My dh and I are at a complete loss as to what to get 11 yo dd for Christmas. Nor do we know what to suggest to relatives. We have asked dd to make a list. She came up with a single item. "Science kits." After some prodding, she also asked me to knit her a hat. Um....OK. Done. A hat will be her gift from me and I will suggest the science kits to relatives. I am looking for any ideas. Some background..... We do not live where we have access to "experience-type" gifts. We do not have museums, zoos, bounce houses, amusements parks, horse farms, roller rinks.... You get the idea. Dd no longer really plays with toys. She has an AG doll and a nice dollhouse, but does not play with either much anymore. Dd is not really into electronics or video games. She already has a laptop, iPod, and cell phone. We have a great library within walking distance that we visit multiple times a week. So books are not really practical. Dd is super picky about clothing (how it fits and feels) and needs to pick that kind of stuff out on her own. Plus she is not a fashion-type girl and rarely gets excited about clothing. Dd has every art supply known to man. Dd has a stack of gift cards to many different stores that she has gotten as gifts over the last year or so. She can not think of things to buy. If I need something from one of the places, I pay her for the card and she put the cash in her savings account. Dd's main hobbies are violin, skiing, and gymnastics. She has every piece of gear needed for all of these activities. Dd is not into jewelry. At all. Or make-up. Dd has a tiny bedroom so "stuff" in general is hard for her. Knick-knacks seem to be the go-to gift from the grandmas and she is simply out of display room for anything like that. This kids never ever asks for anything. She in an only child and only grandkid so has traditionally been showered with gifts. We (her parents) do not spoil her. We never just buy her stuff and typically buy her a single gift from the two of us for birthdays and Christmas. So, aside from the hat I will knit, we really just need one nice "santa" gift and some suggestions for the relatives. After weeks of brainstorming, we have nothing so any out-of-the box suggestions would be great!

I tried it. It seemed like a great idea for someone like me who HATES to shop and lives very far away from stores that carry quality clothing. I did not have whole lot of hope though because I am also picky. And I was right:( First, I am a strange size. I explained this is great detail in the survey. Specifically, pants are tricky. I am tall and thin so standard sizes typically do not fit me. I typically need "longs" or pants that are sized with waist and length dimensions. The box included two pairs of pants, both of which were standard sizes and therefore at least 3 inches too short. I had warned about this and it seemed to have been completely ignored. They were also both "skinny" pants which I said in the survey that I do not wear and do not plan to. I also specified that I live in a very cold climate and that I was specifically looking for nice clothing I could wear to work that was WARM. The box included a dress that I actually liked a lot. But it was 3/4 sleeve and very thin. I could wear it here during the summer....on a good day. There was also a cardigan sweater (which as supposed to be "warm") but it was very thin, had no closure, and also 3/4 sleeve. I have long-sleeve t-shirts that are warmer than that cardigan. The last item was a long sleeve, button up, plaid shirt. It was made of very cheap material and was poorly constructed. Plus very very thin (not warm) and the sleeves were about 3 inches too short. None of the items were $50 or less. I am completely willing to pay for quality, versatile clothing that I will wear for years. Nothing in the box met those requirements. All were made in China and of material I felt would not hold up over repeat wearings. Two items were dry clean only (another thing I said I was not willing to buy in the survey). We do not even have a dry cleaner here..... Ugh. I know many are really happy with the service. Had it been a good experience for me, I would have happily been a repeat customer. But I think anyone who has specific clothing requirements, is an odd size, or is just generally picky about type and fit will be dissatisfied.

This is correct. My dd is in 1a now and this is indeed what they are covering.

Thanks all!

Thanks! When you say "very thick," how thick is that? Did your kids decorate them at all or just leave them plain?

Has anyone made them? If so, do they hold up year after year? Dd is thinking of making some as gifts but we are concerned they might degrade over time.

