With the holiday season quickly approaching, it is time to start thinking about Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers. While last minute shopping amidst the hustle and bustle of the season can be a fun experience, if you want to beat the rush and have a more peaceful season leading up to Christmas, it might be a good idea to start stocking up on gifts now. This blog post is a great place to start if you are needing ideas for toddler girl stocking stuffer ideas. It is full of small, sweet gifts that are perfect for stuffing a Christmas stocking. Let’s dive in!
A Little Background
Christmas is a magical time of year no matter how you choose to celebrate. I have loved stocking gifts since I was a little girl and now that I have my own family, we choose to make Christmas stockings our main Christmas gifts. For our Christmas morning, we choose 2-3 larger gifts to wrap and put under the Christmas tree, generally following a “something to wear”, “something to read”, “something to play with” idea. I have a blog post all about toddler girl gift ideas you can check it out here.
While we do put a few things under the Christmas tree, most of our gifts are small things that we put into our stockings and it is so sweet. This has simplified Christmas for us and helped us keep our focus on what we are truly celebrating at Christmas – the birth of Jesus. Plus, we have also found that with birthdays and Christmas too many gifts just become overwhelming and we are not truly enjoying the giving and receiving of gifts. You will have to find that balance with your family, just know it doesn’t have to be full of lots and lots of gifts to be special.
Because stockings are our main gifts, I am intentional with choosing gifts that will add value to our home and not just purchasing things for the sake of filling a stocking. In this blog post, I will give you some gift ideas for your toddler’s stocking to get you thinking and hope that it will help you as you plan your holiday season shopping.
It’s Not All About the Gifts
Remember as you plan and shop, Christmas is not all about the gifts. As enjoyable as it is to find the perfect gifts for our loved ones, if we seek the perfect gifts at the expense of peace and joy in our homes, we have missed the point. Children will remember far more about the atmosphere of our homes and the memories that we create together than they will remember the gifts that they received.
We love toys that encourage imagination, curiosity, wonder, and promote critical thinking skills. We are essentially screen free in our home and you will not find toys along the lines of electronics, but instead find things that encourage appreciation for the good, true, and beautiful things in this world.
Arts and Crafts
Art and craft supplies are a great stocking stuffer for kids of all ages! Even the youngest kiddos will enjoy stickers or sticker books, new crayons, or coloring books. These things are great because they are small and the perfect size to fit into a stocking, but they also last awhile, are great quiet toys, and help reinforce hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. A few gifts of this nature always find their way into my little girl’s stocking. Some of our favorite things are stickers and sticker books; Water Wow books; coloring books; crayons, and do-a-dot markers.Regardless of your child’s interests and favorite colors, you are sure to find something that your child will love.
1. Sticker book
2. Stickers
5. Crayons
6. Water Wow
Travel Gifts
Our family travels alot and small toys for road trips make great toddler stocking stuffers. We love Melissa & Doug’s Water Wow books for traveling or church because they are quiet and mess free while also being alot of fun to color! We have several of these and use them over and over again – they are truly a toddler favorite!
We also love this LCD writing table for on-the-go entertainment. Play tic-tac-toe, draw pictures, practice letters – the possibilities are endless. We keep this in the car just for travel and it is another favorite.
This small cloth doll and book are a must-have for any little girl’s travel bag and it would be a perfect stocking stuffer gift too! It is soft and compact and little girl’s will love moving the doll from page to page, helping her dress in various outfits. Here’s a few other good travel gifts for toddlers:
4. Lace-up toys
Sensory Toys
Sensory toys are fun stocking stuffers! They are perfect for little hands and will keep your toddler busy while also encouraging problem solving, creativity, and wonder. Kinetic sand is a big favorite in our house and my toddler will spend literal hours playing with her sand and sand toys.This is a great activity for quiet, independent play during supper preparation or other times when you need a few minutes to get something accomplished. It would be a great thing to stick in a stocking and has so many different ways it can be played with and enjoyed.
Fidget toys are great little things to keep your toddler’s hands busy and they are a big hit with kiddos of all ages. Young toddlers will be entertained by the endless spinning, while older kids will be kept busy trying to figure out how to make them spin themselves. These also make great little travel toys!
2. Pop-it toys
3. Buckle toy
4. Kinetic sand
Dress-up Gifts
What little girl doesn’t love to dress up? Whether she is pretending to be a princess or a pirate, accessories for her outfits are always fun! Bonus points – dress up play is such a great way for toddlers to practice role play and exercising their imagination. Here’s some ideas to get you thinking.
