Personalised Christmas Gifts for 2 to 5 Year Olds

The gift this page is built around. Their name is engraved in our script on the first page, so every story begins with them, and three solid oak tiles (the wood, the troll and the cottage) give it somewhere to go. Choose a fourth: plain oak, or the purpleheart Night Sky, its path, stars and moon gilded by hand in 24ct gold leaf. Draw a tile from the cotton bag without looking, join it on and say what happens there, until The End brings them home. Solid oak, ebonised and oiled, and covered by our Multiple Lifetime Guarantee.

The smallest way to give a child their own story. The first page carries their name, engraved, and The End closes the path; both are solid oak, 13.5 mm thick, ebonised so only the engraved lines turn black, and they come with the cotton drawstring bag that holds the tiles. Add tiles one at a time, at Christmas and afterwards: every tile joins both bookends, and with any tile in the basket the bookends cost £10 less.

We cut the child's name into a board of solid oak, deep enough for a small finger to follow each letter from first stroke to last. Choose printed letters for a child beginning to read them, or cursive for one learning to join. For most children their name is the first word they want to write, and tracing it again and again builds the movement before a pencil comes along. Finished with Osmo Wood Wax Finish, no paint or dyes, and made by hand in the UK.

Not engraved with a name, but made for building one. Each uppercase letter lifts out of its own pocket and only fits back in the right place, so a child can check their own work, and the page suggests name building with the full set. The letters are cut from hardwoods such as padauk, purpleheart and zebrano on a beech base; the colours are the grain itself, with no stains or paints. Made for toddlers and preschoolers, and built to pass down.

For a child whose starter set is already on its way. A tower with a dragon circling above it, a castle on the hill with stepping stones up to the door, and a very small dragon asleep across the path beside its broken eggshell. The castle and the little dragon are in no set, and the tower comes only in the set without a name, so nothing here doubles the starter set with their name. Three tiles for £45, the same £15 a tile as any two or more pieces.

For a three year old who wants to know how things work: its page gives ages 3+. The body, loader arm and bucket are pale maple and the wheels dark walnut, with no paint and no plastic, all held together with bolts. Child-size Allen keys come in the box, so they can take the digger apart and build it back together, a little more surely each time. The bucket lifts on bolted pivots, for scooping in a sandpit or loading blocks.

Solid beech walls, a sapele mahogany roof and door, and twelve shapes inside, from a heart and a star to a hexagon and a pentagon, cut from purpleheart, African satinwood, zebrano, walnut and more. Children post each one through the roof and walls, then open the door to get them back and start again. No paint and no plastic: the colours are the wood, finished with Osmo Wood Wax Finish. Its page gives ages 3+, and says it is built to outlast childhood, and the next one.

Sixty blocks in purpleheart, padauk, zebrano and oak: arches, columns, triangles, cylinders and bricks, no two alike, with an oil-and-wax finish that deepens the grain. Stack them, sort them and build with them, then pack them back into the solid oak tray like a mosaic, where they look good on a shelf between games. The page gives ages 1+, so the youngest in the house can join in with the eldest, and it is covered by our Multiple Lifetime Guarantee.

A winter story to read together over Christmas. Little Fox, a soft toy, has gone missing in the park. Then one night a real fox comes calling at the window, and the boy follows her through the city, past snowy meadows and icy rivers, until he finds that she has led him somewhere special, and needs his help. A 32-page paperback by Rob Biddulph, and a gentle book to sit beside a bigger gift.