2020 Kids Holiday Gift Guide

The holidays are a special time of year for our family. We usually decorate our house, put up lights, invite friends to come over, and bake yummy treats. As our kids have gotten older, I’ve tried to think of more meaningful gift ideas for them. I love gift giving and finding things I know my kids will truly enjoy. Here are some of my top kids gift ideas and interactive toys for kids.

American Girl Dolls, Outfits & Accessories

First on our gift list, girls who love pretty details and miniature accessories will love the American Girl brand. This collectible brand includes a variety of 18″ dolls, outfits, accessories and furniture. You can choose from BeForever American Girl characters with stories inspired by historical events and specific time periods. Alternatively, you can design a TrulyMe American Girl doll that looks like your child.

American Girl Holiday Outfits

Each year, American girl releases a variety of holiday outfits and accessories. Each outfit set comes beautifully packaged in its own little box with tissue paper. The 2020 American Girl holiday sets include several Nutcracker themed outfits and All that Glitters dresses for 18″ dolls, the 14″ WellieWishers and Bitty Baby. All that Glitters dresses even come in girls’ sizes! Girls can dress up their entire doll collection for the holidays. See the highlights of American Girl’s 2020 holiday dolls and outfits.

The All that Glitters outfit includes a white dress with tulle sleeves and a tutu skirt, accented with gold stars and a gold glitter ribbon. This dress coordinates perfectly with a gold glitter headband, gold shoes and gold clutch purse. It’s available in sizes for all the American Girl dolls and in standard girls’ sizes.

Additionally, the Sparkling Star Dance Outfit is perfect for a doll winter dance recital. It comes with a black and rainbow glittery tiered skirt, pink leotard, and black crop top. A rainbow sequined headband, wristbands and black ballet flats complete the outfit. The holidays are a great time to dress up in lots of sparkle!

American Girl of the Year

American Girl also releases a Girl of the Year character each year. Recent doll releases include astronomy enthusiast Luciana Vega (2018), party planner Blaire Wilson (2019) and surfer/cheerleader Joss Kendrick (2020). You can also choose from a diverse collection of American Girl outfits and accessories for each of these dolls. Even design your own gift box to match your daughter’s personality and interests! See our American Girl doll reviews to learn more about why we love the American Girl brand.

Finally, American Girl offers many adorable play sets for girls to interact with their dolls. This teatime table and chairs set is perfect for two. It comes with tiny tea cups, saucers, miniature tea sandwiches, macarons and even berry tarts. The metal table and chairs is painted a cheerful teal color.

Playmobil

Additionally, my kids love playing with their Playmobil sets. We have the zoo set, Playmobil camping tent and RV. We also have the farmer’s market, Victorian doll house, flower shop, wedding set, old fashioned Model T car, and lots of add-on Playmobil sets and characters.

Over the years, Playmobil has also released various licensed collections from Spirit Riding Free, Ghostbusters, How to Train Your Dragon, and Back to the Future. Furthermore, kids can collect Playmobil sets that feature cowboys, knights, fairies, princesses, jungle explorers, pirates and more.

I especially love Playmobil’s beautiful details and great quality. Even the sets I had as a kid are still in great condition! I think that collecting quality toy sets such as Playmobil is a great way to encourage kids to take care of their toys.

Play Dough

Play dough is another great gift idea for kids. This is because you can easily make homemade play dough or buy a multi-pack of Play-Doh. You could even create a play dough gift set and include a variety of plastic cookie cutters and a rolling pin for kids to use with their play dough. If you make your own play dough, you can mix in any color of food coloring and even add glitter, confetti and fragrances! Playing with play dough is a great hands-on sensory activity for kids of all ages. Kids can use play dough to make all sorts of creations, or just enjoy rolling out the dough and cutting out shapes.

Loog Guitar

If your young child loves music, consider giving them a Loog guitar. These kid-sized instruments introduce kids to playing the guitar in a fun way! Loog guitars have the first 3 strings E, B, G, also on a regular guitar. Kids can use these strings to easily learn the chord basics. The smaller guitar size helps kids start playing songs right away. Loog guitars also come with an app and flashcards that make learning accessible and fun.

Big Truckload of Fun Books

For kids who love trucks and vehicles, the Amazing Machines: Big Truckload of Fun book set will be a hit! This boxed set of books teaches kids about all kinds of vehicles, with clever rhymes and cute illustrations. The book set comes with 14 storybooks about all different types of vehicles. I especially like these books because they are small and fun to read. My 4-year-old son has really enjoyed learning about all aspects of the different vehicles, through the books rhyming phrases. The final page of each book outlines the different parts of the vehicles along with vocabulary terms. Overall, Amazing Machines: Big Truckload of Fun is a great set of picture books for kids.

Hot Wheels

For boys and girls, Hot Wheels cars and track sets are a fun gift idea because the sets come in all styles. Individual cars also cost as little as one dollar each. Additionally, you can build on existing Hot Wheels sets with new tracks, loops and track boosters. My kids enjoy setting up their Hot Wheels sets and sending their metal cars shooting down the bendy plastic tracks. They also like racing their cars against each other. My kids spend quite a bit of time playing with Hot Wheels together.

Wooden Fire Station

Additionally, my kids have really enjoyed playing with this Hape Toys Fire Station. It comes with a wooden helicopter and fire truck. The station also includes a wooden fireman, wooden Dalmatian dog, flame of fire, station flag, fire hydrant, fire axe and fire alarm bell. The wooden firefighter and fire fighting accessories are simple and inspire kids to play interactively. Kids can send the fireman spiraling down the fire pole. They can also make the helicopter land on the roof and park the firetruck in the garage. Kids can role play being a fire fighting hero as they put out the flame of fire with the fire extinguisher. Finally, the Hape Toys wooden fire station is good quality, with lots of detailing. See why we think buying wooden toys is a great investment!

Barbie Sets & Accessories

Like many girls, my daughters love dressing up their Barbie dolls and collecting new accessories. Buying new Barbie sets is a fun gift idea for my girls to expand their collection. Kids can easily give Barbie a make-over with a few new outfits. Or go on an adventure with Barbie with her many careers as an veterinarian, teacher, astronaut, scientist, and teacher.

I’ve discovered that the best gifts for kids are things that inspire children to create, pretend and enjoy good old-fashioned playtime. Our family likes to collect toy sets that go together and build on the collections we have, to minimize the toy clutter. My kids are always excited to receive new sets to add to their favorite toy collections.

Which gift idea would your child enjoy the most?