help - need b'day ideas

On Sat, 26 May 2007 01:02:38 -0700, Anne Rogers wrote:

help, I'm feeling brain dead, I need to get my act together and buy birthday
presents, DS is 4 on Monday and has had money sent for me to buy presents
from various relatives. I've got a bit more time for DD, who is 2 in two
weeks, but I'm particularly stuck for her, as being a 2nd child, we've got
most things already!

Cheers

Anne

If they don't need toys and you need to buy lots of individual gifts, I'd
go with kid furniture or character hooded towels or animal cup and bowl
sets or character electric toothbrushes. My kids really got a kick out of
those gifts. They love using them and they really last.

Banty wrote:

In article , Rosalie B. says...

Banty wrote:

In article , Anne Rogers says...

help, I'm feeling brain dead, I need to get my act together and buy birthday
presents, DS is 4 on Monday and has had money sent for me to buy presents
from various relatives. I've got a bit more time for DD, who is 2 in two
weeks, but I'm particularly stuck for her, as being a 2nd child, we've got
most things already!

My mom used to give a gift certificate to a specific catalog (she used
Young Explorers) so that the child could pick their own gift from the
catalog. She had the catalogs sent to the parent and the parent could
then pick what items out of it to show to their child so that the
child could pick one.

And that might be an idea for you. You could do it on line and let
your DS see pictures of some things he might get for whatever the
amount of money that you have is, and let him pick one (or more if
there's that much money). Then you order it for him. He probably
won't have it to touch on his birthday though.

Good grief. You're not the errand girl for your relatives, are you?? Of course
your brain is balking - it senses better than you that you're being put upon!
;-)

If you have not had children of your own (not all relatives have or
they haven't all had boys), then it can be a challenge to figure out
what kinds of gifts they would enjoy. And if you ask the mother, and
she doesn't know either (as Anne doesn't seem to have had any ideas)
then what else is there to do but send money. Would that not be
better than giving them something completely inappropriate?

Nothing wrong with giving money. A lot is wrong with expecting that they fund
presents quickly gotten by someone else for you.

I didn't get that this was something that was short notice on the part
of the giver. I thought it was just that she hadn't gotten around to
doing it yet, even though she'd had the money for some period of time
beforehand.


If they didn't bother to purchase gifts, then use the money to get whatever you
may happened to have in mind for him and put the rest in a bank account set
aside for him. Or all of it.

Send a short note thanking them for the money. Period. Any relative asking
after what was bought with the money should be met with an abrupt change in
conversation.

This seems ungracious to me.

Why? A gift is a gift. One doesnt' have to say what was done with a gift. One
thanks for the gift. This time, the gift is money, so you thank for the money.

My mom always made me tell a giver who gave money exactly what I'd
used it for. It was sometimes acceptable to say "I WILL GET.."
whatever I was going to get, or that I was saving the money for some
specific item, but I was never allowed just to say, "Thank you for the
money."

That's where I got my ideas about the etiquette of thanking someone
for money.

But what I thought seemed ungracious was the snubbing of the relative
who asked what you'd done with the money. I think that's a legit
question, and the only reason for not answering it is if you know in
advance that the relative will not approve of your use of the money
and you want to avoid some kind of confrontation. But given good will
on the part of both parties, I don't think it would hurt any to be
polite and answer the question.

BTW, It was unacceptable in our family to use a gift for normal
running expenses (unless it was specifically given for that purpose).
Now, I do understand that a very elder person who is having trouble getting
around may make an arrangement with a parent. Or someone deployed overseas,
etc. But that's an explicit arrangement. Then more would be said in a thank
you note. (And it's getting less and less necessary given the internet - fewer
and fewer people really are in that position.)

I'm not sure that is really the case. Elderly people don't stop
having trouble getting around because of the internet.

But on the other hand, I've seen (and had) a lot of simple laziness or "If I
can't find it at Walmart I'm just sending the money for it" or "I don't know
what to get", but expecting that $xx.xx that they sent be accounted for with the
description of some single tangible something fitting the value of the check,
and on time by golly, from some relatives. When Anne says it's several
relatives and she doesn't have any idea what to do, I'm fairly sure she's
describing the latter case. Or at the least, she's allowed too many relatives
to have that understanding with her.

