44+ Whole Family Experience Gift Ideas For Christmas (or Any Time!)

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Looking for family experience gift ideas for Christmas? Here are some great ways to treat the whole family without buying more stuff!

Whether you’re looking for a way to create new memories with your family members or ideas to strengthen homeschool family relationships, you have got to take a look at these whole family experience gift ideas.

Gift-giving doesn’t have to be about things. It can be about experiences. And we’ve got a list of activities that will keep everyone entertained and happy.

STEM Activities for a Family Fun Experience

One of the best ways to experience fun as a family is to make it educational with STEM activities. And what better way to enjoy STEM with your kids than with robot coding activites? That’s exactly what you can achieve with the mBot Neo with Coding Project Box.

The mBot Neo Coding Project Box collection centers on the mBot Neo coding robot. It offers detailed, easy-to-follow guides and engaging, game-like coding projects that delve into areas like robot programming, game creation, artificial intelligence, and data analysis. This approach allows children to grasp the fundamentals of block-based coding within half an hour of robot assembly, setting them on a path towards acquiring more complex skills through these coding activities.

To learn more, and save $10.00 with code SAVE10 at checkout, click here now!

Experience Gift Ideas That Teach Kids Art

Teaching kids about the arts is a great way to enhance their educational experiences.

Participation in the arts has been proven to enhance brain development. The arts also support emotional development.

Plus – the arts are fun!

10 Art-Related Activity Gift Ideas

1. A monthly subscription box from Kiwico comes with fun art and science projects the whole family can work on together. Learn more about educational subscription boxes.
2. Tickets to go see a local play (or even season tickets)
3. A gift card to a ceramics or canvas painting studio (the perfect gift for kids who like hands-on art)
4. Membership to a local art museum (a great activity gift for adults too!)
5. Music lessons (instrument or voice)
6. Tickets for a concert (classical or popular)
7. Tickets to an art gallery (these make fun family experience days)
8. Sign up for an art class or an acting class. You can even take these classes online on a site like Skillshare (free 30-day trial) that has over 30,000 online courses in every topic imaginable!
9. Arts and crafts bundle for learning art at home
10. A trip to a place famous for the arts (such as New York and Broadway)

Experience Gift Ideas That Teach Kids History

History is all around us!

Learning history from a book or a documentary is great. But wouldn’t it be better to get your kids out into the world and show them where they really came from?

Check out these history-related gift ideas.

8 History-Related Experience Gift Ideas

1. Bust out the popcorn and do a special movie night with Curiosity Stream, the educational streaming service that has tons of family-friendly documentaries on history, science, and more.
2. Visit a local Memorial (a great gift to teach about history too!)
3. Visit a local museum (or get a membership to a local museum)
4. Take a trip to some famous historical sites (such as Gettysburg, Fort Sumter, or The Paul Revere House)
5. Learn about our country’s religious past by visiting some church history sites
6. Visit Amish Country
7. Visit a family history museum or library
8. When traveling the country, you could even consider renting an RV!

Whole Family Gifts That Teach Kids Culture

It is important to teach kids about different cultures, and that’s where these whole family gift ideas come into play.

Teaching kids culture is a great way to teach them empathy and how to look at things from other peoples’ points of view.

A good cultural education also contributes to well-rounded and educated kids: kids who are well-versed in both street smarts and book smarts.

6+ Cultural Experience Gift Ideas

1. Learn about Native American culture with a trip to a cultural site – such as the Cherokee Heritage Center.
2. Go to a sporting event! Baseball games, football games, and more are great ways to culture kids. Get tickets to one game or get a season’s pass.
3. Theater, art, and music are also cultural. Go to a musical, play, or art show.
4. If you want a real adventure, take your kids to visit another country and learn about a whole new culture!
5. Visit a botanical garden or local museum. (Or consider a membership.)
6. Go on a trip to a National Park. You can get a National Parks annual pass and visit breathtaking locations all throughout the year.

Enjoy the Great Outdoors with Outdoorsy Adventure Gifts

Speaking of National Parks…have you ever considered treating your family to an outdoorsy Christmas gift?

Using memberships and inexpensive travel sites such as REI and Airbnb, it can be a lot cheaper than you think to take your family on an outdoors adventure!

For example – check out what our family is doing for Christmas this year.

We have 7 kids and together they voted on a vacation adventure as our family Christmas gift for the year.

We discussed amusement parks but everything local to us is closed for the season, and we didn’t want to wait until spring to enjoy our Christmas gift.

So we decided to go on a snowshoeing adventure!

For the price of 1 lifetime REI membership ($20 at the time of writing this) we were able to rent snowshoes at less than $5 a person. I found an Airbnb coupon code that got me a $40 credit to my first Airbnb rental (as a new customer) and we’re getting into Bryce Canyon for free using this National Park hack.

Add all that together and we get a 4 day vacation in the snowy mountains, complete with snowshoeing gear, all for less than $20 a head. (Yes, we are spending less than $20 a person on Christmas this year!)

Talk about a bargain!! The kids are going to be out of their minds with excitement. Plus there will be no toys to get broken or forgotten throughout the next few months.

What other outdoorsy Christmas gift ideas can you think of?