I try to think of things that I might not normally have on hand that others are used to being staples. In our case that would be decaf coffee, sugar, sandwich bread, crackers, margarine, soda, etc.... I tend to cook in a pretty not "kid friendly" way so if kids will be here I also try to have boxed mac-n-cheese, cold cereal, and a few frozen pizzas just in case. In fact, I usually have to keep that in mind for random kids who end up at my house. My dd will eat anything but I cannot really expect some poor kid that sleeps over to be OK with millet, eggs, and sauerkraut for breakfast. Ha ha!

I use a picnic cooler.

We had red squirrels chew through all of our Christmas lights one year. I cannot figure out why. But even stranger.....a rabbit ate the plastic wheels off of our gas BBQ. Why?!?

I do not have a dog but I do have cats. Two cats. Two cats that were in very bad health four years ago. They ate very "high end" cat food. We switched to raw food based on info I gleaned from various sources in an attempt to end the daily medication regimen we were subjected to. It was inconvenient for us but absolute torture for the cats. We were dubious to say the least and our vet was 100% against it. The difference has been shocking. I now have two elderly cats who have healthy coats, all health issues gone, no meds, and who act like kittens. You would never guess their ages. I am sold.

There is also a big change from kids' activities from when I was younger. Maybe it is because I live in a different area or my perception is different. But when I was a kid, children's activities were very organized and parents knew what was going on. That is not the case (at all) with my dd's current activities. Things end early, go late, change locations and/or times. Communication is poor. We NEED the phone or else we have to stay at every activity. If it were just one or two activities, I would just pull her out of them, but this has been our experience with every single activity she has been involved in. It is frustrating to no end, but at least we have a way for her to communicate if plans change.

Yeah. There is not much to do with a dumb phone. I suppose they could be texting, but that has not been an issue in dd's activities. Most ban the use during activity time and they will be taken until the end of the activity if the rule is violated (usually followed up with a chat or email to the parents).

We got one for dd at age 10. It was more for OUR benefit than hers. Most of her friends live in houses with no land lines and there are no pay phones anywhere anymore. We needed to be able to contact her and for her to be able to contact us without drama. It is a dumb phone though. If she ever wants a smartphone, she will pay the difference in plan price and for the phone. Even at that, I don't think we would allow it until she was older anyway.

This is a big concern for me. Now that we have vaccinated it out of the general community and no one is getting natural immunity, I worry about the vaccine waning in effectiveness and then kids getting the disease as adults when it is far more dangerous. Is there a booster schedule to address this?

Does this means neither of these would be given to an older child who is just getting their first vaccines? Or are they just lower priority?

I agree. I have never had it go bad. I usually keep a huge pot on my front porch for 3-4 days at a time. It is cool out there but not always as cold as the fridge. We eat it nearly every day so I just scoop out what we want for a meal or snack until it is gone or it has been 4 days....then I freeze in single serving portions. I might have to rethink that.....

I feel for you. One of my biggest pet peeves is incorrectly assigning attire requests. I was once invited to a 1pm wedding that specified "black tie attire." That is not even acceptable before 7pm people! It was terribly awkward because I would have felt silly dressing like that for a church wedding during daylight. But would have also felt silly if I was the only one not wearing the specified attire. Luckily this was before the RSVP and I simply declined. Too much pressure. I learned later that people showed up in everything from tuxedos to ratty jeans. I know I was not the only to decline due to the request. It would have been far better to not have specified anything. In your case, I would go and just dress up the velvet skirt. Or go to a shift store and grab a simple black dress that can be dressed up to be "formal" or dressed down to be functional for other purposes. Everyone should have a little black dress in their arsenal anyway. I have had the same one for 25 years. It only gets put into service one every two years or so, but very handy to have on hand just in case.

