What Do you Buy a 10-Year-Old Boy?

When it comes to buying gifts for guys past their preschool years, I am lost. Especially when I’ve never met the dude before.

We were looking for a way to give to others this holiday season, as it was something we always did when I was a child, and it’s something I would like us to carry on as part of our own family Christmas traditions. So when I was out depositing my millions (okay, my meager child tax benefit cheque can’t quite be described as millions) at CIBC last week, I noticed a Christmas tree with little angel tags on it that mostly read “Boy, 11 years”. I remembered that, as a child, the CIBC my family banked with also had a tree like that that we would choose a tag from and purchase a gift for the gender and age that was written on it.

I asked the clerk if that was the same deal for this tree, and if by any chance the children who would be receiving the gifts were from local families. Yes, and yes. Perfect! I checked out all the tags. The handful remaining on the tree were all for boys aged 10 or 11. I guess I’m not the only one who has no idea what those big but still little guys want.

This past weekend my little family made the trek into town, to our fabulous toy store – West of the Moon – specifically to find something for the 10-year-old we’d chosen. We looked all around.

Playmobile? Do boys that age still like Playmobile? We weren’t sure so we played it safe and kept looking.

The only other things we could find that we felt might be appropriate for a boy who’s still too young to be considered a teen, yet too old to be a “little” kid, were chemistry sets and little robots that ran on salt. I thought these were pretty darn cool myself, but we weren’t really sure if that was something our unknown child would want. So we headed next door to Mouatt’s to take a peek and see if there was anything better there.

There were certainly no sections that screamed “This is what 10-year-old boys like!” My husband was getting frustrated and impatient (something shopping seems to do to him unless we’re in and out of a store, purchases in hand, in 3 minutes or less). I tried to be as quick as a bunny, but this bunny was clueless.

Maybe a board game to encourage some family game nights? Frizbees to play a friendly game of disc golf at our local course? Should we just head back to the toy store and get the robot?

I still have no idea if we chose something that will be exciting to open on Christmas morning (or eve, if that’s when his family does their gifts). We settled on a new soccer ball and a pack of “Uno” cards. Being that soccer is the biggest (and pretty much only) organized sport on our little island, I figured there was a good chance he’d get some use out of it. Plus it would encourage some physical, outside play, which we could all use more of.

The Uno cards, I felt, were a good option for getting together with his family or friends to enjoy some friendly competition that doesn’t require a screen and controller. The box also said 7+, and being that I somehow magically aced my way through calculus, I can assure you that 10 is a bigger number than 7. And they said I would never use my frustrating and painfully earned math skills. Ha!

So we’re headed back to CIBC this afternoon to drop off our gift. I really hope our gift doesn’t disappoint the young man.

What would you get? Does anyone have any idea what boys that age would like to receive as a gift?