Baby Shower Registry

Great ideas. What I'm finidng hard is my sister and sister in law are
planning this. Trust me getting in a fight with either of them is a
HUGE deal, much easier to just go with it rather then fight against it.
My friends wanted to throw one for me but my sister has deemed my
sister in law the only one that is acceptable to do this. So I think I
will have to resort to complaining here. And the not registering will
hopefully make the gifts simpler and more fun. Maybe someone out there
who is more diplomatic then I am, has a wonderful suggestion that I
could possibly have them do. I like the idea of cute little gifts.
That would be fun. I wonder how to go about informing attendees of
this without putting mention of gifts in the invitation. I think I
read gift presumption is the number one no no in the ettiquette guide
for invites.

Anna.Nicole.m wrote:
Great ideas. What I'm finidng hard is my sister and sister in law are
planning this. Trust me getting in a fight with either of them is a
HUGE deal, much easier to just go with it rather then fight against it.
My friends wanted to throw one for me but my sister has deemed my
sister in law the only one that is acceptable to do this. So I think I
will have to resort to complaining here. And the not registering will
hopefully make the gifts simpler and more fun. Maybe someone out there
who is more diplomatic then I am, has a wonderful suggestion that I
could possibly have them do. I like the idea of cute little gifts.
That would be fun. I wonder how to go about informing attendees of
this without putting mention of gifts in the invitation. I think I
read gift presumption is the number one no no in the ettiquette guide
for invites.

If you really want to wriggle out of this, perhaps
a copy of a Miss Manners book explaining that close relatives
are forbidden from throwing showers might make some headway?
Sisters and sisters-in-law are among those who are not to throw
showers, because they're too closely related to you for it
not to be unseemly for them to be requesting gifts for you.
If you just need to go along with it, there is a little
more leeway with shower invitations than other invitations
simply because a shower invitation really *is* a gift request,
given that anyone who accepts the invitation must bring a gift.
Putting registry information in the invitation is crossing
the line, but it is permissible to have theme showers. So,
for instance, they could throw a book shower with everyone
bringing their favorite children's book and you'd end up
with a nice little library.

Best wishes,
Ericka

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
. ..
snip
for instance, they could throw a book shower with everyone
bringing their favorite children's book and you'd end up
with a nice little library.
We don't do showers here but I think that's a really nice idea.
Debbie

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

If one really doesn't like the gift thing, really
the only way to get out of it is not have the word "shower"
anywhere near the event, and maybe even disguise the
event a bit (e.g., call it a "World Cup" party and make
no mention of baby!).

Yup, no mention of shower was made, just 'celebration', but as everyone
knows I'm nine months pregnant, they made the assumption,...The hosts,
however, did want to make it a specific baby oriented event - eg, they
asked everyone to contribute to a time capsule for the baby, which was
a wonderful touch.

A World Cup Party would specifically require *watching* the football,
and they kindly planned for *after* all matches that day. (We have
plenty of those)

Irrational Number wrote:
cjra wrote:

I wasn't comfortable with the shower idea - [...]
the upcoming arrival.' It was this past weekend and I'm really glad we
did it. First, our lives have been so hectic we haven't had much time
to spend with these friends lately and it was a great excuse to get
together. It gave our friends a chance to really get involved with
celebrating this baby - they're as excited as we are I think ;-). The
focus was a BBQ, with a few fun soccer-related games (I am a huge
soccer fan, and being in the midst of the World Cup, they decided to
use that as a theme). Though we told the hosts to play down the gift
aspect, most people brought gifts and it was expected we'd open them
there. They loved that part too - everyone wanted to ooh and ahh over
the cute baby stuff as well as laugh and have fun.

But isn't this exactly a shower? Friends gathering
to celebrate an impeding arrival of a baby. Plus,
it's cool to be the guest of honour once in awhile!


Yeah, it was, they just avoided mention of shower - ie a party for
gifts, and focused moe on the celebratory aspect. There wasn't a lot to
make it look like a typical shower except the gifts were all baby
related.

However when a wedding shower was offered I very clearly said Thanks
but no thanks. Let's go out and do a girl's night instead. But for the
baby, everyone wanted to take part in pre-celebrations, knowing post
celebrations might be difficult.
-- Anita --

but it is permissible to have theme showers. So,
for instance, they could throw a book shower with everyone
bringing their favorite children's book and you'd end up
with a nice little library.

Best wishes,
Ericka


oooo theme shower, that sounds like fun. book theme hmmm anymore
"THEME" Ideas?

I wonder if we can do a make another baby "Theme" Shower ROFL

I have nothing so far (only 5 mos along and nowhere to put anything
yet, as we're not moving until the last week of August). I did make a
registry at WalMart because that's where my family and my in-laws shop,
and people keep asking what I need. I don't know if very many family
members will actually look at it, but it's there if/when they ask and
it helps me keep track of what I still need.

Anna.Nicole.m wrote:

Opinions, thoughts?

Anna.Nicole.m wrote:
Is there anyone else out there, that is not necesarily gun ho about
registries? I don't think there is anything wrong with them if you
want or need specific things. I have all the "needs" stuff already
purchased for the baby. I just need the fun things like Blankies and
clothing and fun toys and gifts that other mothers want to pass along.
I don't want to lock everyone into purchasing from one place or a
specific item. I don't typically shop at the baby stores. They always
seem sooooo expensive. so to request gifts from there seems
hypocritical to me. Besides I would rather have presents from people
that they thought we would like. Kind of more like gifts from the
heart.

Opinions, thoughts?

Well, I didn't do a baby registry. The big stuff was discussed with
the specific people who offered ahead of time to buy them, and like
you, I was then left with the smaller stuff that didn't really seem
necessary to register for. I did have a list of stuff I needed, so if
people called and asked, I could suggest a few ideas of gift
categories, but I didn't give them specifics. It worked out pretty
well - I ended up with a good variety of stuff, and the few things we
still needed, we just bought ourselves.

That said, I will point out that one thing you can do nowadays is there
are online registries where you can register stuff from anyplace, not
just big stores. It's especially nice if you want stuff made by WAHM
companies, for instance. (A friend of mine did that recently - so I
was able to convince her to replace the Ultimate Baby Wrap at BRU with
a Moby at an online-only store.)

Irene