Our area is embarrassingly behind the times on this. We do not have recycling pick-up. You have to take it to the single drop-off area. They make it as hard as possible. The drop site has a fence around it and hours. The hours are sporadic and different depending on the season. There are no weekend or after-work hours so you have to be available during the weekday. If you manage to jump through all of those hoops, the bins are often overflowing so you might not even be able to find a place to dump your stuff. Several times I have had to come back home with the recycling I intended to drop off. I have complained to the people who man the site and once was told it all just goes into the landfill anyway. Nice. There is also no glass recycling within hours of our town. The reason is that it is "too expensive" to haul. We take ours on "vacation" with us anytime we will be in an area that recycles it. There is a compost drop area that is run by a small farm. It is barely "tolerated" by the city as many people have deemed it an eyesore (which is pretty funny since we have old and dumpy housing, sidewalks, and roads). Many people have their own bins. We do. Given all of that, it is far easier for us to simply "reduce" instead of recycle. I try to buy things with little packaging. We do pretty well. It takes 4-6 weeks for us to fill a standard garbage bag and most of that is cat litter. We are very unusual for our area. The whole concept is simply not a priority for most people around here. It is pretty depressing and honestly one of the things that bothers me the most about where I live.

I would love to. I don't have versitile-enough cabinet space to store everything away. I have the space, but some of my kitchen items are too large to fit into the cabinets I have (stand mixer and dehydrator). But other than those items and a basket of washcloths, mine are generally empty. Nothing better than having a blank slate to work with.

Yes. I agree that the OP's situation is completely different.

My biggest problem is getting the comforter into the duvet to begin with. I know all about the lay-it-flat rule but who has a spot that big in their house? Our beds are up high (storage underneath) and there is no floor space in any bedroom (old house, small bedrooms). I just do a lot of shaking then half crawl into the cover. It is pretty comical. I think I should count it as my cardio for the day.

For the most part, I agree. But things get tricky when I am hosting. We are all vegetarians, dd for her whole life and dh and I for 20 years. It is no problem for us to be at a meaty meal and just eat what fits into our own diet preferences. However, I have hosted Thanksgiving with overnight guests and had someone show up with a raw turkey expecting to cook it in my oven. When this happened, I was pretty young and did not know how to handle it so I allowed it. I watched in horror while said turkey was being rinsed out in my sink (flinging raw turkey juice all over the place) and the smell of turkey lingered in my kitchen for weeks. And we were stuck with huge amounts of leftovers that would have gone to waste except that dh had some turkey-loving coworkers that took it off our hands. After that, I made it clear beforehand that any meal/holiday I host will be vegetarian. You don't like it, don't come. Pretty simple. If someone approached me and told me that the holiday would just be no good if they could not have a little turkey, I would be OK with them bringing a pre-cooked dish with promises to take the leftovers home with them. But no raw turkeys please. That said, I have since hosted many Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with guests ranging from close family to near-strangers. These dinners can have as many as 20 people present and I rarely ask people to bring anything, therefore I set and prepare the entire menu. While I am sure some guests have privately wished for turkey or ham, I have never heard a single complaint and none have declined a future invitation. So I am a bit perplexed by anyone who thinks that a holiday would be ruined by the lack of a ham or potatoes or whatever.

I have a question for the swimmers. How do you construct your swim workouts? I am in a huge rut right now. I just go and swim 1.5 miles in laps (with a warm up and cool down). I like the tuning out feeling (I gets lot of my menu-planning done during that time) but am starting to get really bored. I used to put together more interesting workouts when I needed more breaks in my swim. But I don't need that anymore and found it too time consuming to look at my plan and change gears.

I checked "running" because that is what I do the most. In the summer is alternate running, biking, and swimming. In the winter it is cc skiing, swimming, and running. My "minimum requirement" is 5 days a week. 7 is what I prefer. It usually shakes out to 6. I have been doing this for years now and it is just part of my routine. I do triathlons, running, and ski races to motivate me. I am almost never sore except during "changeover season" when I am on skis or a bike for the first few times. My dd is a skier so I usually go when she has team practice. Dd is old enough to work independently at home for an hour so I usually do any other kind of workout while she is doing something on her own.

Another idea if all else fails.... Can you put a couple of strips of duct tape over the area that usually gets ripped? I know people who had to do this with babies that liked to take their diapers off in the night.