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#1
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No Wrap Shower
We are expecting 100+ guests at our baby shower. Is their a
polite, acceptable way to ask that gifts not be wrapped? We we thinking a gift table to display the gifts, so people can view as they please throughout the shower. We would also spend a half hour or so to officially recognize the gifts. We just want to avoid a 2 hour gift opening session. It won't be fun for the guests or us!! |
#2
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No Wrap Shower
HELP!! wrote:
We are expecting 100+ guests at our baby shower. Is their a polite, acceptable way to ask that gifts not be wrapped? No. Who planned this monstrosity of a shower anyway? At some point, you've made your bed and you lie in it. I just don't see any way that you can politely say to people, "All those gifts you spent your hard earned time and money on are just too much trouble for us to open, so please don't bother to wrap them." No matter how you phrase it, that's how it's likely to come across. We we thinking a gift table to display the gifts, so people can view as they please throughout the shower. We would also spend a half hour or so to officially recognize the gifts. We just want to avoid a 2 hour gift opening session. It won't be fun for the guests or us!! Because a shower is the only type of adult party where guests are required to bring gifts, it confers special obligations on the guests of honor and on the people who plan the shower to avoid looking like a greedy gift-grub. That's why people are not allowed to throw themselves or close relatives showers, shower guests are supposed to be very close friends, and the gifts are supposed to be small, almost token gifts. You've stretched things by having a shower this big, but you still have to act as if this the gathering of intimate friends it ought to be. One possibility for the shower is that you plan a set of activities for the guests so that they're enjoying themselves, and you gather small groups of guests together throughout the party and open their gifts. You will be kept busy with the gift opening, but at least your guests won't be tied down to it and you'll be able to provide some of that more personal attention to each guest and the gift they chose for you. Best wishes, Ericka |
#3
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No Wrap Shower
Thanks for the reply Ericka. I know it sounds funny, but this
monstrosity is intimate. We are both from large families and have 20 aunts & uncles and 60+ first cousins. Include a very trimmed down list of close friends and you get a 100+ guest shower, all of which expect to be invited. On Jun 19, 8:32 am, Ericka Kammerer wrote: HELP!! wrote: We are expecting 100+ guests at our baby shower. Is their a polite, acceptable way to ask that gifts not be wrapped? No. Who planned this monstrosity of a shower anyway? At some point, you've made your bed and you lie in it. I just don't see any way that you can politely say to people, "All those gifts you spent your hard earned time and money on are just too much trouble for us to open, so please don't bother to wrap them." No matter how you phrase it, that's how it's likely to come across. We we thinking a gift table to display the gifts, so people can view as they please throughout the shower. We would also spend a half hour or so to officially recognize the gifts. We just want to avoid a 2 hour gift opening session. It won't be fun for the guests or us!! Because a shower is the only type of adult party where guests are required to bring gifts, it confers special obligations on the guests of honor and on the people who plan the shower to avoid looking like a greedy gift-grub. That's why people are not allowed to throw themselves or close relatives showers, shower guests are supposed to be very close friends, and the gifts are supposed to be small, almost token gifts. You've stretched things by having a shower this big, but you still have to act as if this the gathering of intimate friends it ought to be. One possibility for the shower is that you plan a set of activities for the guests so that they're enjoying themselves, and you gather small groups of guests together throughout the party and open their gifts. You will be kept busy with the gift opening, but at least your guests won't be tied down to it and you'll be able to provide some of that more personal attention to each guest and the gift they chose for you. Best wishes, Ericka |
#4
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No Wrap Shower
On Jun 19, 5:48 am, HELP!! wrote:
Thanks for the reply Ericka. I know it sounds funny, but this monstrosity is intimate. We are both from large families and have 20 aunts & uncles and 60+ first cousins. Include a very trimmed down list of close friends and you get a 100+ guest shower, all of which expect to be invited. It may be too late for this, but with a shower this large, you are likely to end up with way too much baby stuff. Could it be turned into a baby advice shower? Each guest writes a baby tip on a 3x5 notecard. Guests who wanted to could also bring gifts. --Betsy |
#5
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No Wrap Shower
HELP!! wrote:
Thanks for the reply Ericka. I know it sounds funny, but this monstrosity is intimate. We are both from large families and have 20 aunts & uncles and 60+ first cousins. Include a very trimmed down list of close friends and you get a 100+ guest shower, all of which expect to be invited. I realise this is of no actual help to you, but... good heavens, how many close friends do you have? 20 aunts and uncles and 60+ first cousins still adds up to 20 short of 100+, so, if my arithmetic is correct, that means your very trimmed-down list of close friends still includes an average of 10 people each! All the best, Sarah -- http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com "That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell |
#6
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No Wrap Shower
Instead of a single shower that you invited a 100 people to, you could have
