There comes a moment each Christmas when you realise — usually while attempting lifesaving surgery on a decapitated Barbie— that most children don’t actually need more stuff. The wrapping paper is thrilling, the toy briefly adored, yet come the stroke of midnight, it’s often forgotten amidst the merry mayhem, lying beneath the piano like a fallen soldier of festive excess. Which is why this year, we’re championing something far lovelier: gifts that do something. Experiences that spark curiosity, fire up small imaginations and, crucially, don’t require an Allen key or a battalion of obscure batteries to function.
Happily, London is overflowing with them. Bubble worlds that bend physics, VR quests through ancient civilisations, circus spectaculars and art adventures that let kids tumble headfirst into a masterpiece. So, consider this your gentle nudge towards a festive rebellion — one where magic and memories outrank mess and microplastics. You’re welcome…
For budding thespians: Tickets to My Neighbour Totoro
If your children are driving you around the bend with back-to-back K-Pop Demon Hunters, ditch the demons and dokkaebi and whisk your square-eyed sprites off to the Gillian Lynne Theatre to experience fantastical folklore in real-time, courtesy of smash hit show My Neighbour Totoro.
Royal Shakespeare Company’s multi-award-winning stage adaptation brings the acclaimed Studio Ghibli animation to life through powerful storytelling, live music and some of London’s largest puppets. The story follows the emotional journey of two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, who move to the Japanese countryside with their father, encountering spirits, sprites and curious forest creatures along the way – including gentle giant Totoro (and we mean giant!). Driving home messages of kindness, courage and the power of the imagination it’s the West End at its most magical. With 6 Olivier Awards under its belt, it’s easy to see why its run has just been extended until 30th August 2026!
To book your tickets, visit www.totoroshow.com. And if you need any further incentive, read our review here.
For nippers that love a mind-bender: Visit London’s home of illusions
First things first, Twist isn’t your average ‘museum’. In fact, in our humble opinion, it isn’t a museum at all – it’s more of a deliriously disorientating, gawp-worthy gallery, where reality is dramatically distorted in the name of entertainment – so perhaps lead with that, when you’re selling it into your brood. They can forget hush-hush rooms and serious stuff, this ‘museum’ catapults them into a jaw-dropping world of Insta-worthy optical illusions and mind-boggling sensory puzzles.
There are educational explanations along the way, but in a world where adrenaline-fuelled children seemingly shapeshift from being giants to minions within minutes, getting them to read the small print is easier said than done. Our advice? Give in to the wonder and explore this dreamy, discombobulating land of magical mirrors and colour-bending corridors at will. For the parents trying to keep up with this spellbinding adventure, it’s an entertaining hour of art and science, for the children leading the way… it’s pure magic.
For more information, and to book tickets, visit www.twistmuseum.com.
For a clandestine injection of education: The Paradox Museum
Okay, so why to go to one museum of optical illusions when you can go to two? If they can’t get enough of more cranium-bending hijinx, then the Paradox Museum opposite Harrods offers yet more interactive exhibits and displays that play tricks on your perception.
There are similarities to Twist, sure – you can dine with your doppelgänger or lose yourself in a camouflage wall – but there are some additional rooms that make for some whacky Insta-worthy snaps. How do you stand on the ceiling of a Tube tunnel? Where else can you miraculously separate your torso from your legs? What Paradox has, too, is an anti-gravity chamber where you can record yourself going full Kubrick walking 360 degrees round a space capsule.
For more information, including details of gift cards, visit www.paradoxmuseum.com.
For pony clubbers: A Private Hack Through Hyde Park
Trying to ignore the “pony” that’s galloped onto their Christmas list, yet again? Wise indeed. Better to buy yourself a few more years of sanity by gifting them a private hack through London’s most iconic royal park. Escorted by an experienced mounted escort, budding equestrians can saddle up for a proper Hyde Park adventure.
Dreamt up by William III at the close of the 17th century, Rotten Row has been England’s most famous riding route for centuries. The first oil-lit highway in Britain, this dusty track is a slice of London history. Once the preserve of royals and high society, today your little one can take the reins along this storied stretch, pausing for photographs beside the glistening Serpentine. Departing from the storybook stables tucked in Bathurst Mews, young hackers spend an hour clip-clopping through history — giddy-up indeed.
An hour-long private hack with Hyde Park Stables costs £145. To book visit www.hydeparkstables.com.
For the hard to impress: Tickets to the world’s most famous circus (main picture)
What do you get when you cross 53 acrobats, a lovestruck ladybug and a human spider doing the splits in mid-air? Why, Cirque du Soleil’s latest offering, of course. Taking over the Royal Albert Hall for a limited 4 week run OVO is a feast for the senses, featuring everything from bouncing beetles to somersaulting stick insects. At its heart, OVO is a love story (between a fly and a ladybug – naturally) but pack it with hair-raising stunts from the world-class circus and you have a show to leave even the sulkiest nippers gobsmacked.
With nail-biting aerial silks and Chinese poles, fancy foot juggling (well, why the heck not) and some limb-popping contortionists, it’s quite the ride. Kicking off in early January, it’s the ultimate antidote to that inevitable post-Christmas slump. It’s suitable for ages 4 to 104 – though frankly, we recommend leaving grandma at home for this heart-racing spectacle – unless she really annoyed you over Christmas, that is.
OVO runs at the Royal Albert Hall from 9th Jan – 1st Feb 2026 with tickets starting from £50. To book, visit www.cirquedusoleil.com/OVO.
