10 Gifts Grandparents Can Buy That Will Not Annoy You
Grandparents are not trying to fill your house.
It is worth starting there, because the running joke about the enormous drum kit gets in the way of what is actually going on. What a grandparent wants from a Christmas present is a face. They want to be in the room when it is opened. They want to be the person who caused it. That so often turns into something loud and enormous for one reason: loud and enormous is the only reliable way to buy a face when you are guessing.
So the useful thing is not a list of rules for them. It is a list you can send when they ask, because they almost always ask.
Ten picks in three groups. Ratings are live Amazon ratings, never ours.
- 1
A remote-control dinosaur that comes apartBest if they only buy one thing - 2A 215-piece building set for 4 to 8Best for an afternoon at their house
- 3A 200-piece magnetic tile setBest for a wide age range at once
- 4A wooden magnetic fishing gameBest for playing together at a table
- 5A cutting play food setBest for the two to four year old
- 6A wooden pots and pans setBest for a toy kitchen that already exists
- 7A Montessori preschool learning setBest for a quiet child
- 8A first learning toy for ones and twosBest for the youngest grandchild
- 9A picture book about making choicesBest gift under fifteen dollars
- 10A 145-piece electric train setBest for a family with several children
Group one
The ones that are worth the shelf they take
If the answer to how much is going to be generous anyway, the honest advice is to steer it towards one open-ended thing rather than several closed ones. A set with no single correct outcome gets rebuilt. A toy that does one thing gets done once.
Remote Control & Take Apart Dinosaur Toy for Kids
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A take-apart toy is a particularly good grandparent gift because it survives a visit. It is quiet enough for a sitting room and needs no supervision. It can also be broken down and started again when somebody gets bored, which happens sooner at a grandparent’s house.
Magnetic tiles are the ones we would push hardest for a family with more than one child. The four year old and the nine year old can both be in it at once, and neither is patronised. We made the same case in our list of screen-free gifts.
Group two
The ones that turn into a visit
This is the category most worth suggesting, because it gives a grandparent the thing they actually came for. A game that needs two people is a reason to sit at a table together, and that is the present.
Pretend food does the same job for younger children and has an unusually long life. It gets played with at two, cooked with at four, and used as shop stock at six.
If the child is the quieter sort, something with a single clear task in it is kinder than a big noisy set. Our piece on a loud family Christmas and a sensitive child covers the wider version of that problem.
Group three
The ones that suit the youngest in the room
The youngest grandchild tends to get the worst of Christmas, because they are handed whatever was left after the interesting decisions were made about the older ones.
A book is the most underrated grandparent gift there is, and the reason is the inscription. A book with a date and a name in the front is the only present here that is still identifiably theirs in fifteen years.
And if they insist on the big one, a train set is a reasonable place for it to land. It is the classic grandparent purchase for a reason. It works on a floor with several children round it, and it lives at their house permanently. Our list of old-fashioned toys kids still pick has more in that vein.
What to steer them away from, gently
Clothes in the size they last saw them in. This is the single most common wasted grandparent gift. If they want to buy clothes, give them a current size and a shop, and everybody is happier.
Anything with a permanent voice. Not because of the noise, though there is that. Because the toys with the loudest chips in them are the ones with the shortest play life, and the child abandons them before you get to.
A duplicate of the big present. Worth one text message in November. Two identical scooters is a genuinely miserable Christmas morning for a child who has to pretend not to notice.
The honest caveat: we have not tested every item here in our own homes. Ratings are live Amazon ratings pulled from our product library rather than typed in by us.
More gift guides to forward
Questions parents ask
What should grandparents buy grandchildren for Christmas?
Something that turns into time together rather than an object in someone else’s house. A two-player game, a build set that survives a visit, or a book with their name and the date written inside it all outlast the large noisy purchase.
How do I tell grandparents what to buy without offending them?
Send a short list when they ask rather than a rule when they do not. Most grandparents are guessing, and guessing is what produces the enormous drum kit. A list of three things at different prices solves it without anybody having a conversation about it.
What is the best gift for the youngest grandchild?
Something aimed squarely at their stage rather than handed down from the older ones. A first learning toy or a board book gets more use at one or two than a shared toy they cannot yet join in with.
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I'm for the parent mid-meltdown - theirs or the kid's. I write from the actual floor of it: the crying that won't stop, the dinner thrown, the bedtime that unravels. Blunt because I respect you too much to pretend it's easy. Just what tends to actually work.
More from NourWhat's the one thing that actually calmed the chaos in your house?
No right answers here - tell us how it actually went. Someone reading needs to hear it.
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