Well I thought the other way - that the relatives had asked her and
she hadn't given them any particular guidance, and so they sent money.
She sounded kind of wishy-washy about it. I don't think it is at all
unreasonable for them to want to know what she did with it - if
nothing else as a guidance for next time.

If Anne doesn't want to have to buy presents for them, she can
indicate that (not by direct statement - it would be enough for most
people if she said something like "I had a hard time getting to the
store before DS's birthday, so I had to postpone his present from
you."

When my grandchildren get to be 10 or 12 years old, I stop giving them
gifts and give them money instead. But I give it directly to them and
don't ask their parents to buy something with it. I do expect a
thank-you note saying something about what the child will do with the
money (and putting it into the bank is acceptable), and since it is a
in the form of a check, the parents WILL have to be involved, but I'm
not sending cash through the mail.

Open a bank account for the kid and put the money there. When the kid is 3
to 5 years older, you can start doing investing in stocks and mutual
funds. The family members will be giving him the gift of knowledge about
investing.

I knew someone would suggest that if I didn't explain! Savings plans are
already in existance, this money has been specifically given to me with the
request to buy something for them.

Anne

Since so many of our relatives live far away, DD gets a lot of checks, so
what I do is to buy her regular gifts, then decide later who to attribute
each from. We have a relative who sends HUGE checks to buy toys for DD2. If
we spent it all, she'd more than double what she gets for Christmas and
Birthday.

What I started doing was buying one thing for DD2 which I could write about
in a thank you note, from each person, then buying shares of a company which
relates to the toys that she's getting with the rest, including what mommy
and daddy would have spent. It limits the amount of toys, yet provides
something to send photos of. So far, her portfolio is outperforming ours.
Even if she only gets the regular return, by the time she goes to college
those checks will probably come in handy. I'm hoping that when she gets
older we can involve her actively in managing her own portfolio and
selecting stocks for purchase.

Good grief. You're not the errand girl for your relatives, are you?? Of
course
your brain is balking - it senses better than you that you're being put
upon!
;-)

be reasonable, we all live in different countries, I would prefer it if they
bought things online and some do, but sending parcels is wasteful, the
postage is often almost as much as the value of the present, it is a bit
frustrating, but the other option would be no presents at all.

Anne

Now, I do understand that a very elder person who is having trouble
getting
around may make an arrangement with a parent. Or someone deployed
overseas,
etc. But that's an explicit arrangement. Then more would be said in a
thank
you note. (And it's getting less and less necessary given the internet -
fewer
and fewer people really are in that position.)

and all relatives concerned fall into that category, but it adds up to a
moderate amount of money, plus my parents have promised gifts when they
visit, so I could do with some ideas for then too.

The relatives who have sent money are my grandma who is over 80, and lives
in the UK, my grandparents, in their 70s and based in Cyprus, plus my aunt
and uncle who sent a lightweight gift in the mail and don't seem to think
that was sufficient.

Anne

Oh Nikki, you've tried so hard, I appreciate that, I really should have
explained better first time, in fact I did, but it sounded horrendous, so I
deleted it. We don't have a yard, just a medium sized deck, we already have
one tent and one tunnel and that's all we've room for, so yard toys are off
the list, you have reminded me that I intended to get DS a bubble maker.

We did the kitchen thing at Christmas, though the cash register is a good
idea, also the shopping trolley, I must look out for both of those. We don't
seem to have great toy shopping locally there are a few fairly posh and
pricey shops and then Fred Mayer, but our local one doesn't seem to have a
great stock of toys! Actually, I must check where the nearest toys-r-us is,
I know we don't have a babies-r-us close, but I have a sneaky suspicion we
to have toys-r-us and I just don't know where it is.

Thanks

Anne

Does she like dolls and other girlie toys that perhaps DS didn't have? My
DS is 5 and DD is 3 and birthdays are not a problem because she is very
girlie and he was very boyish.

they are no so different, we got DS dolls and dolls pushchair for his 2nd
birthday and DD is not really interested in them, her favourite toy is
duplo, which DS has loads of and wasn't that interested in! He likes all the
different bits now for role play, but never really builds with it. My sister
has mailordered a doll for DD.

Personally, I put all money sent to my children into their college fund.
We don't need more toys and people sending money never ask us to use it to
buy anything. I don't feel that's right, but if they do that, then I
would
pool their money and buy something big, like a playhouse for the backyard
or something.

no back yard! savings plans have already been sorted! Once they are a bit
older, I would tell them how much money they had and suggested they save a
portion in case there was something they wanted another time, but they are
too young for that.

