A bit of a different request - but this space is filled with so much creativity so maybe you all can help.
We’re surprising our kids with a 3D printer for Christmas. They have no idea, it’s on their dream list but realize it’s a big ask. The older of the two is losing his belief in the magic of Santa and we would love a creative and magical way to unveil the printer to them. The best we can come up with is a 3D printed tag or bow. Any other ideas? We’re just trying to keep the magic of Christmas alive for him for one more year!
Depending on what printer you get, it could be really cool to make a little model that just says
"Merry Christmas - Santa"
And set it to print from your phone or computer when he's not looking. Printer randomly starts working well you have plausible liability... Santa sends him a Christmas message.
Alternatively, if OP bought a second build plate, they could print the message/model, swap build plate out and reveal the gift. Then swap the build plates agains when the kiddos aren't looking.
The old Julia Childs swap
A little less vermouth, but yeah!
Or I’ll print it for you and mail it.
Op will have a printer though. Would make more sense for them to print something out.
Santa says, you're getting a little too big for presents from me, so here you go, you can print your own now. The elves thank you, and I can spend a little more time with Mrs. Claus, things have been a little rocky lately.
Merry christmas, S. CLAUS
This is great!!
Oooh can OP manage to plug it in and re-wrap it, trigger the print to start in the box when they’re opening gifts???
Remember, it’s not really Christmas if your house hasn’t burned down yet.
Fill their stockings with all the fidget toys on the free sites and as they open them mention oh hey is that one of those 3d printed toys. They’ll make their own comments like yeah and we could make more of our own with a printer. At the bottom of the stocking put a note want to see how these were made? And lead them to the printer. You won’t have to have them open another gift bc they’ll be all over it lol
This here is by far the best recommendation. I also really like the idea of having a print that says "merry christmas" or whatever on the buildplate itself. I think psyching them out with little 3d printed gizmos and then revealing that they were made with THEIR new 3d printer would be a huge payoff
Agree…. With with slight changes ….
Merry Christmas! Love, Santa
3-D Printed toys go at the bottom of the stocking…. All except for one that will go under the tree with other gifts to open after they open their other gifts.
Or, if your family just goes ape and digs into the presents, tuck the 3-D printed revealer toy away From the other gifts….
When they are done opening their other gifts and fussing over the 3-D printed fidgets, tell them tou’re pretty sure you saw the tail end of a fat guy in a red suit slipping out of the back door… If you have a ring camera, you’re gonna have to come up with another way that he escaped lol….
You could leave that little revealer print toy with “want to see how this was made?” next to the cookie crumb plate and empty glass of milk… With a 3-D printed note that says merry Christmas, love Santa… And then in big, bold, red letters, important open me last!!! no cheating!!!
Yes this is great
Thank you 🥰 I fancy myself a whimsical parent
And if your oldest is skeptical you can use a story that they’re right about the feasibility of delivery and that’s why Santa now uses local 3d printing as part of Santa’s Workshop.
OP is going to get set up and print a bunch of fidget toys before their kids notice a 3d printer in the house?
I am only in charge of ideation, not logistics.
One of the most memorable Christmases for me was when my parents did a scavenger hunt with my gifts. They got me a bunch of little gifts. Each one has a hint to the next present on the tag. Took me all over the house and when I got back to the living room there was my main gift. Was a guitar, but while he is off in another room you can get the 3D printer out and on display.
Or you can hide the 3D printer in a cupboard or closet but it would be best to have it where you can see the smile on his face when he sees it.
I was able to hack my daughter's Minecraft on her Wii U, pull out a world she had built that was off a Christimas theme pack, then 3D print a small section of it. So that's what was in the box.
Ultimately, she wasn't super jazzed about the printer, so it became my printer LOL. I tried.
Wait HOW DID YOU PRINT PART OF A MINECRAFT WORLD, share me your secrets!
Man.... it was a freaking chore, LOL!! I had to jail break the Wii U. Then I had to run some hacked software to dump the binary files to a USB stick. Then I had to go and install Windows on my Mac because there were no real Minecraft ripping utilities, Then I think I ended up with some .OBJ files I brought into Blender to mess with and create the STL.
Sorry for the lack of a "recipe". It's been almost 4 years since I done it. I think it was so hard because it was a VERY outdated version of Minecraft running in an outdated console, which had gone through a complete revamp. I think it might be easier to do if you have the Modern version plus a Minecraft online membership. That way you can easily move your worlds to a PC
Nah everyone is missing the golden opportunity here. OP it's imperative you start printing NOW. Go download one of those annoying gift boxes and scale it up to the printers size. Start printing parts and gluing then together. Then put printer in said box. Boom unforgettable Christmas.
True evil Love that
Print a line of Benchys leading from the Christmas tree to a closet (where the printer is stowed away).
Make sure it's set up ready to go before Christmas. You don't want to be messing around with learning a slicer and filament and things on Christmas morning. Rookie mistake lol.
Not sure how comfortable you are with 3D printing... but I'd maybe start a print and pause mid-print the night before (or that morning) and then press play when ready. Not sure what you can do with that.
A "Merry Christmas [name] & [name]" ornament with a secret message on the bottom.
The secret message on the first layer, that you can have printed, then paused ahead of time.
You could start the print before they see it, pause after the first layers are down. Continue print once they're watching it finish printing.
