When it comes to making simple, homemade gifts for girls, things are easy. Girls love hair bows, ornaments, pretty smelling bath bubbles, and just about anything Pinterest can conceive of.

Boys are another story.

Boys want things that shoot and cut and require batteries. I don’t know about you, but I cannot crotchet a remote control helicopter.

All season, I have wondered what I could make that my outdoor-loving, snake-catching, fast-living boy would like. I wanted him to more than like it, since I was going to put time into making it. I wanted him to love it.

I wondered and wondered about it until one day, we met a man at a flea market who was selling knives and various outdoor supplies. He happened to have a pocket survival kit that my son went crazy over. I had found my solution.

A pocket survival kit is just what it sounds like. It’s a small tin packed full of all the little goodies a boy might need to survive the wilds of his own backyard (except food and water–you want the boy to come home sometime). They sell them pre-packaged online at various sporting websites, and, apparently, at El Paso flea markets.

The great thing is, you can make one for much less money. This is the perfect gift to make yourself because it gives you control over what goes in the box, and you can make it as fun or functional as you like simply by changing the quality and type of items you include.

You will also find that this Pocket Survival Kit is a great resource for teaching your child real-life skills like how to read a compass or how to start a fire. It’s the kind of gift that leads to memorable moments of teaching and learning together.

Like all the gifts in this series, it’s completely easy to do. All of the contents are readily available at any store that sells sporting or outdoor supplies, and most of them are very inexpensive (unless you decide to upgrade to better gear).

Here’s how you can make a Pocket Survival Kit for your own mini survival man (or woman).

How to Pack a Pocket Survival Kit

You will need a small tin (an Altoids box or Sucrets tin is perfect).

Everything you pack is going to have to go inside of this tin, which should be small enough to fit in your wilderness man’s pocket. That means you need to get the smallest, yet most functional, versions of any or all of the following items:

A mirror (this is for signaling for help)

Laser pointer (also for signaling)

Emergency whistle (sometimes these are included in pocket knives or lasers, so keep an eye out for a dual-function tool to save space)

Pocket knife/multi-tool

A lighter***

Compass

Fish hooks

Fishing line

Rappelling clips (carabiners)

Wire saw

Emergency blanket (this will be too big to fit in your tin unless you cut it down to size or use a vacuum sealer to compress it)

Water purification tabs (because what could be cooler than drinking out of a mud puddle?)

Small bag (so you can purify said mud puddle)

Various sizes of safety pins

Razor blades, if the recipient knows how to handle these (secure them under the duct tape in any case)

Once you’ve gathered all your items, pack everything in the tin.

Mark the back of the box with the Morse code signal for SOS. Later, teach your child how to use the laser pointer or mirror to signal for help. It’s fun!

SOS

If you look at the picture closely, you will see that I covered the tin with duct tape. I also put another strip on the bottom. You never know when duct tape could save a life.

Close it up and your Pocket Survival Kit is ready for giving!

This makes a great stocking stuffer or gift for an outdoorsy young man or woman. However, please use your discretion when giving a gift like this unless you are confident of the recipient’s maturity. Be sure he or she knows how to handle the tools properly and is responsible with them. If you have any question about any part of the kit, exclude it.

My nine-year-old son is very responsible and has been taught how to use each of the components of this box, and he has been I would not worry about him abusing any of them. But not every nine-year-old boy is the same!

Of these fire starting options, a lighter is probably the best bet

A note on fire starters

You will notice that I included several fire-starting options in the photo above, but only listed a lighter to included in the box. Lighters are great fire starters, but you can choose any option you like. Matches, magnesium strips, or even magnifying glasses can work. I actually put several in the kit for my son because I opted to leave the emergency blanket out.

If you have to choose, a lighter is by far the most reliable in a real emergency situation. If you pack a magnifying glass, it could be cloudy. Matches get wet. Magnesium strips are hard to use to build a real fire.

Choose the option that you like the best and which will be most interesting to your child. Then, teach him how to use it safely and efficiently.

There you have it, a fantastic, simple gift for the boy in your life. If he’s anything like my son, he’s going to love it.

*The posts in this series may contain affiliate links for your convenience.