Anne

In article , Anne Rogers says...

Now, I do understand that a very elder person who is having trouble
getting
around may make an arrangement with a parent. Or someone deployed
overseas,
etc. But that's an explicit arrangement. Then more would be said in a
thank
you note. (And it's getting less and less necessary given the internet -
fewer
and fewer people really are in that position.)

and all relatives concerned fall into that category, but it adds up to a
moderate amount of money, plus my parents have promised gifts when they
visit, so I could do with some ideas for then too.

The relatives who have sent money are my grandma who is over 80, and lives
in the UK, my grandparents, in their 70s and based in Cyprus, plus my aunt
and uncle who sent a lightweight gift in the mail and don't seem to think
that was sufficient.

OK, well I guess I got really, really tired of the cash gifts with strings
attached from folks who thought I could just fit in picking up some specified
something since I spend all day running around anyway :-/

Gift certificates are at least a little better than that.

Banty

In article , Rosalie B. says...

Banty wrote:


Good grief. You're not the errand girl for your relatives, are you?? Of course
your brain is balking - it senses better than you that you're being put upon!
;-)

If you have not had children of your own (not all relatives have or
they haven't all had boys), then it can be a challenge to figure out
what kinds of gifts they would enjoy. And if you ask the mother, and
she doesn't know either (as Anne doesn't seem to have had any ideas)
then what else is there to do but send money. Would that not be
better than giving them something completely inappropriate?

Nothing wrong with giving money. A lot is wrong with expecting that they fund
presents quickly gotten by someone else for you.

I didn't get that this was something that was short notice on the part
of the giver. I thought it was just that she hadn't gotten around to
doing it yet, even though she'd had the money for some period of time
beforehand.

It's not the notice, although that would make it worse.



If they didn't bother to purchase gifts, then use the money to get whatever you
may happened to have in mind for him and put the rest in a bank account set
aside for him. Or all of it.

Send a short note thanking them for the money. Period. Any relative asking
after what was bought with the money should be met with an abrupt change in
conversation.

This seems ungracious to me.

Why? A gift is a gift. One doesnt' have to say what was done with a gift. One
thanks for the gift. This time, the gift is money, so you thank for the money.

My mom always made me tell a giver who gave money exactly what I'd
used it for. It was sometimes acceptable to say "I WILL GET.."
whatever I was going to get, or that I was saving the money for some
specific item, but I was never allowed just to say, "Thank you for the
money."

My mom too. My mom told me all kinds of stuff - how it's "rude" to ever re-gift
(even discreetly), or even give a away a gift if the giver might ever enter my
household. My mom told me to wear the gift, or put it out, or whatever, the
next time I see the giver.

She told me all kinds of cockamamie stuff that actually isn't required by
etiquette, or goes against it. It's rude to inquire as to what use was made of
a gift.

I really like the idea of having an investment fund for a child, and all cash
gifts go there. That can be said in the thank you letter. If the giver wanted
an errand run for them, they'll be dissapointed and won't give cash again. If
they truly wanted to give a gift, that should satisfy them if they feel they
need to find out.


That's where I got my ideas about the etiquette of thanking someone
for money.

But what I thought seemed ungracious was the snubbing of the relative
who asked what you'd done with the money. I think that's a legit
question, and the only reason for not answering it is if you know in
advance that the relative will not approve of your use of the money
and you want to avoid some kind of confrontation. But given good will
on the part of both parties, I don't think it would hurt any to be
polite and answer the question.

And, if the money is still unspent, possibly waiting to be combined with other
gifts? Or you know the giver expected a different purchase?


BTW, It was unacceptable in our family to use a gift for normal
running expenses (unless it was specifically given for that purpose).
Now, I do understand that a very elder person who is having trouble getting
around may make an arrangement with a parent. Or someone deployed overseas,
etc. But that's an explicit arrangement. Then more would be said in a thank
you note. (And it's getting less and less necessary given the internet - fewer
and fewer people really are in that position.)

I'm not sure that is really the case. Elderly people don't stop
having trouble getting around because of the internet.

Fewer and fewer are unable to use it, though. That's all I was saying.

Banty