40 Meaningful Experience Gift Ideas for Kids

Looking to give more non-toy gifts this year? Check out these 40 experience gift ideas for kids that the whole family can be included on for Christmas. Many of these gift ideas are free or really cheap.

With a 3-year-old and one-year-old our home has definitely been taken over by toys, puzzle pieces, and Mr potato head parts. Especially since both girls have a birthday less than a month before Christmas, Justin and I are trying to be very purposeful in our gifts and also trying to help family and friends understand we appreciate their gifts, but maybe an experience gift idea might be better if they feel they want to give something.

Experience gifts don’t have to be lame. This year we took Clara to Disney on Ice and it was so much fun and she still talks about it two months later.

As we work to simplify our life, we want to be more intentional about what we bring in to our home to help with the clutter and mess that constantly seems to build up. No matter how hard we try to keep a clean home, it seems I blink and it looks like a tornado blew through again.

Maybe that’s just our home, but whatever the case, experience gift ideas have been on my mind so I thought it’d be fun to put together a list for you in case you’ve been looking to give an experience this year as a gift instead of a toy.

Once you decide on what experience you’re doing, make up a cute little certificate, ticket, or get a small item that represents the experience to wrap up.

$ Free or Pretty Cheap Non-Toy Gift Ideas

Bake cookies together
Host a drive-in movie night with cardboard box cars and popcorn
Go on a scavenger hunt
Go on a hike
Share the gift of a skill you have
Bake bread
Decorate a cake
Make homemade ice cream
Plan a trip to the Fire Station
Volunteer at a pet shelter together
Bury treasure and make a treasure map

$$ Experience Gifts That Cost Some

Go ice skating
Go out for ice cream
See a play
Go to a local musical performance
Go to the zoo
Go to the mall and let them choose anything they want from the food court for dinner
Do mini golf
Go to a local sports game
Play laser tag
Go bowling
Go karts
Go to a local arcade
Take a ceramics class
Do a glass blowing class
Go to a bounce house
Go to the aquarium
Go rock climbing
Head to the batting cages
Go horseback riding
Go to a rollerskate park

$$$ Splurge

Go to the children’s museum
Give a season pass to the zoo
Get tickets for Disney on Ice
Hot air balloon ride
Buy a season of sport classes (gymnastics, dance, karate, swimming, etc)
Get a night at a hotel with a pool
Plan a trip to Disneyland
Get concert tickets
See a Broadway musical

So, what do you think?

What experience gift ideas do you think are missing from this list?

I’d love for you to drop your ideas in the comments below about the best gift you’ve ever received.