One of my favorite gift ideas especially for the kids is a board game such as Monopoly. It may take a little time for the kids to gain an understanding of a game this complex depending on their ages but the more kids that are involved in game play, the better because it's a lot easier to get them all to have their full attention on it when they are all involved. I can remember when my brother and my sister and I were younger and played this game. It was much funner for me when we all played together or if we had friends included than it was when there were only 2 players total.
Anybody that has ever played Monopoly knows that it takes a while to complete a single game. I can tell you one thing about this, I had so much fun during the game that I didn't even realize that we had been setting at the kitchen table playing Monopoly for 4 hours when the game was over. Four hours of game play. Four hours straight without TV. Four hours without pigging out on junk food and drinking pops because my mind was so involved in playing the game and what others were doing in the business of our game. That's what I call real time travel. It was pure joy free from worrying about what was mine or anything else a youngster may worry about. I loved those board games. We played lots of them like Sorry, Operation, Scrabble, and some were different like Battleship and Connect Four. It was pure bliss for us as brothers and sister with our friends and parents. I guess my point is we had a great time with simple board games without the TV and video games plus it was highly educational. Don't under estimate the power of a board game.