Christmas Gifts from Grandparents, Made to Be Kept

A gift that carries on long after Christmas. The starter set is their name engraved on the first page, three oak tiles, a fourth of your choosing (plain oak, or the purpleheart Night Sky gilded in 24ct gold leaf) and The End. Every tile and pack joins it, in any order, so a grandparent can add a new place to the path on birthdays and visits, and the story grows each time. Solid oak, ebonised and oiled, and covered by our Multiple Lifetime Guarantee.

For a grandchild who already has a set; its page suggests it as a Christmas gift for a four year old who has one. A cottage with smoke at the chimney, a storm of clouds and lightning, and a crossroads whose signpost says nothing at all. The cottage also comes in both named sets, while the storm is in none, so it is always new. Read together, the storm can come first and the cottage last, so the story ends warm and dry. Three tiles for £45.

A small present with real gold on it. The Night Sky is cut from purpleheart, and its path, stars and moon are gilded by hand with genuine 24ct hand-beaten gold leaf, laid straight onto the wood with nothing over it. It is the same 120 mm square as the oak tiles, with the same arrow joint, so it joins any set wherever the story needs some magic. If their starter set came with a fourth oak tile, this is the magic one.

Our premium shape sorter: zebrano walls with their striped grain, a solid walnut roof that darkens beautifully over time, and a sapele mahogany door. Inside are twelve shapes in purpleheart, padauk, African satinwood, zebrano, sapele and walnut, to post through the roof and walls and find again behind the door. Its page gives ages 3+. Our Multiple Lifetime Guarantee follows the toy rather than the buyer, so it still holds when the house is handed down.

Sixty blocks packed into a solid oak tray like a mosaic: the kind of set that lives on a shelf at a grandparent's house and comes down at every visit. Arches, columns, triangles and bricks in purpleheart, padauk, zebrano and oak, no two alike, the colour in each one the wood itself. Ages 1+ on its page. Under our Multiple Lifetime Guarantee lost pieces are replaced free, and a photograph of the set showing the gap is all we need.

Its page calls it heirloom-tough, made to keep and pass down, and it is built that way: solid maple, padauk and walnut held with steel fasteners rather than glue, so a child-size Allen key can take it apart and put it back together. The cutter wheel spins and the arm pivots, for hauling blocks or cutting paths indoors and out. If it ever looks dry, a thin coat of hardwax oil refreshes it. Its page gives ages 1 to 6.

Four curved pieces in tigerwood, padauk, purpleheart and zebrano around an engraved oak circle, in a solid oak base. It looks simple, but its asymmetric shape makes a gentle test of focus, ideal for ages 1 to 3, as children turn each piece until it fits. The oak comes from France and Norfolk, the hardwoods are CITES-certified, and there is no paint, plastic or batteries: in its page's own words, a puzzle that will be passed down, not thrown out.

For reading aloud across the generations. When around forty everyday nature words, from acorn and bluebell to otter and willow, were dropped from a children's dictionary, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris made this spell book to conjure twenty of them back in word and paint, for children and adults alike. A large-format hardback for a grandparent's lap, with spells to read in turns and paintings to look at together.

A bedtime book with a grandparent in it, almost. Two hedgehogs walk slowly home in the evening, and at each step the big one patiently asks, “What are we waiting for now?” The little one's answers unfold across the pages: the sunset, the birds flying by, the moon and the stars. At last the little hedgehog falls asleep and is carried home in the big one's arms. A 32-page paperback by Britta Teckentrup.