Inside: What makes these the absolute best stocking stuffers for girls? These gifts live beyond the physical gift and become a treasured memory for years to come.
When I was a kid, my family had an odd holiday tradition.
Here’s what’s typical for a family celebrating Christmas: Pile all the presents under the tree and listen to your kids nag and whine and beg to open the presents early. Repeat every day until Christmas Eve, when you send your kids off to bed, bouncing with excitement for the goodies to come in the morning.
But my family didn’t do that. We opened presents on Christmas Eve.
Maybe you’ll post in the comments that this isn’t as odd as I think, but as a kid, I’d never met a single other person in the world whose family opened all their presents the night before Christmas.
Still, no complaints because I got to open presents early. Then as an adult, I found out I missed out on another holiday tradition.
Stockings.
Bonus: Download a free printable coupon book that will make the perfect gift for your child.
A Whole New World
I first discovered the world of stocking stuffers as a mom, and I might have gone a little overboard.
Instead of focusing on fostering an attitude of gratitude with my kids and finding meaningful gifts that come from the heart (not a shopping cart), I crammed our stockings full of every Christmas goody imaginable:
- Those old-school candy bars you find at Cracker Barrels,
- Glitter pens as far as the eye can see,
- The most adorable miniature Moleskine notebooks,
- Juicy peach lip gloss,
- Novelty cupcake bandages…
And that’s just from one page of my Amazon order history. It doesn’t even include the scratch-off lottery tickets, the mini LEGO sets in a bag, and all the other trinkets and tchotchkes we amassed before Christmas Day.
It didn’t take long for me to realize why skipping the stocking stuffer tradition could actually be a smart move.
Related: 30 Holiday Activities for Your Advent Calendar {Printable}
Photo by Jamie
Because Here’s What Happens
We love stocking stuffers because they give our kids (and let’s be honest, us too) one delicious little surprise after surprise after surprise. Who wouldn’t love that?
But after the initial feeling of surprise fades, we lose interest. We can’t fully enjoy these little gifts because there’s so many of them, and anyway – how can they possibly compete with the “big” gifts under the tree?
Which means that after Christmas Day, all those little gadgets and goodies end up all over the house. Under feet, under the couch, tucked in every nook and cranny.
It’s not just overwhelming for the parent who’s vacuuming and unearths one of these long-lost treats.
One Christmas after we’d emptied all the stockings and opened all the presents, my oldest told me that when she went into her room, she didn’t know what to play with because there was too much to choose from.
An overflowing stocking can be overwhelming for kids, too. Not to mention that most of the time, what makes a child the happiest of all is much simpler – from magical lights on a tree to the cardboard box a gift came in.
Related: A Sweet Way to Guarantee Your Kid Has an Attitude of Gratitude {Printable}
Photo by Donnie Ray JonesA Fresh New Stocking Stuffer Tradition
The problem with new stuff is after a short while, it becomes old stuff. Research shows you get used to it, and it becomes part of your daily life. Wallpaper.
So why spend all this time and money on buying more and more stuff, only to have that stuff collect dust for a year (or more) until we get fed up with the clutter and donate it all to charity?
I’ve got a solution for you: Stuff your little ones’ stockings with gifts of experience.
Material gifts quickly fade into the background to become the new normal. But experience gifts stick with you.
Let’s stop filling our kids’ stockings with stuff and start filling them with simple experiences that our kids will remember even after they start their own families.
Related: 15 DIY Christmas Gifts Anyone Can Make – And Everyone Will Love
10 Stocking Stuffers for Girls That Will Delight Your Kids
Full disclosure: These stocking stuffers for girls could be perfectly good gifts for boys, too. I have three daughters, so that’s what I know. I’ve seen firsthand that my girls love “boy” gifts just as much as “girl” gifts – and I assume the reverse is true of many boys. But without personal experience to back that up, I’ll stick to what I know: gifts that will put a smile on your girl’s face.
In this list, you’ll find the best stocking stuffer ideas that your kids will love. And here’s why: because these gifts will live beyond the actual physical gift and become a treasured memory.