For big dreamers: Bubble Planet
Just floating distance from Wembley Stadium, this fun-fuelled, pastel-hued, bubble-themed wonderland sees you journey through a string of surreal bubbletastic rooms. From chasing virtual bubble-making hammerhead sharks around its LED room and bouncing your way through a sea of candyfloss pink balloons (yes, there are staff on pop patrol, permanently pumping up new ones on the sidelines!) to making whoopie in what is rumoured to be Europe’s biggest ball pit… with a 6ft rubber duckie for company – this is the stuff of childhood dreams.
Watch their imagination ignite as they play with bubble-blowing robots, venture into a VR candy-cane-filled alternative universe and step inside an actual 6-ft bubble – this is as close as they will get to living out their bonkers dreams.
To book, visit www.bubble-planet.com.
For young confection connoisseurs: Circus Afternoon Tea at Vintry & Mercer
Fancy treating your little darling to a child-friendly afternoon tea without boarding that nausea-inducing, porcine-themed tea bus trundling through Londres? Then swing by Vintry & Mercer, the ravishing five-star boutique bolthole perched on the City’s whimsically named Garlick Hill. While the grown-ups busy themselves with smoked-salmon blinis and brioche buns stuffed with truffled egg, the littlest ringmasters are whisked into a full-blown circus of confections: carousel macarons, clown-cheesecake, and a show-stopping Big Top – a tempting tent filled with tangy, fruity mousse.
And if that’s not quite sugary enough for your pint-sized performers, there’s the ‘ringmaster’s tipple’: a gloriously over-the-top hot chocolate piled high with cream and marshmallows (the sort that leaves a moustache worthy of the bearded lady). Once you’ve worked your own vanishing act on the house Champagne, a bracing riverside walk awaits just a street away. So, what are you waiting for? Roll up, roll up!
For more information, please visit www.vintryandmercer.com.
For pint-sized Picassos: Let them step inside the world’s most famous paintings
Enjoying art with your little one no longer means tiptoeing through hushed galleries. At Frameless, London’s dazzling immersive art playground, kids can leap into the masterpieces themselves. After swooshing down a psychedelic escalator near Marble Arch, they’ll find Rembrandt’s stormy seas crashing around them, Vesuvius erupting in a blaze of colour, Rousseau’s jungles looming overhead, and Dalí’s elephants strutting past at skyscraper height.
Immersive art experiences may pop up like whack-a-moles these days, but this is the golden ticket: 42 world-famous artworks reimagined in surround-sound, 360-degree wonder. Budding creatives can spin through digital confetti, dash between towering brushstrokes and feel, for a moment, like they’re inside the canvas. A magical, mood-boosting gift for kids who prefer their culture larger than life. Now that beats a colouring set!
For more information, and to book, visit www.frameless.com.
For budding palaeontologists: London’s most roarsome afternoon tea
Gift-hunting for a dino devotee but can’t face buying your umpteenth rubber raptor? Treat them instead to a morning of fossil-fuelled fun at the Natural History Museum, before skipping across the street to The Ampersand Hotel for London’s most roarsome afternoon tea. Just a fossil’s throw from the museum itself, once you’ve had your fill of AI cephalopods and Jurassic jaws, you can sink into a flute of the good stuff beneath the Victorian cellar arches of one of South Kensington’s most sumptuous 5-star boutique boltholes.
Dino-themed delights — from a T-Rex cheese straw to a chocolatey dinosaur egg nest and a fruity “volcanic eruption” arrive theatrically cloaked in a swirl of dry ice. There’s even a chance to get creative, decorating cream-slathered scones with saccharine sprinkles and excavating fossil-themed treasure buried in chocolate. All while you recline with Champagne in hand and a positively palatial platter of sweet treats.
To book The Ampersand Hotel’s Jurassic Afternoon Tea, visit www.ampersandhotel.com.
For tech-loving time travellers: Make them a gladiator for the day
Remember that social-media moment a couple of years back asking how often people think about the Roman Empire? Turns out the answer was far more often than anyone anticipated. Well, thanks to a new virtual reality experience, mini history buffs — or VR-curious kiddos quietly harbouring gladiatorial ambitions— can step straight into the era via a headset in Camden.
This free-roam adventure throws visitors into the Colosseum itself; wander Rome’s backstreets, dip into bustling markets, meet a genuine gladiator from the history books, and feel the roar of the arena crowd. Whether they’re a die-hard ancient-world aficionado or just game for some techy thrills, it’s infinitely more exciting than unwrapping yet another plastic He-Man.
Colosseum: The Legendary Arena is running at Eclipso Immersive Entertainment on Camden High Street. To book, visit www.colosseumvrexperience.com.
For speed-obsessed sprites: A one in a lifetime Red Bull Racing Tour
Thankfully, philanthropic gifting no longer means limiting yourself to organic chocs and a Body Shop box. Enter A Noble Gift: an ingenious online auction where discerning shoppers bid on priceless experiences, with every penny going to charity. For the tween who dreams of pole positions and pit stops, they have just the lot for you: A Red Bull Racing Tour (for 10 guests).
Step inside the top-secret Milton Keynes HQ, come face-to-face with championship-winning cars, and follow a race car’s journey from first spark to the hallowed race bays. It’s the closest most mortals will ever get to Red Bull’s inner sanctum. And the best bit? 100% of the winning bid goes to Wings for Life, funding groundbreaking spinal cord research. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
To place your bid on one of A Noble Gift’s priceless gift experiences, visit www.anoblegift.com.
