The day before we left for our 11+ hour drive to Florida, a friend told me about an idea someone else told her. She suggested we wrap a gift for each kid to be opened once an hour on the trip. Even though I was busy that day, I decided to try to get 12 presents wrapped for each kid.

I took both kids to the dollar store and started shopping. Baby Girl wanted to help me pick things for her and for her brother. I finally convinced her to walk behind me so that some of the things would be a surprise.

Each kid had a bag. I probably had 9 or 10 presents per kid.I packed special snacks (cookies, crackers), cars, small dolls, coloring books, stickers, and small animals. Baby Girl got a small doll with hair clips and some accessories. She played with it for hours! Buddy loved the plastic cow I found for him. I spent less than $10 on all of the gifts.

This helped more than I thought it would! We didn’t stick to the once an hour plan. Instead, we used them when we needed them. Sometimes we might go two hours or more; sometimes we needed to give one out after an hour. I think we used a few more the second half of the trip. (At the halfway mark, Buddy grabbed his seat belt and said, “All done!”  Poor kid.)
I’ll definitely do this again! It was worth the time it took to wrap each present individually. The kids enjoyed unwrapping as much as they enjoyed playing with the gift.

Do you have good ideas to help on long trips?