Gift idea for the kid that already has it all; their own treasure hunt.

Our oldest turned 5 this year. Along with the hilarious, energetic, bright personality that he’s developing, his interests are continuing to develop. There is consistency in what he loves to do, and part of that is exploring from a pirates perspective. So this year, I wanted to make something he would remember for a long time; his very own treasure hunt.

I opted to do this for Christmas, but easily could be done for a birthday or any other holiday.

It started while K and I were talking through ideas for the boys for Christmas. We live by the rule that Santa brings little cherished items, not the large expensive ones. Santa’s elves hooked us up with a Teddy Bear and Disney tracing book, as per requested by J himself. That left some room for K and I to surprise the boys with some more interactive toys.

When I think about what it means to gift with intention, there are two pieces to consider.
First, what do I want that person to fee like receiving the gift? I wanted J to feel smart and special, and obviously really enjoy what he got.

Second, what do I want to feel when giving the gift? This matters too. Money can buy some pretty amazing things, but if someone opens your gift and all your feeling is buyers remorse from the money you spent, or worry that you didn’t get the right thing, that doesn’t make it a win.

My family also lives by this opinion that a gift is not worth giving simply because it’s routine. If you’re not sure what we need or would like, there is no pressure to bring us (or our kids) anything.

We love your company all the same.

I was extremely excited about Jay’s treasure hunt, and immediately starting sourcing where I could find trinkets and a good-size trunk to hold the goodies.

Plan B was finding a good deal on something durable, and would hopefully be a part of our play for a long time. I searched craft stores and found a coupon for a medium size wooden box from Michael’s at 40% off.

The first thing I tracked down was some paint. I did some quick research to make a plan and started with a base coat of black paint.

Next, I pulled some gold paint leftover from Halloween costume preparation and an empty toilet paper roll. I crinkled up, and made small cuts to one side of the roll and dipped it into the paint. Using sweeping motions I added some brushes of gold all the way around the box, and inside the trunk.

I still felt like it needed something. I dug up some silver paint and taped off an edge about 1.5″ thick on each side of the chest.

With more time, I would have found some gold thumbtacks and pressed them along the painted edges to look like screws holding it all together. I remind myself that my 5-yr-old doesn’t need a movie-quality treasure chest to feel special. I moved on to the hardware!

To save you some time, the piece you are looking for is a Hasp Latch. While searching online, I could not figure out the magic keyword to find what I needed. Everything popping up could have held a huge fence closed, until I found this.

We don’t do a lot of Amazon in our house. I miss the ease of ordering, but I don’t miss the ease of contributing to overconsumption, so we go without. This doesn’t mean we are against ordering online, just committed to the individual businesses that have what we need. (If we can find it local, that’s a big win!)

Checking the dollar store, I found some little gem stickers, and vase filler that looked like small diamonds.

I am personally of the belief that chocolate is treasure, so I picked up a bar shaped like money.

The thought was to have a lot of those craft gems in the chest, but couldn’t bring myself to spend the $25 on a bag from Michaels. I found a smaller amount of very similar gems at the pet store in the form of fish tank decor. Success!

Lastly, I found a pirate ship craft that I added in.

I had a few ideas for the map, but decided on a Follow the Steps version. I thought maybe we could do something like “From the kitchen, take 10 bunny hops to the Christmas Tree..” but with all the other chaos of the morning, something that didn’t take a ton of time to work through was probably best.

We decided where to bury the chest, and where to start and just filled in the gaps.

I should also mention that we live in FL, so being outdoors on Christmas is usually pretty nice. This year we were expecting mid 70’s, so the perfect weather for playing. K and I had also planned on gifting the boys a jungle gym that we were hiding in the neighbors backyard until Christmas Eve, and thought that we could use the map as a way to find it.

Using Freefom (seriously, thank you Apple!) I built a simple shape outline of our house and backyard. I added text, some clipart style pictures, and the infamous dotted lined that would lead to the treasure. To keep him from going straight to the treasure, I carefully ripped off the corner of the map that told him where to dig and used that as one of the clues for finding it.

After we printed it out, I rolled up the first part of the map, and placed it high enough in the tree that he wouldn’t notice it right away.

With some extra chain, and a small suitcase lock, we sealed the treasure chest and headed to the backyard to dig the hole. 

K did great! I stood there mostly keeping watch and taking pictures. At this point it was probably 10pm Christmas Eve and we were both running out of steam. She dug a hole deep enough to cover the chest, and I hid the torn part of the map to be found the next morning. 

Then we crawled in bed.

Secondly, we followed the map to the present in the backyard. That took us to the Jungle Gym, which was barely covered by a tarp.

To be honest, I thought he would want to pause here and climb around for a minute, but he was quick to want to move to step 3. 

Next, it led him to the playset and told him to find the missing piece of the map! After searching for a few minutes, he found the little segment taped to the playset. We held it up to the map to see what was next.

A short walk around the pool area led us to a recently covered dirt pile and a shovel. I wish that we had a kid-sized shovel because letting him dig would have added to the excitement, but he was also pretty pleased to have his first mate, Mama, dig where he pointed. 

He and brother hunched over the shallow hole while Mama moved a little bit of dirt at a time, and the moment he caught sight of the treasure chest, you could hear how excited he was.

After some wiggling, he pulled it out of the ground and found a place to set it down while he recovered the key from step one.

We made a quick reel of the whole thing, worth the watch, and this is the part where he urgently unlocked, removed the chain and screamed when he finally saw the treasure inside!

The rest of Christmas was “I just can’t believe we had a treasure in our backyard!” He told everyone and as we hoped, we felt great about the gift.

I’m already starting to think about options for E when he gets older. Or maybe other ways we can do something similar for future birthdays or Christmas gifts.

I highly suggest treasure hunt experience – or something similar – as your next gift!