Gifts You Can’t Wrap: Why Experience Gifts Are Trending This Holiday Season

If your family’s gift list feels long this year, here is some good news from the retailers’ own numbers: more people are planning to give something you can’t put under the tree. Concert tickets, a cooking class, a day trip, a dinner out together. Experience gifts are having a moment.

What the new numbers say

The National Retail Federation (NRF) released its holiday shopping outlook on October 28, 2026. It draws on the group’s October Holiday Consumer Survey, conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. According to NRF, 27% of holiday shoppers plan to give an experience as a gift this year, up from 19% five years ago.

NRF says millennials are the most likely to give experiences, at 38%. It also reports that Gen Z “pushed the category to its new record.” Gen Z is the only generation where more shoppers plan to buy experiences this year than last year.

The same survey shows families watching their budgets. NRF found that 64% of shoppers expect to do most of their holiday buying over Thanksgiving weekend, up from 51% five years ago. Sales and discounts were the top factor in deciding where to shop, at 56%. NRF expects holiday retail sales to reach about $1.013 trillion, up 4.2% from 2025.

Parenting Patch, writing for families on October 29, summed up the mood well: shoppers are waiting for deals, but more families are also thinking about gifts that create shared time instead of more stuff.

Why this trend is worth celebrating

A toy can be outgrown by spring. A memory can last a lifetime. Many of us can still remember a fishing trip with a grandfather, a first play at a real theater, or an afternoon baking with an aunt. We may have forgotten most of the things we unwrapped as children, but we remember the people who gave us their time.

Experience gifts also fit the season’s true heart. Christmas celebrates the greatest gift ever given, and it was not a thing in a box. It was a Person who came to be with us.

“I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Acts 20:35 (KJV)

Experience gift ideas for every budget

An experience doesn’t have to be expensive. Some of the best ones cost almost nothing. Here are ideas to get your family started:

• Free or nearly free: a handmade “coupon book” for a picnic, a stargazing night, a Saturday pancake breakfast, or a one-on-one walk with Mom or Dad.
• Learn something together: a beginner class in pottery, cooking, painting, music or a new sport. Many community centers and libraries offer low-cost classes.
• Go somewhere: passes to a zoo, aquarium, museum, state park or science center. A family membership can turn into a whole year of outings.
• Serve together: plan a day to volunteer as a family at a food bank, a nursing home or your church’s outreach. Giving your time together can become the gift itself.
• For grandparents: a “date” with a grandchild, a framed promise of a monthly lunch, or a recorded story time where they share family memories.
• For teens: tickets to a game or concert they love, a driving lesson day with a parent, or a weekend camping trip they help plan.

Tips to make it meaningful (and keep it simple)

1. Give it a date. An experience with no plan can easily be forgotten. Write a real date on the card, or choose one together on Christmas morning.
2. Make it unwrappable. Little ones love opening something. Pair the experience with a small clue, such as a paintbrush for an art class or a baseball for a game.
3. Check the fine print. Before you buy tickets or passes, look at expiration dates, refund rules and age limits.
4. Watch for deals, wisely. Since so many shoppers are waiting for Thanksgiving weekend sales, compare prices, but don’t let a countdown clock pressure you into buying more than you planned.
5. Put the phone down when the day comes. Take a photo or two, then be fully present. Your attention is part of the gift.

The best gift is still presence

Trends come and go, but this one points to something lasting. Families want more time, more laughter and more togetherness, and fewer things that end up in a closet by February. Whether you give a museum pass or a promise to bake cookies together, you are saying: “I want to spend time with you.”

This holiday season, may your gifts carry love, and may your family’s best moments be the ones you share side by side.

Through every storm, we rise together.

What is the best experience gift you have ever given or received, and who shared it with you?

Sources: National Retail Federation, “2026 holiday shopping trends: What consumers are planning” (Oct 28, 2026); Parenting Patch, “Holiday Shoppers Are Waiting for Black Friday Deals, but More Families Are Considering Experiential Gifts” (Oct 29, 2026); Fibre2Fashion, “US shoppers shift holiday buys to Thanksgiving weekend: NRF” (Oct 30, 2026); KJV Acts 20:35