Operation Holiday Plan: Activate Now!

Halloween is officially over and you know what that means? Other than the constant temptation of a giant bowl of candy on top of the fridge? It means the holiday season will soon be upon us. By which we mean the holidays will be upon us with astonishing swiftness.

You need a plan. We need a plan. We all need a plan. Here at our house we have started canvassing the kids about their Christmas wish list. This is their combined list so far:

1. Gaming computer
2. 3D printer
3. Robotic dog

Sigh. They’re so hard to buy for at this age. This is, actually, one of the reasons we started Mail Order Mystery. We saw a problem and we created a solution: gifts for kids between 8 and 12, that age when their brains never stop but all they can think to ask for is a robotic pet.

We create our mysteries to be highly engaging and zero-tech experience gifts (the only computer interaction necessary is entering a code into a website for a clue, but even this can be done on the phone instead of a computer). And we have done our best to create something that keeps kids interested for longer than it takes to play through all the levels of their latest video game.

There are six installments in each mystery, each of them personalized, each of them containing objects and clues that come together to complete a story. That’s six weeks of ciphers to crack, clues to solve, and a story to piece together. Your kid does not just read a mystery, or even just solve a mystery, your kid becomes a part of the mystery.