There’s something reassuringly luxurious about wooden toys. More substantial than plastic, warmer to the touch and made from natural materials: they last longer and can handle the rough and tumble of child’s play.

One tends to think of wooden toys in a nostalgic way because they remind us of the era when things were made with more care and designed to last. However, there are some very contemporary wooden toys on the market – if you know where to find them.

One of my favourite suppliers is The White Company in London who have some fantastic toys for younger children such as the Noah’s Ark and London Bus, pictured.

My daughters adore this wooden kitchen set from the Great Little Trading Company – and I can see why they find it so appealing. Besides being beautifully coloured, it also comes with a range of built-in appliances including a tap and sink, a fridge, an oven with opening door, a washing machine, microwave and storage cupboard. It even has a hob with clicking knobs. It has everything your kids will need to have hours of fun cooking up their own version of Bake Off and Masterchef. Three, two, one … bake!

If roleplay is your child’s greatest pleasure, they may also be interested in this fabulous playshop and theatre combo. Exquisitely designed to work as a shop on one side and a puppet theatre on the other, you kids can have hours of fun entertaining themselves and the family and play shops or cafe’s whenever they like.

GLTC even produces a range of equipment to go with it, so you can fully stock your shop and provide the essential till!

For the more active kids, Great Little Trading Co also has some fantastic wooden ride-on toys. I think these funky wooden scooters are very cool.  Their Italian, retro designs are super chic and as for functionality, the imulti-directional castors give fun, free flowing movement in all directions.

You can certainly see why this fab scooter won a Junior Magazine Design Award for Best Toy Design (0-2 years). And being made of wood it’s pretty much going withstand lots of knocks and last long enough for you to get your money back on eBay after your kid’s grown too big for it.

GLTC also have traditional wooden gifts such as this great wooden farm, with its own barn, hayloft, cow shed and stables. You can also purchase a wide range of animal accessories and even a tractor. You kids can have hours of fun playing farmer and looking after the animals in the knowledge that these sturdy wooden pieces aren’t going to fall to pieces or break like plastic toys do.

There’s lots more to see at GLTC too. Why not check out their pirate ships, easels, work benches, train sets, activity walkers…. The list goes on.

Eight times winner of Best Children’s Retailer and winner of the Best Independent and Best Online Retailer Awards, GLTC is a British company that provides both great products and great service to its customers – including international delivery and free returns. Why not visit GLTC now.  

Why not check out our post about GLTC’s fab Christmas stockings

For those of you who have kids with a love of riding on things, I’ve put together what I think are 10 of the best ride-on toys for Christmas. Whether it be electric battery-powered toys or good old-fashioned push and pedal powered, ride-ons have always been popular Christmas presents and here I’ve chosen some exceptional models with brilliant designs made from high quality materials. Hope you like them:

Electric Battery Powered Ride Ons

Vintage Mercedes Style Ride On with Parental Remote Control

This is a stunning vintage ride on car with a high attention to detail and lots of fab features that kids will love. It runs on (2 x 6) 12 volt, twin motor, rechargeable battery and has the added feature of a parental remote control which means you can give your kid the ride of their life whist ensuring they don’t go bump into your garden wall at the same time.

It’s made from tough,  durable plastic with a high gloss finish.  Features include: a fast/slow speed switch, mp3 input cable, front working lights, music and horn buttons, digital battery capacity timer, extra spare wheel, safety seat belt. For ages:2+

Kids Ride on Batmobile

If you have a batman fan at home this could possibly be their ultimate Christmas gift for 2013. Take their role play adventures one gigantic step further by getting them their very own Batmobile.