12 Outdoorsy Family Christmas Gift Ideas

1. Enjoy a National Park adventure
2. Go skiing or snowboarding
3. Try snowshoeing
4. Go indoor skydiving
5. Take a hot air balloon ride
6. Enjoy some warm weather and go snorkeling
7. Go on a fishing adventure
8. Go snow camping
9. Go bobsledding or tobogganing
10. Go on a dog-sledding adventure
11. Go snowmobiling
12. Go rock climbing! (Or for a cheaper/warmer option, find an indoor climbing wall.)
13. Go spelunking! Caves are a lot of fun this time of year.
14. REI has great deals on outdoor adventures

Gift Ideas for the Luxury-Minded Family

Luxurious experience gifts tend to be on the more expensive side. But if you have a bit of money to invest this Christmas, then, by all means, treat your family to a life of luxury! (Or at least a vacation of luxury.)

5+ Luxurious Experience Gift Ideas

1. For families with older kids, a trip to the spa would be nice!
2. Go on a cruise
3. Enjoy a luxurious tour of another country
4. Rent a private yacht
5. Stay at a beach or mountain resort
6. Rent an escape room (or for a more budget-friendly gift idea, buy an escape room in a box or grab one on Etsy.)

More luxurious experience gift ideas can be found here.

More Traditional Experiences Are Great Too!

When you think of whole family experience gifts, more traditional ideas such as zoo and amusement park memberships tend to come to mind.

To wrap up this article, here are 6 traditional family activity gift ideas – just in case nothing has fit your criteria just yet!

Follow your trip up with an ice cream cone and you’ve got a cheap field trip/family fun day as often as you want for an entire year!

7 Traditional Family Activity Gift Ideas

1. Membership to your local aquarium
2. Amusement park membership
3. Waterpark membership (Check out this feature on some great indoor Ohio waterparks by Tracy from Hall of Fame Moms!)
4. Zoo membership
5. Museum memberships
6. Other local venues often offer memberships (such as Thanksgiving Point in Utah)
7. If you’re on a budget or want to DIY your family experience gift, what about a year’s worth of family date coupons? These make simple and inexpensive whole family gift ideas, especially if you include things like family movie parties or living room camping.

Local Museum Memberships Make Great Family Experience Christmas Gifts!

If you live close to a fun museum, a membership is a great family experience Christmas gift option.

A lot of museums are a part of the ASTC program as well as the AHS program. This means that by owning a membership to a museum in these programs, you also get free admission to hundreds of other museums and botanical gardens throughout the United States. How cool is that?

Now as you are traveling the country, your family can still visit museums at a great price.

Did You Know? Some Museum Memberships Are Tax-Deductible! If your museum falls under the 501(3)c guidelines, then you can write off a good portion of your membership costs. Who doesn’t want a tax-deductible Christmas gift?

Family Experience Gifts For Christmas

Christmas is coming, and you know what that means – Christmas shopping! This is the time of year parents are scouring the internet, trying to find the perfect Christmas gift for their kids. Family experience gifts are just one of the many ideal gifts for homeschooling families, or any family really. Or if you don’t want to gift experiences, at-home whole family gift ideas are wonderful as well.

A SEASONAL NOTE – While the gift ideas in this article were written with the Christmas holiday season in mind, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why these gift ideas cannot also be used for EASTER!

These whole family gift ideas will work for any family looking for experience gift ideas for Easter time, or any time really!

Kids love Christmas presents. The wonder, the excitement, and the joy of Christmas morning just cannot be beat. So then why is Christmas shopping so stressful for parents?

• Cost is a big one. Christmas shopping can be expensive.
• Clutter is another big reason. Most kids already have way too many toys. Who really wants to add to the chaos of the messy bedroom/toy room with more things the kids won’t actually play with past January
• And last but certainly not least, experience gifts can lead to brain development and emotional well-being in children! Check out this article on the benefits of experience gifts (such as a vacation) for kids.

This year, my family is looking to solve both of these problems with family experience Christmas gifts.

What Are Family Experience Christmas Gifts?

A family experience gift is a gift that you give to the whole family to share. This gift is usually an experience or an activity instead of a toy.

With a family experience gift, the family is given the gift of time and memories instead of toys and clutter. Even the coolest, most educational toy won’t compare to a truly memorable family activity. (Bonus points if that family activity is also educational!)

Some examples of a family experience Christmas gift include museum memberships, amusement park memberships, or tickets for a nice family vacation.

Reasons to Consider a Clutter-Free Christmas Gift for the Whole Family

There are many reasons to consider a gift for the whole family!

Besides the obvious lack of clutter, there are other perks that come with this fun Christmas gift idea.

• Clutter (or lack thereof)
• Cost (Oftentimes, a whole family gift is a fraction of the cost of a living room filled with toys – especially if you were going to invest in these kinds of activities throughout the year anyway.)
• Memories/Experiences
• Educational Experiences
• Family Bonding/Strengthening Relationships
• Life Experiences and Skills
• Enhanced Brain Development
• Increased Emotional Well-Being

Want a free printable copy of the clutter-free Christmas gifts pdf (above)? Click here to download your free copy!

More Family Experience Gift Ideas

Check out this post by Tracy from Hall Of Fame Moms. She has some more great ideas for experience gifts!

International Experience Gifts

If you’re looking for experience gift ideas in the UK, Freddie’s Mom has a great list of ideas! She goes over experience gift ideas for kids, moms, dads, couples, or whole families!

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