[quaddo]

At the risk of going too far OT, here's a story of how I did something different that wasn't expensive but was still seen fondly by all concerned.

So ~15 years ago our son had been invited to his best friend's birthday party. Unsurprisingly, the birthday boy had a list of electronic toys on his gift list, as had become tradition.

While my wife and I were out shopping for said gift, she located one of the electronic items. Probably a game cart for whatever was popular at the time.

Meanwhile, I had come across something that had stirred up fond memories of my own: a sleeping bag + flashlight (+ some other related item) combo. Woo :)

We decided to get both the game and the sleeping bag combo, just in case the latter wasn't well-received.

At the birthday party, I think literally every other gift was for his gaming system. Once he opened the sleeping bag gift, he, his mom, and at least a few of the other kids had a "wait - okay that's different and kinda cool" reaction.

Even if he never went camping with them, I hope he got many hours of use out of that sleeping bag and flashlight. I know I did with mine.