This 6V Batmobile is built with a tough steel chassis combined with tough bodywork to take all of the bumps and scrapes that your budding crime fighter will get into. Hand crafted in Italy and designed with DC Comics to help create a truly realistic Batman kid’s car, its features include: wing mirrors and official Batman styling, logos and details, flashing lights, authentic music and sounds, forward & reverse gears and foot operated pedal control. It includes 6V battery & charger.  L122.6cm x W62.5cm x H52.7cm

Ferrari F12 Berlinetta Ride on Sports Car

 

This amazing ride on is a fully licensed kids replica of an Audi R8 Spyder. The 12v sports car is a well constructed ride-on with easy assembly and top quality paintwork. The body for this model is similar to the Mini in that it is also vacuum formed and then painted with real car paint, to give a superb finish. Features include:  genuine looking accessories,  working lights and sounds for a realistic driving experience, a 12v motor to match the 12v battery, seat belt for additional safety. Top speed 7km/h

Pedal and Push Powered Ride-ons

Baghera Speedster Racer Ride-On Car

Baghera are a fantastic French company and probably make the best designed cars in France, real ones included – sorry Citroen. These are truly classic kids toys, exceptionally well made with robust materials and real chic retro designs.

The Speedster Racer is an amazing little push powered sports car for young children. Built to last with a padded seat, a good old fashioned metal body and rubber tyres, it also comes with a honking horn, chrome radiator grille and petrol cap. Simple self assembly required on delivery. It’s suitable for indoors or outdoors riding.  57 x 35 x 40 cm. Seat height: 26 cm, Max. rider weight: 30kg

Baghera Speedster Racer Ride-On Car 

Just like the Racer above, the Chocolate is another beautifully crafted well designed ride on toy. I particularly like it because the headlights make it look like one of those cute cartoon character cars that kids love.  Again, it comes with a padded seat, metal body, rubber tyres,   chrome radiator grille and horn. It’s easy to ride and steer both inside and outside. Slightly larger then the Racer it measures  L 72 cm; W 27 cm; H 37 cm and has a seat height of 26 cm.

I was looking to find a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and was very surprised not to find one, however, here is the next best thing, another metal bodied car, this time manufactured by a company called Great Gizmos that produces a wide range of early 20th Century looking vintage toy cars. As you can see, there is a high attention to detail, both with the body work and with features like the wind-up starter at the front, traditional front lights, old-fashioned radiator grille and mock fold up roof at the rear. Truly Scrumptious would have loved this.

Not found what you are looking for? Then try here for lots more ride ons.

All opinions in this review are our own, however, we may be compensated should you make a purchase through the links provided.

If you are looking for the best iPad alternatives for kids, here are my top reasonably priced tablet PCs  for Christmas 2013.

When choosing I’ve looked for exceptional value, low-cost, high specification and good customer reviews. You won’t be spending a lot of money here for something that is going to get dropped, spilled on and stood on, but you will get all the features that kids need in a tablet: gaming, apps, music, reading, internet surfing, taking photos & video and watching movies.

With that in mind, here are 5 of the best kids’ tablets for Christmas 2013.

Rapido Eco Tablet PC (£53.95) 

For an exceptionally low-priced Android tablet, the 7″ Rapid 5 certainly comes with a lot of features. it uses a dual core cortex A7 processor which can run at 2x 1.5 GHz and has 4 GB  of built-in storage which can be increased using a micro SD card. It has dual cameras and runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.2.

Like all android devices you will be able to download and use all the apps from the Google Play store as well as sync it to any other Google service.

Amazon Review Rating of 4.6/5

Visit Amazon to find out more

Lelik Tec Avalon 7″ HD Tablet PC ($63 / £56)

Again, this is very inexpensive Android tablet that comes packed with hi-specification features. These include a 1.2 GHz dual core processor, IGB RAM/ 8GB Flash memory, 1024 x 600 resolution and HDMI output, besides the usual USB connector. It runs on JellyBean 4.2.2.

It comes pre-installed with a range of apps, but all Android apps can be installed via the Play Store.

For kids, this is a particularly good design as it has a rubber coating to protect it from those accidental drops which are bound to happen.

Besides wi-fi, this tablet can also be connected via 3G using a dongle.

Amazon Review Rating 4.4/5

Visit Amazon for more details

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 (£140 / $179)

For a high quality brand this 7″ tablet really is exceptional value for money. It runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and has a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor with up to eight hours of battery life. Features include dual cameras, of much better quality than the products above, and a 1024 x 600 resolution screen which provides excellent picture quality.

