Great ideas here!
A few years ago I gave cash to my nephews who were both saving for something in particular.
Older DN was saving for a laptop. I made him a "laptop" from a shirt box and some creative printing from Printmaster. The screen said something like "Merry Christmas Jacob". He didn't really understand why he got an empty box that was made into a pretend laptop. I hid the cash under the paper screen. He had to tear apart the "laptop" to get the cash out.
Younger DN (who wants to be a farmer) was saving for some more chicken eggs to hatch. I got out a bunch of plastic easter eggs and put some $$ in each of them and gave him a small gift bag full of eggs.
When I gave my Dad some cash to buy a new flagpole a few years ago, I took the paper money and taped it end to end. I rolled it up into a long skinny tube and taped a paper flag to the top. He knew exactly what his gift was!
I agree with the PP who said that the scavenger hunt or such would be good for some kids and not for others. But the OP would probably know her granddaughters and what they would enjoy.
Last year for Christmas we gave our kids a Disney trip. I didn't just want to tell them about it, so I made up kind of a word puzzle (fill in the blanks). And I gave them exactly the right letters (die cut letters I use for scrapbooking). They just had to figure out where the letters went and what the message spelled out. I gave the caveat that for every 30 minutes that went by where they didn't figure out at least one word, I would give them a hint. But it was truly very frustrating for them and I ended up "hinting" almost the entire puzzle in a few hours. And I was obviously trying to be too cryptic. They barely understood the puzzle even after all of the letters were in place.
It said....."Been There, Done That, Going back in April!" They still weren't sure WHERE we were going. They had kind of assuming that the clue was leading to a Disney trip, but they just couldn't make the words fit right because they kept trying to spell Disney and it wasn't working. I would definitely make it easier next time!!
When we surprised them with a trip to WAshington, DC a few years ago I wrapped clues and put them under the tree... they were labeled Clue #1, Clue #2, etc. They started with very difficult and vague up to really easy. I believe that clue number one penny (Lincoln Memorial), clue number two was a scrapbook sticker that looked like a branch of cherry blossoms (because we were going at that time), clue number three was a dollar bill, clue number four was a sticker of a mini-van packed for a road trip, number five was a tiny American flag and a tiny DC flag..... all the way up to a scrapbook sticker of the White house. The final package was a few kids guidebooks to DC... but they had figured it out by then. It was really fun. DD (who was about 11 at the time and very bright) figured it out pretty quickly, but DS (who as almost 9 at the time) was just clueless. But he was happy and thought it was fun.
Hope some of this might help........................P
I'm superstitious. $2 bills bring bad luck.
the stack of $1. bills!!
