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“Hooray for Fall” Boxes!

Hooray! Hooray! Fall is here again! We are so ready for pumpkin patch adventures, collecting colorful leaves on our walks, enjoying our favorite Halloween stories, and just enough chill in the air to encourage extra snuggling– ha, like we need encouragement to snuggle!

To celebrate the arrival of our favorite time of year, we put together Hooray for Fall Boxes for the kiddos! We started this tradition last year and were so excited to do it again. The boxes are a fun way to grow excitement for the season and treat the kids to a little something special.

For those interested in putting together their own Hooray for Fall Boxes, here are some suggestions for what to include:

Items that encourage family time.

  • New seasonal books There’s nothing better than snuggling up under a cozy blanket and reading through a great stack of books! Need new book suggestions? Check out our favorite fall books– they are perfect for these boxes!
  • Games (card games, memory, brain teasers, Halloween Mad Libs). Target often stocks up on darling fall/Halloween themed games that are compact and affordable in both their dollar section and seasonal section.
  • Consumable art supplies Pipe cleaners, stickers, glitter, paper, shaped hole punches, beads, paints, etc. Affordable seasonal/holiday art supplies are readily available at any craft store. You can also find lots of crafty staples at the Dollar Store.
  • Plans for an outing or experience Include a little note or picture in the box that describes your plans (go look at the leaves, visit the pumpkin patch, attempt a corn maze, make a Halloween craft, etc.)

Items your children need. These are things I would have purchased anyway, but putting them in a box for the kids to open was WAY more exciting!

  • pajamas
  • warmer clothes

Decor Items. Festive seasonal items your children can display in their rooms.

  • Wall art
  • Garlands
  • Pillows
  • Blankets
  • Stuffed animals
  • Seasonal string lights
  • Pumpkins

Odds and Ends All the little fun extras!

  • Cute accessories (headbands, nail polish, themed shirts, etc.)
  • Toys
  • Temporary tattoos

Helpful Tips:

Shop ahead.

  • Buy after-season sale items THIS year for NEXT year’s box. Last year I purchased a number of items after Halloween and stored them away for this year, like the kids matching Halloween jammies ($6.50) and Isla’s bat headband ($1).
  • Use Honey to watch for sales on fall and Halloween items throughout the year. You can add desired items to your Honey Droplist, which follows them for 60 days and alerts you if the price drops.

Choose a fall craft to do ahead of time so that you can include the specific supplies in the gift box. Pinterest has so many wonderful craft ideas. Here are some fall crafts that have inspired us!

Make a list of what you want to include in your box, and make note of what you have purchased. If you’re like I am, this helps keep your purchases more intentional– even when you start seeing all the cute fall items on store shelves.

Consider and incorporate your children’s interests when choosing items. Isla wants to be a bat for Halloween and she loves non-fiction texts, so I included this National Geographic bat book in her gift box. Last year she was super into bones and skeletons, so I included books on the subject and skeleton tights.

Make sure your gift wrapping doubles as storage. I put the kids’ fall gifts in some Halloween themed storage boxes from Joann’s last year. The boxes are perfect to re-use, fun to display through the holiday season, and they are helpful when it comes to storing our Halloween decor for the rest of the year. Win-win-win!

If you have more than one child, try and anticipate any potential points of jealousy. Cole took one look at Isla’s new leaf blanket and did all he could to claim it as his own! (See below) I did not anticipate that this would be such a desirable item to him, and that’s okay– you can’t win ’em all! In this situation, super big sister Isla let Cole snuggle the blanket for a while and then he became distracted with something else. If he continues to go after the blanket we’ll see how the kids manage sharing it or we can look for a second blanket. Anyhow, all of this rambling to say, if you think more than one of your children will like something, get one for each of them!

Look at that little thief in action!

For those who are curious about what was in our kids’ boxes this year… well, we went heavy on the jammies and books! I had hoped to find more in the way of craft supplies, but didn’t see anything I really loved.

Isla’s Box:

Cole’s Box:

I just love how both the kids take the time to look through their new books as they open their gift boxes!

Watching Isla and Cole’s faces light up as they opened their Hooray for Fall Boxes brought our hearts so much joy! We cannot wait for all of the fall fun ahead: making the kids’ rooms feel extra festive with their new garlands, seeing them together in their matching jammies, snuggling up under the highly-coveted leaf blanket, and reading all our wonderful new Halloween books! These boxes are bringing us a little extra closeness, and for that we are very grateful.

We’re always eager to find ways to be more intentional and creative with our gift giving– any ideas for other goodies we can include in future Hooray for Fall Boxes?

Posted in Celebrations, Connecting as a Family, Crafting with Kids, Education, Fall, Favorite Books, Halloween, Holidays, Hooray for Fall Boxes, Live Creatively, Traditions