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“Laura sat thinking. She was making a little picture frame of cross-stitch in wools on thin, silver-colored cardboard. Up the sides and across the top she had made a pattern of blue flowers and green leaves. Now she was outlining the picture-opening in blue. While she put the tiny needle through the perforations in the cardboard and drew the fine, colored wool carefully after it, she was thinking how wistfully Carrie had looked at the beautiful thing. She decided to give it to Carrie for Christmas. Someday, perhaps, she could make another for herself.”

-Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter

Long ago, before I was born, Christmas was a simple season. Black Friday had not yet been conceived of, nor had shopping malls and toy catalogs and parking lots without enough spaces.

On Christmas morning, real gifts were opened because there was no such thing as a “gift card” back then, and no one would think of sticking money in a card and calling it a present because that was rude, plain and simple.

The gifts, if any, were crafted in the secret corners on dark winter nights, fashioned with no little creative thinking out of the leftover bits and pieces of everyday life: a length of ribbon, a piece of leftover wood, some fabric that was too little to be made into anything else.

The homemade presents were simple but delightful. How could it not be delightful to give something you had created especially for someone you loved? And how could it not feel like a very special honor to receive it?

“Pa and Uncle Peter had each a pair of new, warm mittens, knit in little squares of red and white. Ma and Aunt Eliza had made them.

Aunt Eliza had brought Ma a large red apple stuck full of cloves. How good it smelled! And it would not spoil, for so many cloves would keep it sound and sweet.

Ma gave Aunt Eliza a little needle-book she had made, with bits of silk for covers and soft white flannel leaves into which to stick the needles.”

-Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods

How far we have come from those days! Now, children concoct wish lists that sound like ransom notes and parents rush about, stressed within an inch of their lives, trying to give their children exactly what they want so the kids won’t be disappointed. Somehow, disappointing the children on Christmas is the worst thing ever, even if the children are behaving like greedy little monsters.

We feel guilty if we don’t “spend enough” on someone, or if we buy the “wrong thing” for someone we have allowed ourselves to feel obligated to purchase for in the first place. When did we begin to feel compelled to give gifts to anyone? Gift-giving should be an act of love, not a duty.

Even so, most of us would never dream of giving a handmade gift to someone on our Christmas list, even if we resent the fact that we have to give them a gift in the first place. Somehow, we’d rather purchase another scented candle to give to someone who doesn’t need it instead of making something simple but thoughtful. Why?

We are busy, to be sure, and many of us do not think we have the time to make anything for anyone. But I think something else is going on in our culture. I think we have come so far from the days of the past that we, as a society, now associate simple handmade gifts with poverty or stinginess, not creativity and thoughtful affection.

What a shame!

In each stocking, there was a pair of bright red mittens, and there was a long, flat stick of red-and-white striped peppermint candy, all beautifully notched along each side.

They were all so happy they could hardly speak at first. They just looked with shining eyes at those lovely Christmas presents. But Laura was happiest of all. Laura had a rag doll.

–Little House in the Big Woods

I wonder what would happen if, instead of rushing to join the crowds and feed the consumerism that has choked out Christmas, we attempted to make a more meaningful holiday by creating and giving thoughtful gifts to those we love?

They don’t have to be complicated.

They don’t have to be expensive.

They don’t even have to be time-consuming.

Homemade Christmas gifts can be thoughtful, meaningful, and simple. Starting tomorrow, November 15, I will be showing you some ways to make a simply homemade Christmas. These are projects that require no special skills. Many of them can be done quickly or while watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the millionth time.

My hope is that these projects will jump start your creativity and get you thinking about ways you can bless your loved ones with one-of-a-kind gifts you created just for them. Maybe you can even skip Black Friday altogether. Wouldn’t that make Christmas even more delightful?

For tomorrow’s project, you will need brightly-colored seed beads, elastic thread, and a bit of ribbon. Now that’s simple.

*The posts in this series may contain affiliate links for your convenience.

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Simply Homemade: Pocket Survival Kit

How to Pack a Pocket Survival Kit

A note on fire starters

Simply Homemade: The Making of a More Meaningful Holiday