Christmas gift ideas for families
Ten presents that are still in use in March, or still on the shelf in ten years.
The best Christmas gift ideas for families are rarely the most expensive ones. They are the ones that are still in use in March, or still on the shelf in ten years.
We spend every December surrounded by families and their Christmases, and we notice what children actually play with and what parents actually keep. The pattern is clear. Things you do together last longer than things you open alone. Things with a name on them get kept. And a photograph, printed and framed, outlives almost every toy in the room.
So this is our Christmas gift guide for families: ten ideas that work for small children, for parents, for grandparents and for the family as a whole, with a few words on wrapping at the end. Nothing here needs to be expensive, and most of it can be found in Dubai or ordered in good time. If you are ordering from abroad or having something personalised, read our timeline for when to order first, because the calendar matters more than people expect.
Before you shop: choosing gift ideas for families
Every good gift list starts with the same handful of questions. Ask them before the shops start asking them for you.
One thing to open, one thing to do. For children, a single present to unwrap and a single thing to do together is usually more than enough. The unwrapping takes a minute; the doing lasts the whole holiday.
Fewer, better things. A pile of presents under the tree looks generous in a photograph and overwhelming in real life. Three good things are remembered. Fifteen are a blur.
Something to keep. Every year, give each child one thing that is meant to last: a book with an inscription, a named ornament, a framed print. By the time they are grown, it becomes a collection.
Think about the grandparents. Many Dubai families have grandparents a flight away. The gifts that mean most to them are almost always photographs of their grandchildren, and they need sending early.
Order before you think you need to. Anything personalised, printed, made to order or shipped from abroad needs weeks, not days. December is the busiest month of the year for every courier.
Wrap as you go. Wrapping twenty presents on Christmas Eve is a rite of passage nobody enjoys. Wrap each one the day it arrives and hide it properly.
Keep a list. Who gets what, what has arrived, and what is still on its way. The note on your phone is the most useful thing you will write all December.
Gift 01
Matching pyjamas for everyone
The present that becomes a tradition. A set of matching Christmas pyjamas, given on Christmas Eve and worn the next morning, is the easiest way we know to make a family photograph look like a family photograph. Gingham, tartan and soft checks all photograph beautifully; bright prints and slogans are better avoided.
Order them early and in the right sizes. Pyjamas bought two sizes up to grow into look exactly like that in photographs, and the popular sets sell out in November. If the dog is joining in, check the pet sizes too, because they go first.
Gift 02
A book to read together
Every child should get a book at Christmas, and the best ones are the books adults enjoy reading aloud too. Look for picture books with real illustration, a story with a rhythm to it and a length that fits a bedtime.
Write in the front. A date, a name and a line about the Christmas it was given turns a book into a keepsake, and the ones with an inscription are the ones that survive the move to a bigger bedroom. A new Christmas book each year, read on Christmas Eve, is a tradition that costs almost nothing.
Gift 03
Wooden toys that last
For babies and toddlers, a well-made wooden toy is one of the few presents that survives several children. A car, a stacking tree, a pull-along animal or a set of blocks will be chewed, thrown and loved, and still look good enough to pass on.
Wooden toys also look lovely under a tree and in photographs, which is not nothing. Choose natural wood or soft painted colours, avoid anything with small parts for the under-threes, and resist the temptation to buy the whole set at once. One good piece this year, another next year.
Gift 04
A named ornament
One ornament per child, per year, with their name or initial and the year on it. It is a small present on the day and, by the time a child leaves home, a whole tree’s worth of Christmases to take with them.
Glass baubles with a painted name, wooden stars with an engraved initial and little salt-dough ornaments with a handprint all work. Anything personalised needs ordering early, often in October, which we cover in our guide to personalised gifts.
Gift 05
A framed family photograph
The most reliable present for grandparents, godparents and anyone who has watched your children grow up from a distance. A good family photograph, properly printed and in a simple frame, will be on a shelf long after everything else from that Christmas has gone.
Choose one photograph rather than a collage, print it larger than you think, and keep the frame plain: white, black or natural wood. The picture is the present. If the photograph is from a Christmas session, order the print the week the gallery arrives, not the week before Christmas.
Gift 06
A photo album of the year
Most families have thousands of photographs from the year and not one of them printed. A small album of the best thirty, in order, with a line or two written in by hand, is the present that gets taken off the shelf every Christmas afterwards.
