Reply to Any way to do a "presents optional" birthday party invite?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wish we could collectively just agree that gifts are always optional, that no family should ever bring an extravagant gift, and also that no one will ever be resented for not bringing a gift. Could we make that a general rule?

The problem for us is that some of our friends do no gift parties and some don't, and if my kid goes to a party with gifts then of course she wants gifts. Also, we are not wealthy so it's not like our kid is getting showered with presents every birthday or Christmas. We also don't have much extended family so she might get one small thing from each set of grandparents but otherwise it's just us. I actually like the idea of having her friends give her (small) gifts and then we of course bring them gifts for their parties. But it's just hard because everyone has very different ideas of what is appropriate.

Lately (since my kid was old enough to care and ask if people are bringing gifts) we just say nothing about it on the invite and people make their own choice and we open them after everyone leaves and we make our kid write thank you notes. It's the best I can come up with.[/quote]

I think your approach is great. We do the book swap because we have had big joint parties- 30 kids for my kid and his friend, and we can’t manage 30 gifts. We did the big party because we had a huge venue that could support all those kids at a reasonable price and we had just moved. My other kid had a party with 3 other kids, and I didn’t specify gifts, so he received gifts. Some people don’t want gifts and some do, and I think both are fine. And it’s also fine to have a kid who really wants gifts and a kid who doesn’t. My book swap kid and his friend didn’t care, so it worked out. If they did care, we wouldn’t have done a big party. I don’t see why people have to do the same thing for kids’ birthday parties. [/quote]

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