They don't SEE that it says something special on the bottom until it's pulled off the build plate. I'd do a one or two layer color change so that it really stands out, if possible. Not difficult. Again, I'm not sure what your 3D printing knowledge is.
Maybe a few fidget toys with their names instead of ornaments? Doesn't really matter what you print, you can probably add a message to it. Your imagination and creativity is the limit with this trick.
Maybe something cool like a set of popular little toys or trinkets already on the build plate, but that you've paused ahead of time, so that they watch them get finished.
So when I was a kid I ran into my mom and dad’s room jumped on their queen sized bed with my sister on Christmas morning to wake them up. They got up and we all went downstairs together and we open presents. My last present I open and it’s a train set I open the box and it’s empty apart from a note that says “for your last present go and look in your parents bedroom” We all go upstairs to the room we were in like 20mins ago and magically a MASSIVE! And I mean massive train set on like a board and scenery and everything is running on their bed. I was fucking flabbergasted and hell that solidified my belief in Santa till I was nearly 13.
I found out later as a teen that my dad had spent months building this thing every night, he hid it behind their curtains and then when we ran downstairs in our excitement laid it on the bed and set it up quickly.
Honestly from that point I thought magic was a real thing.
I Duno if something like that would do it
Wrap something up that says check (insert room here) - have the printer setup and printing something in that room (preferably nearly complete with the print).
You can always have one parent distract the kids while the other one transports the assembled printer into position and fires it up.
I would do an accessories scavenger hunt with clues and the last clue is the printer set and ready to go
Be cautious with firing it up before Christmas. Most printers make enough noise to alert the kiddos to its location, and if they have printers at school they will recognize the sound. If you can get away with putting it somewhere they won’t easily find and run it while they’re out of the house - there’s a million free things you can print that you could use as stocking stuffers, evil gift boxes, puzzle maze gift tubes, elf on the shelf accessories etc. If I wanted to keep it boxed until Christmas morning, I’d probably just wrap up a couple rolls of filament for them to open before the big box - it’s perfect if they’re “shakers” because most of those boxes won’t make a sound.
I've seen or heard about a growing push that the "good" gifts should come from the parents and the more "boring" gifts should come from Santa so the kids know their parents worked hard to provide cool stuff for them.
Get a model ready to print. Set up the printer. Then see if you can find a way to wrap that set up, plugged in printer. Then right before they go to open presents, press print. They hear strange sounds coming from a box. They open it. It's in the process of printing... Something. What? Why it's the Merry Christmas from Santa message someone else mentioned
Get a parachute (like one of the rainbow ones schools use) and on Christmas morning out the printer outside with the parachute on top.
Wake the kids up with a loud THUD.
Boom. Santa air dropped a 3d printer.
You could 3D print a couple small gift boxes and inside of each gift box put a piece of the printer. Or a 3D printed lump of coal that goes in the stocking and opens to reveal a note (handwritten in fancy font by santa) that says to look in some obscure place for the gift
It's okay to lose belief in Santa. Christmas is about family and caring. I think you should make the printer a gift from y'all, not Santa. You could still make it a surprise with any of these ideas but instead of "from Santa" make it print a single layer that says "Mom and Dad love you! Merry Christmas!" Or something like that. Because as your older one is transitioning from Christmas being about Santa you need to support that transition into Christmas being about family. And the truth is that you love your kids like crazy and want them to be happy. What could be more Christmas than that?
(Or Dad and Dad, or Mom and Mom, or whatever your family configuration is)
Of course. We’ve shifted the narrative to a bit to “the magic of Christmas” and not just Santa as they’ve gotten older. That includes us doing our part to spread the joy to others too.
Santa Benchy. Big Santa benchy.
Just put the printer in the corner, find a good file on Printables related to Christmas, start the printer when they go to bed she in the morning it will have a new 3D printed thing.
Put the printer in a Christmas parcel box. Make sure the printer is connected, big sign @do not touch” When all presents are open an the big box is sitting there, start a single layer print job from your phone that says “ happy Christmas “
One layer won’t take long to print, once completed, lift off the fake parcel box. You could use blindfolds and avoid a box.
Depends on which 3d printer you got. If you got a corexy (bed moves up and down but not forwards and backwards), then you can tape or tie it down to a table. Then get a cardboard box that is bigger than the printer, glue or tape some wrapping paper onto it so it looks like a gift wrap but leave the bottom open. Load some filament onto the 3d printer and plug it in. Start printing a figure of something your kids will like and pause it when it is about 5min from completion. Cover it with the cardboard box. And then when the kids is about to open the gift, resume the print so it finishes printing as they open the gift.
Bonus points if you leave a bit of the flap on the bottom so you can slide it under the printer and have the printer hold down the box so they can't just lift it up. Don't worry about the printer setting the box on fire, the ambient temperature in it won't be high enough to light it on fire if you're just doing pla filament.
Some people are saying to print benchys but don't do that. Printing something that your kids like will be better than a boat. Unless they like boats.
who does not like a benchy? I have a line of them on my desk at work (and bunch of other stuff too). Everyone who comes in grabs a benchy first to examine and play with. Before the articulated dragons, or the marble machines, or the Stay-Puft marshmallow man...that boat is the best ;-)
Cause the gift isn't for you or for the rest of us who do 3d printing? A personalized print is better than a cookie cutter boat that we meme on.