1. Princess shoes, tiarra, and jewelry
2. Make-up kit
Creative play toys
Toys that are open-ended and promote creative play are favorites in our house. Children thrive when they are left to explore, create, and problem solve on their own and toys that have multiple purposes are great for this. Small puzzles, blocks, or other small games would make great little toys to stuff in stockings.
2. Little Cars
Books
If you’ve been around here long, you know we love to read books in our house. The benefits of reading aloud to children are well-documented and we also enjoy snuggling together while we read and forging bonds through shared memories and stories read together. Most board books would easily fit into a stocking and small books would make a fantastic gift for your child’s stocking.
A few of our favorites are Little Hoot, Little Oink, Little Pea; Corduroy; and The Mitten. If you’re interested in other book recommendations you can check out my list of Favorite Toddler Books, Favorite Bedtime Books, or Favorite Bible Story books.
1. Little Hoot, Little Oink, Little Pea
2. Corduroy
3. The Mitten
Things to Wear
Small accessories or things to wear are other fun options for small gifts. The weather is usually chilly around Christmas time, so how about a new hat and mittens? Toddlers may enjoy having their own play watch to tell time or even a set of necklaces and bracelets for their dress-up play. Fuzzy socks or socks with your child’s favorite characters would also be fun gifts to add to their stocking. If you have a little girl who enjoys all the girlie things, maybe a new set of hair bows or hair rubber bands would be great small gifts for her stocking. .
2. Watch
3. Fuzzy socks
4. Hair bows
Bath Toys
Young children often enjoy bath time, especially when they have plenty of toys to keep them busy! While a set of simple plastic cups is often entertainment enough, a new set of bath toys would only add to the bath time fun and make a great stocking gift. Try a set of new toys or even some bath crayons! No bath is complete without bubble bath solution to create bubble to play in, it elevates the bath in a super simple way and what a fun gift to get in a stocking.
2. Water toys
3. Bath Crayons
4. Bath bombs
5. Bubble Bath
Bath and Personal Care Products
Bath and personal care items make a great addition to a stocking. Young kids will get a kick out of having their own tube of toothpaste or bottle of soap or lotion. Of course, use caution with small children and make sure that you are closely supervising the use of these products. Chapstick is another great stocking stuffer and what toddler won’t enjoy having their own little chapstick to use?!
2. Kids Lotion
3. Chapstick
Stuffed Animals and Plush Toys
Both babies and toddlers will enjoy a soft, cuddly stuffed animal or other plush toy. With such a variety of colors and so many cute options to choose from, you can easily choose one that is sure to delight your toddler.
1. Puppy dog
3. Highland Cow
Snacks
I don’t know about you, but I think small snacks and treats make great stocking stuffers and always make their way into our stockings in some way. I like to include small, individually wrapped packages of fruit snacks or animal crackers as they are perfect for toddler hands. A couple of clean options you might consider are these:
1. Annie’s Organic Fruit Snacks
2. Annie’s Organic Cheddar Bunnies
Of course, while it might not be the healthiest option, I always include chocolate in our stockings in some way.
Eating and Drinking
It seems like when it comes to eating and drinking kids are always needing a new water bottle or sippy cup and both of these would be fantastic things to stuff into a stocking. You could also give a snack cup for your child to hold all those snack goodies.
1. Water Bottle
2. Sippy Cup
3. Snack Cup
Do you have plenty of new ideas for your child’s stocking stuffers?! This is a long list, but I hope that it will give you some good toddler stocking stuffer ideas to get you started on your holiday shopping. Don’t forget to think about your toddler’s favorite color or other interests as you choose your gifts. It is so easy to want to choose things that we as mamas will enjoy or want for our kids, but it is so rewarding to see the joy on your child’s face when you give them something they have wanted or really love. I love to keep a list on my phone of things that my daughter mentions she would like or is interested in when we are out shopping together. As the holidays approach, I will refer back to my list as I choose gifts. I also like to start picking things up here and there as I see them or find a good
sale towards the end of the summer and into the fall. It makes the season less stressful when I can pull out a container of gift ideas and just wrap them for the stocking.
Although the Christmas season is often fraught with consumerism and the push for more and more, it is important to remember that Christmas gifts don’t have to be big or expensive to bring pleasure and enjoyment. Young children are easy to please and the memories and experiences we give them, particularly the home atmosphere that WE as mamas create, is much more meaningful and impactful than the most grandiose gifts.
Whether Christmas this year looks frugal or abundant, I hope that you will intentionally create a home atmosphere that evokes peace and joy and wonder at the season. THAT is something that is free and just requires intentionality on our part.
