Kids wanting real animals for Christmas

[Beachball]

You have to be clever to come up with the next best thing after the real thing. Today I went to a Festival of Trees with dozens of unique and lovely decorated trees for auction to raise money for our town's play house. Off in the corner is a tree that isn't for auction: the Mitten Tree. It covered with felt cutouts of mittens attached to tags and each tag has a gift requested by a child on it. I found two tags with two 11-year-olds (one boy and one girl) asking for a "real monkey" and I cackled inside and thought "How cute!"" I read all the tags on the tree and those two were the most unusual and the only ones asking for real animals. I decided to buy for those kids and currently brainstorming how to give them a Monkey Christmas.

[kaoskat]

Are there FurReal Friend's monkeys? I think there are ZhuZhu Monkeys. Maybe those would work.

[Yurusumaji]

It would be cool if there were a way for them to interact with real monkeys. Like something where they could pet them and make memories with them. Something like that would be difficult to find, though.

Sea Monkeys. Ha ha! They are technically alive, though they are not technically monkeys.

[rybett]

For the girl, monkey socks, pet shop monkeys, stuffed monkey.  No clues for the boy.

[kamakazee82]

try tting in touch with a nearby zoo. seriously. they often will set up suchthings for kids (and their parents/guardians) but i'm not sure what kind of cost would be involved ... or any local large petstores/animal rehab centers

[StoryDreamer]

Monkey picture book? How old? Stuffed monkey. OR...adopt a monkey?

http://www.worldanimalfoundation.net/catalog/item/8198532/8893408.htm

Your WAF Adopt A Monkey Kit comes in a Deluxe WAF Folder and includes:
Glossy Photo of Your Adopted Monkey
Adopt A Monkey Adoption Certificate
Fact Sheet About Your Adopted Monkey
Help Animals Info Cards Packed With Information On Animal Issues & How You Can Help Animals And The Environment

Or you can go with World Wildlife

http://gifts.worldwildlife.org/gift-center/gifts/Species-Adoptions/Chimpanzee?sc=AWY1100WCGP1&mpch=ads

One of theirs comes with a stuffed monkey!

[Katika]

I couldn't agree more on the adopt a monkey idea!  As an almost absolute rule, I think that real animals for any holiday are HORRBLE ideas for ANYONE.

[Emberfly]

For the girl, monkey socks, pet shop monkeys, stuffed monkey.  No clues for the boy.

Depending on the age of the boy, I think these would also be appropriate, unless their siblings (though you may not know that)  A barrel of monkeys...

I LOVE the idea of the adopted monkey, I think that's the way to go cause then they do get their 'real' monkey as well as a stuffed one.  Some kids at a school I was at adopted animals and it was a big deal there.

[Beachball]

Thanks for helping me, guys! An interactive plush crossed my mind but I thought if I give them stuffed toys the non-interactive ones would help their imaginations more. I didn't know about Adopt-A-Monkey. That's pretty cool. The gift tags tell me to drop off the gifts (wrapped up pretty) at Town Hall by Dec. 17 and I wonder if the kits would arrive in time if I chose to buy them for the kids.

[Eviecorn]

The monkey adoption sounds like a cool idea.

[RAMChYLD]

Hmmm... Assuming you don't mind getting exposed to rabies, you can find wild monkeys pretty much in any plot of land with lots of trees over here

I'll warn you tho- they're not as cute as plush monkeys are. At all. And they're also very rude and somewhat feral.

[Dibbles]

I LOVE the adopt-a-monkey idea! That is the greatest way to actually fulfill a wish for a real monkey.

[stopxmotion]

Adopted monkeys sounds perfect!!! Is there a phone number or email for the site? Maybe you could ask to see if they will arrive on time.

[saply]

for a low hourly fee, i will go to their houses and pick insects out of their hair. i do it in the spirit of christmas.

[Heliodor]

Thanks for helping me, guys! An interactive plush crossed my mind but I thought if I give them stuffed toys the non-interactive ones would help their imaginations more. I didn't know about Adopt-A-Monkey. That's pretty cool. The gift tags tell me to drop off the gifts (wrapped up pretty) at Town Hall by Dec. 17 and I wonder if the kits would arrive in time if I chose to buy them for the kids.

If you buy from the World Wildlife Fund, they ship quickly. But to get the plush animals, you have to "donate" at the 50$USD tier. So it can be expensive. However, I usually ask someone to do this for me every year and the plush toys are very well made and sturdy, and they come with little information cards and everything. It's technically supposed to be for a donation anyway, so you can feel good about it, but I also really like collecting nice plush toys of my favorite animals (they get specific so that's why I like them--not always easy to find the certain species!)

Also...lmao saply.