But it’s hard to wrap an experience for your child, so each gift in this list includes a simple idea for a physical way to present the gift to your child. Still, the overall goal is to deliver an experience that will delight your kiddo.
Whether you’re looking for stocking stuffers for girl toddlers or stocking stuffers for tween girls, I gotcha covered. But whatever you do, don’t miss the last idea in this list. It’s the best one of all!
1. An Excuse to Play in the Dirt
Young kids love playing in the dirt, and some older kids do, too – even if they don’t admit it. Give your little one a few packets of seeds, then start a family garden together.
My family started a garden together earlier this year, taking turns tending to it every day. If you’d been walking by our house when we gathered around to see the first sprouts peek out, you’d have thought we’d just won lifetime, unlimited free admission to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. (Our happy is loud.)
And here’s a delicious bonus for you: After growing their own vegetables, your little ones will be excited to eat the veggies when they’re ready.
If you like this idea but you have a black thumb (hello, that’s me!), here’s the all-in-one garden starter package we used and loved. It may not fit in your little one’s stocking, but it’s 100 percent worthy of an under-the-tree gift spot. We started ours in the spring, so we used the Bunny Garden, but you can also grow a North Pole Garden, a Pizza Garden (everything you need to make a pizza), and more.
Stocking Stuffer She’ll Love: 12 Heirloom Varieties of Vegetable Seeds with Kid’s 3-Piece Garden Tool Set
2. A Surprise in the Mail
Find a fun magazine like New Moon and get her a subscription. She’ll love getting mail addressed just to her, and she’ll be building her reading skills without even realizing it.
The experience of getting a surprise in the mail once a month keeps this gift from becoming wallpaper. And after she’s done reading, she can pass the magazine along to a friend.
Stocking Stuffer She’ll Love: New Moon Girls, Highlights, National Geographic Kids, or Cricket
3. An Entertaining Show
Get two tickets to a show at a local performing arts center, such as a play, a musical, or a dance performance like ballet – or a couple tickets to a movie theater. Then make a date of it with your little one, and she can dress up if she’s into that.
Odds are you don’t do this often – and she may have never been to a show – so this gift is sure to stand out in her mind. I can still remember my first experience at a show in fifth grade. It was an Italian opera and I understood absolutely zero of the words, but sitting in the theater as it filled with a sound I’d never heard before created a sense of complete awe that I’ll never forget.
Depending on where you go, tickets can be a little pricey, but I’ve found that shows targeted to children tend to be more affordable. If this feels a little much for a stocking stuffer, it makes a great gift for under the tree, too.
Stocking Stuffer She’ll Love: Tickets to a show
4. A Night Under the Stars
In our house, we can put a smile on three little girls’ faces just by putting one box on our kitchen counter.
Graham crackers.
This is a clue to our kids that we’re gearing up for a night in our family-sized tent and everything that involves – including s’mores.
Full disclosure: Our backyard slopes down at a steep angle, so our “backyard camping” nights really mean putting up the tent in our living room. But the kids still love it.
Fill your little one’s stocking with the promise of a night of backyard camping. The fresh air and quality family time (and s’mores) will be an experience she remembers.
Stocking Stuffer She’ll Love: Portable Camp Light (it’s pink!) plus s’mores-in-a-bag
5. A Pretty Color
One of my girls’ favorite games is to pretend they’re visiting the spa. As the spa worker, I give them pedicures using my “grown-up” nail polish and make random small talk that makes them giggle:
- Are you reading any good books right now? I’d love some recommendations.
- What’s the next vacation you have planned?
- If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Give your girl a fun new shade of nail polish with a piece of paper tied to it that says, “Let’s try this one out together!”
On your pedicure date, you can even start up a girly movie like The Princess Bride in the background to make a proper spa day of it.
