I am hoping I can get my particular question answered, but also that this might become a nice list of successful gift ideas for others. Perhaps just not buying our children gifts at all would be the most mustachian, but I personally am not going to go quite that far :)
Particular question: My 9 year old boy knows academically that he doesn't want or need any new toys, but was heartily disappointed during his recent birthday when he basically got no toys! We are only getting the kids each a Santa gift (our xmas break trip is our family gift) and DS definitely wants a toy. He is getting the Harry Potter boxed set as the other part of his Santa gift. Cost could range up to about 75$ for the toy part.
Things he has and loves:
-Magnatiles
-Snap Circuits
-Some lego stuff but all he wants going forward is the Lego Robotics kit that runs 600$, and we don't think he is old enough to take care of it.
-His bike
-a drone
None of those are things that he needs more of. He likes sciencey kinds of things, loves electricity in particular (thus he already owns every snap circuit kit ever made) but although he is plenty smart to do harder "older kid" science kits, he doesn't have the attention span or focus to sit down and work on a detail-oriented science project for several hours.
The last thing I want is to buy a Thing just to buy it. But come one, the kid needs ONE present under the tree, lol!
So. Ideas?