special).
In addition to necklaces, they have rings, bracelets, earrings, bridal jewelry, ornaments, baby spoons and more. Here are a couple other items I love.
Where to Buy:
You can purchase directly from the Something About Silver website. And I have an exclusive promo code for you! Enter LMC502 at the checkout and get 10% off your order (expires12/19).
Want to Win?
Something About Silver has provided one winner with a $40 Gift Code for their site! You’ll get to choose your own beautiful item. To win, just fill out the form below. Reminder: Rafflecopter sometimes takes a moment to load; if you don’t see the form after a minute, please try refreshing your browser. I received an item in order to facilitate my review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are 100% mine and my family’s.
