FAQ: Do you have any Christmas gift ideas for my child, preteen, teen, or adult?

Answer: Yes we do.

Since you have taken the time and effort to contact us or searched for this page we believe you are a stakeholder in the child and truly want to give them a gift that they will not only love but will raise their bar. What we have listed here is from 80-years of our own combined experience as parents and the stories of hospice patients. We hope this helps.

A Gift of their First…

A noble goal for the gift they find under the tree, unwrap, and hold will be to have it build skills and memories and be something that will stand the test of time. We want it to be so treasured it will be passed down to their kids and grandkids. Our first experiences tend to give us memories that last a lifetime. Can you remember being with someone you looked up to the first time you whittled on the porch, your first backpacking trip, or your first squirrel or deer hunt? We want that experience to be remembered as full of fun and happiness, not frustration. Frustration typically comes from a lack of quality, poor fit, or wrong tool for the job. We suggest, depending on the child’s age and where they are on their personal journey, one of the follow firsts tools.

• quality knife
• first rifle
• first hunting rifle
• or first quality tools of a trade (check our Facebook post between now and Christmas for tool suggestions)

A Gift of Memories

Maybe you what your child to build memories around an adventure they long for, but you are not the person for them to do that with, be it because of work or other time commitment, or you lack the skills or knowledge or resources. The gift that will make memories and skills they will treasure for a lifetime and pass down to their kids and their grandkids might be a mentored adventure. Instead of a summer break of boredom or being in camps that feel like big kid daycare, we suggest you reserve a spot now for real adventure doing something they love. Read more about our camps

Gifts that Prepare Them for the Adventure

A good paring when giving a camp is to have something to wrap up and put under the tree or stuff the stocking with that they will need or want in Camp, a gift to build anticipation and prepare them for their adventure. The gift might be a quality backpack they can physically train with or quality compass a companion book to mentally train with.

• books (see below books Companion books for our camps and workshops or our reading list
• anything they would need for our camps or school(such as a quality compass, backpacking stove, backpack, or fire-kit)

A Gift of a Brighter Future

Here is the noblest gift of all, a gift that will change your children’s lives forever, something that every day they will get up looking forward to using. I am speaking of a school that prepares them for a future they dream of, with a custom curriculum tailored to fit them. A curriculum and mentors that will convert their dreams into goals and those goals into a reality. Not just an occupation but a lifestyle of their choice. You are a stakeholder in their future success do that extra step to make it a prosperous life. Northwestern Outdoor Leadership Institute’s School.