Gift ideas for 9-12 year old boys?

For stocking stuffers, since they like football...I found a cool football trivia book (they had all different teams) at Kohls for about $8.

I can't help you much beyond that. My ds is difficult because ALL he wants is Legos. He's not into anything else besides that and football.

Hacky Sack "ball" for the stocking

Boys (and girls) this age LOVE the book Guiness Book of Records.  Scholastic was publishing a Jr. book of records that had lots of color photos, they probably still do as it was very popular in the school libraries.

No boys here, but I'm getting my 12 year old dd a snap circuits light set. It looks pretty cool and would be great for boys too.

The Washington Post had an article yesterday about some toys that were kid tested favorites.

Nerf is good. I gave an ogo sport disc game last month that seemed like it might be good. Found it exploring Amazon. They had age and gender searches in their toys and games.

Origami is popular with my 11 year old DS. Last year, he got a balloon pump, balloons and a book on how to make balloon animals and it was the best gift ever! What about those sports socks (Styline or something like that?) that have different cities or teams on them?

I picked my 8 year old son up a similar book on making paper airplanes.  The"Klutz" books might have something they might like?

A lot of good ideas on this thread already....I'd add a DVD, a card or board game you could play as a family (would have to be well-chosen), clothing items if anything is needed, and maybe passes for an activity that is new to them (wall-climbing, snow tubing, ?   You might be able to find something on Wagjag/ travelzoo).

Right around that age is why my older boys started getting into Hex Bugs Nanos. They were never very interested in the larger ones, nor the Warriors (that are a little bigger than the Nanos and have Armor parts) - They just LOVE the Nanos. They are the smallest ones, like the size of large paper clips . They have habitats from small to large that have interchangeable parts, and the kids love to rearrange the habitats.

The difference between Nano Original and Nano Version2 is that V2s can climb within their habitats. So the V2 Habitats are like tubes instead of tracks. If you go shopping for these, just be sure you're getting the right Nano and the right Habitat (Original can't climb in the V2 habitat tubes).

Great games for this age are Quirkle and Blokus, if they might be into games. We usually try to do one game per kid (though the oldest is about to be a teenager and not so much into that anymore... a whole 'nother post there!)

Rush Hour is a super cute one-player game, maybe better for 9 year old.

If they like Minecraft, Lego has new Minecraft sets that look pretty awesome. I haven't seen any in stores, you probably have to order them from the Lego website. There are also some Minecraft strategy books that my current 10-year-old is really digging.

Do you get catalogs in the mail? If you don't get Mindware, you should sign up for it (no idea how to do that, btw... I just "appeared" on their mailing list LOL but I imagine you can go to the website and request one...). Have them look through that catalog and circle & initial things they're interested in. It's a great selection of toys and games that have some educational/development value that kids don't know or care about. We've found a lot of cool stuff in there over the years-even things we've found in local stores, but got the idea from Mindware.

Great! My guys have LOVED getting to circle stuff in the catalogs. I mean, don't get me wrong, it definitely gets out of control sometimes where everything on every page is circled LOL, but that was worse when they were younger. Now they take a little more time and are more likely to read the descriptions. It takes the guess work out, without taking out all of the surprise.

We've done it with Sensational Beginnings, Constructive Play Things, and Toys to Grow On catalogs as well, but I think those are more geared towards the younger ones.