Christmas gift ideas

I have always shopped personally, ie see, check, touch, feel, try and pay customer. Not very keen to try online purchase, for there is the fear of credit card fraud, I don’t get my goods after payment, I'm not getting my quality stuff… but there are a good many trusted sites recommended by purchasers as we can follow in forums and reviews. Perhaps I'll try some day.

For children, you may want to consider some of the followings:-

Fisher-Price’s Geo-trax is excellent for motor-skills training. I got this set for Max when he was just 1. He was able to learn to maneuver the joystick forward and back and hold it to get the “choo-choo”. It’s a bit pricey though.

Lego Duplo Explore  – Max’s 2^nd Big-set toy. The big blocks are just right for their tiny fingers to learn to put together. It’s excellent to teach them colours with these. But being tough and durable, you might want to be careful if other younger children around to prevent any sibling fights with these! It sure is gonna hurt.

Lego – Bionicles with Toa Matoro, Toa Kongu, Bogarak .... these are suitable for Age group 7 and above, but I got these for Max when he was 4. We taught him to refer to the instruction manual to put the pieces together section by section…and within an hour he has them diassembled!  They’ll need help to insert some of these small pieces which has tight fit. Please remember it’s only play with strict adult supervisions only for smaller kids. He has also taken some pieces here and there and made up another awesome-looking robotic creature.

Lego Technic - now, this is very exciting as it features various technical moves, with gears, hinges and pulley...Max is very fascinated with this set.

The return of the Rubik Cube. This coloured cube made a comeback recently and is also available in 4x4, not just 3x3. It comes in pyramid shape too. How on earth is this going to be solved!

Books, sounds boring but it’s not. It’a perfect gift. A gift of knowledge and good to inculcate a good reading habit when they are still young.

Board games, the popular ones like Scrabble, Monoploy, Snake-n-Ladder, are good for family fun.

Boggle, Boggle, a very interesting classic word games, very useful for vocabulary building for age 8-up, price @RM49.90

Mattel UNO Stacko @RM54.90 for age 7 – up

Eduscience Starter Microscope, @RM89.95.

You might want to check out some of these sites, some of which offers online purchases


TOYS”R”US, Check this out, based on gender and age, the suggested toys. 


Educational Insights offers some interesting puzzles that develop children in areas of problem-solving, logical and stimulate thinking skills. I've purchased a number of sets like the 

  

and the lastest is the River Crossing

One of the most trusted site, the Amazon has a wide collection of toys and puzzle for kids.

and I found a good choice here, Kids Online Store.

Books from MPH Online, but they were having upgrading works on their website but it’s up already. Their customer service is very good. Last year, I called up to enquire on availability of a particular book. Very kindly they let me know the price of paperback & hardcover too and availability at which outlet.

Popular Bookstore is having some kind of In-store activity with the beginning of year-end school break on Nov 20 at Ikano Power Centre and Sunway Pyramid. You may want to check out the stuff there and note the interest of your kids.

FOR HIM, 

You can get a good book or CDs or DVDs at Amazon . I was thinking of getting a "Beautiful World" by Jim Brickman...I like Jim Brickman, so we'll enjoy the CD together. :-)

Speedy Video seems they have free delivery for purchases above RM100 (valid for Msia only) but available to for sale in other currencies too.

FOR HER 

Again, I'm thinking for myself, besides getting the fragrances from the local Departmental Store and you go dizzzzzzzzzy, inhaling those fragrances...& deciding on one might be hard. Maybe you can check out her sets on her dressing table.

Amazon, availability of wide range of cookbooks, cookware & even kitchen gadgets, you can check it out, as it may make good gift your loved ones or mother or MIL (mother-in-law :-P) or even sister or aunt.

Cooking.com not only has recipes online but some pretty good deals on kitchen stuff, might be a good idea to check it out.

Emmagem’s 100 onlineshop in Malaysia. Please read and check out the boutiques carefully before making the online purchases...some are pretty reliable and have build a very good reputation. I bought a couple of outfit from Layla Walk-in-closet (in USJ Taipan), very nice and very good price too.

Have fun shopping....I'm off to do my rounds shortly, looking for nice stuff and enjoying the festive cheers.

Have a great weekend.