There is 8GB built-in storage with the capacity to increase this to 64GB with an SD card which means you can store lots of apps, music, movies and ebooks. Perfect for browsing the net, watching films or playing on apps and helping your kids with their reading.

This is the wi-fi only version but there is also a 3G version available for an extra cost. The tablet also comes in a 10.1″ version.

Amazon Review Rating 4.3/5

Visit Amazon to find out more

Amazon Kindle Fire HD  (£119 / $139)

The more I see of the Amazon Kindle Fire, the more I am attracted to them. This is especially so for children’s use, because although they are a tablet PC, they are the quintessential book reader and for the many kids who seem to have developed an allergy to physical books, they are a perfect alternative that might just get them engaged.

Book reader aside, Kindle Fire an exceptional piece of kit.  Despite being less expensive, it has a higher resolution than the Samsung at 1280 x 800 and a faster processor at 1.5GHz. It also boasts excellent 3D graphics, Dolby audio, and features galore that you really need to visit Amazon to read about in full.

For clumsy kids, the Kindle is made from materials that are  20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic.

The there is a wide range of Kindle Fire versions available including larger models.

Amazon User Rating 3.9/5

Visit Amazon to find out more

Acer Ionica Tablet PC (£140 / $170)

Once again, here is hi-spec, top brand tablet for a really reasonable price.  Slightly larger than the rest of the models here at 7.9″, the Acer Ionica boasts a quad-core 1.2GHz Processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB memory (expandable to 32GB with SD card), Wi-fi, two cameras and the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system.

With a 1024  x 768 resolution, it’s the best of the Android devices for picture quality and only slightly less than the Kindle Fire. The cameras have a 5 MP resolution and there is also a mini HDMI connection. Lots of other features.

Amazon User Rating 4.5 / 5

Visit Amazon for more details

 Not found what you are looking for? Visit here for a wider selection

All opinions in this review are our own, however, we may be compensated should you make a purchase through the links provided.

If your kids are anything like mine, then putting up lots of Christmas decorations is one of the key ingredients in creating that perfect festive feeling.

For our family there are two sorts of Christmas decor, bought and homemade and we like to have a nice combination of both.

Like most families we have lots of  nice but fairly inexpensive decorations, but over the years we have built up a collection of unique Christmas ornaments as well.

Some of these have been gifts, some we have brought back from our travels and some we have bought because one of the family thought they were particularly attractive.

Every year we try to add a few more of the special ones to the collection so that we can slowly move away from the mass produced cheap ones.

One store that I’ve only just come across, that stocks an excellent selection of unique decorations the dotcomgiftshop. Their hand painted wooden Christmas tree decorations are perfect for decorating in a traditional way that will give a real Dickensian feel to your home.

I also like their retro 1950s Advent calendar. Behind each date is a  little drawer, opened by a red ribbon, which you can put sweets or toys in. Perhaps its best feature is that it can get used Christmas after Christmas, so once bought, you need never buy a new one.

It’s also handy if you have more than one child, because instead of having to buy them an Advent calendar each, you can put multiple sweets or trinkets in one drawer.

As I mentioned at the beginning, we like to have a combination of both bought and homemade Chrsitmas decorations. The homemade ones come from things we make at home as well as the ones that the kids make in school in the run up to the Christmas holidays.

In addition to these, you can now get homemade Christmas decoration kits from the dotcomgiftshop as well. Two that especially come to mind are the Christmas paper chains and the homemade decoration kits, as both are things that the kids can get involved in making.

The handmade Christmas paper chains have some really festive designs and putting them together is something we can do together as a family. They’re not hard to make so even very young children can get involved – and they are much better looking than just cutting up strips of coloured paper.

The other homemade decorations are the Christmas craft sets. There are lots to choose from including  wooden peg soldiers, angels, Christmas owls, Mr and Mrs Santa, Elves and my personal favourite, pictured on the right, the make your own nativity scene kit.

The other nice fact about the dotcomgiftshop is that the prices are very reasonable – some decorations are as low as £1.00

For more information and to look at their full collection visit dotcomgiftshop.com.

All opinions in this review are our own, however, we may be compensated should you make a purchase through the links provided.