Stocking Stuffer She’ll Love: Fairy Lights Nail Lacquer and The Princess Bride
Photo by Donnie Ray Jones6. A Cute Animal
Make a donation to sponsor an animal at your local zoo, aquarium, or animal sanctuary. This makes a great gift for kids because as a follow-up gift, you can visit the zoo and pretend to find the animal you sponsored. You can talk about how your donation went towards feeding the animal, getting medicine for when it’s sick, or cleaning the poo out of its enclosure.
Some zoos will send you a certificate about the animal you sponsored, or you can make one yourself to put in your kiddo’s stocking. As another idea, you can put a miniature stuffed animal in her stocking along with the certificate.
Stocking Stuffer She’ll Love: Sponsor an animal at your local zoo, plus a miniature toy like this cute owl, tiger, or fox
7. A Scavenger Hunt
This stocking stuffer turns into a gift for the whole family when you need to walk off a big Christmas dinner and the kids are feeling cooped up.
Here’s how you do it: Print a free scavenger hunt map, add a note like “let’s go exploring!,” and put it in a festive envelope like this adorable snowman dude or in a regular envelope decorated with Christmas-y washi tape.
Don’t forget to bring a mug of hot cocoa to share on your walk!
Stocking Stuffer She’ll Love: Printable Scavenger Hunt Map
8. A New Skill
Find a class you can take together to learn something new, then put a flyer about the class in her stocking. A few ideas for you:
- Cooking class
- Jewelry-making class
- Knitting or sewing class
- Photography class
- Scrapbooking class
- Self-defense class
- Session at one of those paint-your-own-pottery businesses
- Yoga class
The options are endless! Find something you’ll both enjoy, and have fun stretching your brains together.
Stocking Stuffer She’ll Love: A class you can take with her
9. An Open Door
This mother-daughter journal is called Just Between Us, and it’s a magical way to get your daughter to open up about what’s going on so you can stay connected. You take turns writing in this journal, and in the process, you find out what’s weighing on your daughter’s heart.
(By the way, if you have a son you’d like to connect with in this way, here’s a journal designed just for mothers and sons. I have only daughters so I can’t personally vouch for it, but my boy mom friends swear by it!)
Stocking Stuffer She’ll Love: Just Between Us: A No-Stress, No-Rules Journal
10. A Coupon Book
As adults, we’re always calling the shots when it comes to where we go, what we do, what we eat…everything. Kids don’t often get a say in what errands we run on the weekend or what we have for dinner.
Which is why this stocking stuffer will delight your girl like no other. Give her a personalized coupon book she can use to cash in on fun experiences throughout the year.
This is my favorite experience gift idea, so I designed a free printable set of coupons for you. Download the coupons below so you can share them with the girl in your life.
By the way, you should know that as I was designing this set of coupons to share with you, my oldest daughter Abby peeked over my shoulder and asked, “What are you doing?”
I explained the idea of the coupon book, then added some examples to get the point across: “Like you could use this coupon to pick anything you want for dinner one night, or this one to take a mother-daughter mental health day off school and work, or this one to bake any dessert together…”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s all I want for Christmas! Just that.”
Stocking Stuffer She’ll Love: Free Printable Coupon Book
Here’s a preview for you:
When it comes to stocking stuffers for girls, it doesn’t get any better than this coupon book. Your kids will adore it.
Download Your Coupon Book
- Download the coupon book. You’ll get the printable, plus join my weekly newsletter! Just click here to download and subscribe. (Want to write your own idea on the coupons? You’ll also get a blank sheet you can print to write in your own coupon ideas.)
- Print. Any paper will do the trick, but card stock would be ideal.
- Cut out the coupons you want to include in the book. Or if you’re like me and you can’t cut a straight line to save your life, fold and tear to get a charmingly casual look.
- Punch a hole in one corner, then loop a rubber band or a book ring through to connect the cards. A staple in the corner would work perfectly fine, too!
- Drop the coupon book in her stocking, and you’re DONE. Get ready to see pure joy spread across her face!
Download my FREE cheat sheet: 16 Miracle Phrases to Help You Reconnect With Your Child
Your Turn
What are your favorite ideas of stocking stuffers for girls? Share in a comment below!
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