Photo books can be ordered online and printed in a week or two, but not in December, when every printer in the world is busy. If you want to include your Christmas photographs, plan for it: order the book as soon as your gallery lands and leave time for delivery.
Gift 07
An advent calendar to refill
A good advent calendar is a present that lasts all of December and comes back every year after. The wooden ones with little drawers, or a row of fabric pockets, can be filled with anything: a chocolate, a note, a small job for the day, a clue to where the next thing is hidden.
It needs to be given before 1 December, which makes it the one Christmas present that has to arrive early. Order it in October, fill it in November, and hang it before the first drawer needs opening.
Gift 08
Something to make together
A baking set for the whole family: a rolling pin for each child, a tin of cutters, a gingerbread recipe written out by hand and an afternoon in the diary to use them. It is less a present than an invitation, and it is the one children talk about.
Wrap the cutters and the recipe together with a date on the tag, so the gift is also the plan. There is a gingerbread recipe that works in our guide to Christmas baking with kids, along with seven more bakes children can do.
Gift 09
An outing, not an object
Some of the best presents come in an envelope. Tickets to a festive market, a morning at the ice rink, a trip to see real snow, or a night at a hotel for the grandparents who have flown in: children remember a day out far longer than most things they unwrap.
Write the plan on a card and put it in a box with one small clue: a pair of mittens for the ice rink, a bobble hat for the snow. There are ideas for December days out in our guide to Christmas in Dubai with kids.
Gift 10
Something for the dog
The dog will not know it is Christmas, but everyone else will enjoy watching them open something. A new bandana in the family colours, a good chew, or a soft toy that will be in pieces by Boxing Day are all perfectly acceptable.
If the dog is coming to a Christmas photograph, a bandana is the most useful present of all. Your first pet comes free with every session we run, and the dogs in bandanas that match their family often end up in the best frames.
Wrapping that looks like you tried
Brown paper, white or red cord, a sprig of greenery and a handwritten tag will make the simplest present look considered, and it photographs far better than shiny paper covered in cartoons. Buy one roll of good paper, one ribbon and one kind of tag, and use them on everything; the tree will look like it was planned.
Wrap as presents arrive, write the name on the tag straight away, and keep a roll of tape where the children can’t find it. And save the best ribbon. Velvet ribbon can be ironed and used again next year, and the year after that.
If the children are old enough, give them a roll of paper and let them wrap the presents they are giving. The corners will be wrong and the tape will be everywhere, and those are the parcels everyone opens most carefully.
And for the grown-ups
Parents are the hardest people to buy for, because they have usually bought everything they need themselves. The presents they remember are the ones that give them time or put them in the picture: a morning off while someone else takes the children to the park, a book they have been meaning to read, a night out booked and paid for, or a photograph of the whole family in which they actually appear.
That last one matters more than it sounds. In most families, one parent takes almost every photograph, which means that parent is almost never in them. A family portrait, with everyone in the frame and nobody holding a phone, is the present that parent didn’t know they wanted.
What we’d leave off the list
Anything with a battery and a loud noise, for the sake of everyone in the house. Toys with a hundred small pieces for children under three. Presents chosen for how they will look in a photograph rather than how they will be used. And the last-minute panic buy on the twenty-third, which almost always costs more and means less than something chosen in October.
Let’s sum up
The Christmas gifts families remember are the ones they do together and the ones they keep: matching pyjamas, a book with an inscription, a named ornament, a framed photograph, an afternoon of baking, a day out. Fewer, better things, chosen early and wrapped as they arrive. Order anything personalised, printed or coming from abroad well before December, and the season takes care of itself.
Questions about Christmas gifts for families
A photograph of their grandchildren, printed well and framed simply. It is the present grandparents keep longest. If they live abroad, order it early enough to post, or take it with you when you fly.
Fewer than you think. One thing to open and one thing to do together is plenty for small children. Three good presents are remembered; fifteen become a blur, and a pile looks better in a photograph than it feels on the day.
October for anything personalised, printed or shipped from abroad, and November for everything else. Our week-by-week timeline has the detail.
The Setup Collective builds three Christmas rooms in Dubai each season, The Forest, The Tree and The Kitchen, then photographs families in them. Candidly: nobody gets told to tuck their chin in. Who we are
