Thursday 11 December 2014

Christmas Gifts for Quality Family Time over Christmas When There's Nothing on The Telly Box

At Christmas we all spend more time indoors than normal. The whole family together, all off work and school, perhaps with extended family too. The telly box isn't always good everyday, and sometimes we return to old fashioned things like board games and toys. House of Fraser recently gave me the chance to order a couple of boardgames for Aaron for this festive family time, but here's what I opted for.

Aaron's pretty much ADDICTED to jigsaws because in the first fortnight of big school (reception) Aaron did a jigsaw or two, at school every morning and now he's hooked. Throw in Planes / Dusty and you have a focused boy until it's done. He's seen both movies and was even lucky enough to see Planes 2 Fire and Rescue at a Blog/Press Preview (Gala Screening).
When you're on Oxford Street, House of Fraser might seem like a posh store that only does perfumes and cosmetics, but don't let the ground floor confuse you. Just like lots of other department stores, they stock nearly everything, toys and games included. Given that the above jigsaw is now out of stock I just Googled it to see who else is selling it, and everywhere I found is selling it for the same five pounds as House of Fraser so their prices are certainly competitive. What I will say too is the delivery arrived extremely well packaged and came with the gorgeous magazine you can see Aaron holding above. There were also lots of money off vouchers included in the package, which I really appreciated - yes they are advertising for the brands who supplied them, but good stuff!

In our House of Fraser package we also got a HexBugs set. Aaron played with it non stop until the batteries ran out (reminds me I need to replace them). He loved it so much he even brought it up to bed:

A photo posted by Liska (@newmumonline) on

The Hexbug Bridge Battle Set is RRP 29.99 but good old House of Fraser is selling it for only 14.99 GBP. I must inform you though that there is a V2 model, and House of Fraser's is the original. We still love it though.

We also got a Doc McStuffins jigsaw set, which is incredibly great value as there are FIVE jigsaws in one packet. The packaging says 3D but don't worry this does NOT mean you will be building a volumous jigsaw, that is like a globe. No, each jigsaw piece is shiny so that the IMAGE appears 3D. This is currently reduced from 20 to 10 pounds.

We also got Guess Who, which is fabulous value from House of Fraser at ten pounds considering Argos is selling it for 14.99 GBP. Don't believe the packaging that it can be built in a few minutes as it took me ages. You literally have to snap off bits, which the instructions don't make clear and did hurt my fingers a little. I kept telling Aaron we couldn't play it till I built it. By the time I did it was bedtime and we haven't got it out since. BUT NOW that it IS built it WILL be great fun to play with over Christmas. I think I will get him to play it with his cousins over the festive period. I'll update y'all when I do:
Our total haul was 41 pounds worth, which is excellent. We also have a pack of cards (which are only 99 pence but currently out of stock, which you'll see below. We haven't touched them yet, but Aaron adores playing cards, so that will be another thing to provide quality family "playing" time over Christmas.
All items featured were sent to us for review, so that we could give you ideas for toys to play with over the festive season.

Having checked the prices of each item I can honestly say, when you are toy shopping online, try HouseOfFraser.co.uk before clicking "buy".

I was lucky enough to be sent a Christmas Stocking by House of Fraser's home department which I will be reviewing soon. If you are looking for a "vintage" looking Christmas Stocking then I don't think you can beat this one. It is LINED and beautifully embroidered:

Bye for now, Liska
xxx

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