I found a treasure trove of cool kid gifts at a local toy shop on Locke Street in Hamilton, called Citizen Kid. They have “natural toys of quality, integrity and lasting value” – read: we don’t sell cheap plastic crap that snaps in half within 5 minutes. So, that’s cool. Also, many of the toys there look like so much fun, I actually wanted to buy a lot of it for myself.

Here are my top 5:

Spirograph is a classic. I had it as a kid, and I went through probably ten gallons of ink because I loved it so much. My niece asked for it last Christmas and I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I was pretty excited to see it on the shelf.

This is so much better than any other picture book or story book for kids. Story Starters gives you the beginning of the story, so kids can use their imagination to come up with the rest of it! So fun!

I picked up one of these for a baby shower recently, but these are a great gift for a family celebrating baby’s first Christmas. Give baby the gift of music that won’t drive the parents insane, and baby is soothed by instrumental versions of songs by Coldplay, Nirvana, or Michael Jackson.

A couple of stocking stuffer ideas to round out the list. A kazoo is like, the most fun thing ever. When I was a kid, we wrapped waxed paper around a comb to get the beautiful sounds of one of these babies. I would’ve killed for one of these.

As a kid, if you had a few of these to jam in your coat pocket before heading out on a long drive somewhere, you know you’d be entertained for hours. Finger puppets are a great stocking stuffer, and these are handmade, so they’re extra cool.

Happy shopping and keep it local, kids!

-Suzanne