Five Cheap Christmas Gifts for Children

To best honest, the best Christmas gifts you can give to a child is the gift of time. This typically will not be very expensive and will make a lasting impression. Most kids will not remember the small trinkets you get for this Christmas or that Christmas, but they will remember the time you spend with them. When you raise them by spending time with them, you get a myriad of benefits - not the least of which is that you get to know you children. With that in mind, this gifts are designed to be both cheap Christmas gifts as well as gifts that allow you to get to know you child.

#1. Board Games

Many board games run around twenty dollars retail. However, wait for a sale or buy them on ebay.com for a significant savings over retail. Usually you can get them for between 8 and 10 dollars which makes them a very cheap Christmas gift. Family recommended games include Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders for younger children and Monopoly or Scrabble for older children. In order to be effective as a gift that your child will remember you will need to spend time playing them with your child.

#2 . Cribbage

Cribbage is usually thought of as a old person's game that you might find along shuffle board and Wii Bowling. But younger, school aged children love this card game. Once you learn how to play, you can teach your 5-10 year old. As a side benefit the child learns both logical and mathematically skills. It is particularly effective in teaching children who are struggling with basic addition and subtraction skills.

#3. The Chronicle of Narnia by Clive Staples Lewis

These are meant as read aloud books to the child. If you invest the time to read the books, you not only are spending a great deal of time with your child, you will be teaching them important life lessons about honor, love, and sacrifice. A good place to purchase these books for read aloud purposes is Amazon.com for 14.95 or from your local used book store - I have found it the complete set for as low as two dollars at Half Price Books used. Two dollars makes for a really cheap Christmas gift.

#4. Art Supplies

A fun way to spend the afternoon is to do arts and crafts with your children. Crayola crayons and some paper is all it takes. Your might even want to get some scissors and glue. Go crazy. Maybe even illustrate some some scenes from the Narnia series

#5. Carnivorous Creations Plantings

This Christmas gift is one where you and your child can plant some seeds, freeze them in the refrigerator a little while, and then watch these carnivorous plants grow. It is extremely important that the directions are followed and the plants will not sprout without a cooling period. Then, as the plants grow, you and your child can feed the plants together. You can get this kid Christmas gift for $20 dollars at HobbyTron.com

While Christmas and the excitement of getting presents is fun, remember that it is the time you spend with your children that they will remember most.