had 3 showers -- one for dh's side of the family, one for your side of the family, and one for close friends. That way you would have had about 30 people at each shower, which is still a large number but much more reasonable. I agree with Ericka. There is no way to dictate that people not wrap their presents because it would be more convenient for you. It's like asking them to self address their own Thank You cards. Heck, why not ask them to write them too. -- Jamie Earth Angels: Taylor Marlys -- 01/03/03 Addison Grace -- 09/30/04 Check out the family! -- www.MyFamily.com, User ID: Clarkguest1, Password: Guest Become a member for free - go to Add Member to set up your own User ID and Password "HELP!!" wrote in message oups.com... Thanks for the reply Ericka. I know it sounds funny, but this monstrosity is intimate. We are both from large families and have 20 aunts & uncles and 60+ first cousins. Include a very trimmed down list of close friends and you get a 100+ guest shower, all of which expect to be invited. On Jun 19, 8:32 am, Ericka Kammerer wrote: HELP!! wrote: We are expecting 100+ guests at our baby shower. Is their a polite, acceptable way to ask that gifts not be wrapped? No. Who planned this monstrosity of a shower anyway? At some point, you've made your bed and you lie in it. I just don't see any way that you can politely say to people, "All those gifts you spent your hard earned time and money on are just too much trouble for us to open, so please don't bother to wrap them." No matter how you phrase it, that's how it's likely to come across. We we thinking a gift table to display the gifts, so people can view as they please throughout the shower. We would also spend a half hour or so to officially recognize the gifts. We just want to avoid a 2 hour gift opening session. It won't be fun for the guests or us!! Because a shower is the only type of adult party where guests are required to bring gifts, it confers special obligations on the guests of honor and on the people who plan the shower to avoid looking like a greedy gift-grub. That's why people are not allowed to throw themselves or close relatives showers, shower guests are supposed to be very close friends, and the gifts are supposed to be small, almost token gifts. You've stretched things by having a shower this big, but you still have to act as if this the gathering of intimate friends it ought to be. One possibility for the shower is that you plan a set of activities for the guests so that they're enjoying themselves, and you gather small groups of guests together throughout the party and open their gifts. You will be kept busy with the gift opening, but at least your guests won't be tied down to it and you'll be able to provide some of that more personal attention to each guest and the gift they chose for you. Best wishes, Ericka |
#7
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No Wrap Shower
On Jun 19, 7:48 am, HELP!! wrote:
Thanks for the reply Ericka. I know it sounds funny, but this monstrosity is intimate. We are both from large families and have 20 aunts & uncles and 60+ first cousins. Include a very trimmed down list of close friends and you get a 100+ guest shower, all of which expect to be invited. I hear you loud and clear. We live far away from our families so didn't have to deal with this, but my family is large, and showers (or parties of any sort) quickly get out of hand. People who are not from big families often just don't *get* it (I have 60 first cousins on my dad's side alone, and as many of them are already grandparents, multiple layers of other cousins as well). But no, there is no way to ask for anything in particular about the gifts. Just open them thoughtfully, but quickly. You won't have 100 gifts, and likely family groups will offer one joint gift, which should make it shorter. Also, half the party will be uninterested and doing something else anyway, at least that has been my experience at large showers (which in my family, are always co-ed). Just relax and have fun, and be excited that your little one has so many people excited to meet him/her. |
#8
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No Wrap Shower
On Jun 22, 10:44 pm, cjra wrote:
On Jun 19, 7:48 am, HELP!! wrote: Thanks for the reply Ericka. I know it sounds funny, but this monstrosity is intimate. We are both from large families and have 20 aunts & uncles and 60+ first cousins. Include a very trimmed down list of close friends and you get a 100+ guest shower, all of which expect to be invited. I hear you loud and clear. We live far away from our families so didn't have to deal with this, but my family is large, and showers (or parties of any sort) quickly get out of hand. People who are not from big families often just don't *get* it (I have 60 first cousins on my dad's side alone, and as many of them are already grandparents, multiple layers of other cousins as well). But no, there is no way to ask for anything in particular about the gifts. Just open them thoughtfully, but quickly. You won't have 100 gifts, and likely family groups will offer one joint gift, which should make it shorter. Also, half the party will be uninterested and doing something else anyway, at least that has been my experience at large showers (which in my family, are always co-ed). Just relax and have fun, and be excited that your little one has so many people excited to meet him/her. thanks cjra. some people just don't understand large families. its rare when the whole family gets together, i was trying to avoid wasting precious "catch up" time on a 2 hour gift opening session. but you're right. i think we'll just open the gifts in a quick, organized, and thoughtful way. |
#9
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No Wrap Shower
I hear you loud and clear. We live far away from our families so didn't have to deal with this, but my family is large, and showers (or parties of any sort) quickly get out of hand. People who are not from big families often just don't *get* it (I have 60 first cousins on my dad's side alone, and as many of them are already grandparents, multiple layers of other cousins as well). wow, that is pretty impressive, if I'm understanding who exactly you mean by first cousins on your fathers side - i.e. your father's siblings' children, then that's of the order of your father having 8 siblings and each of them having 8 children, I don't find someone having 8 siblings at all surprising, just the fact that then all of them also had such big families, or if any of them had smaller families, the others having even bigger ones to make up, which does seem a lot more unusual. My dad's mum was the youngest of 7, so only 6 siblings, but I think he has only around 15 first cousins, 2 of the siblings didn't get married, the others had more middle sized families. I'm at the opposite extreme, it's not the smallest family in the world, but before I married, my entire family including me, extending as far as first cousins was 12 people. My parents and the two of us, my mum's sister, husband and 2 children, my dad's sister and 3 our of 4 grandparents still living. In some ways I'm envious of larger families, if it's bigger there seems to be more chance of being close, or living near family members, but I've noticed it doesn't always work out like that - as my family is small, it's not an onerous task to keep in touch with everyone and to send cards and gifts, net result is that we are close, whereas in a big family you couldn't do that so easily and end up not close to anyone - DH's family is more medium sized compared to mine, yet at his birthday, he get's more cards from my family than his. It can be a cause of tension, because he's not close to his family, I've spent barely any time with them, so I've never had the chance to get comfortable with them, so he then feels I don't want to see them, rather than seeing that I'm just uncomfortable and find it more stressful than he does to see my family members. Cheers Anne |
#10
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No Wrap Shower
On Jun 26, 5:45 pm, Anne Rogers wrote:
I hear you loud and clear. We live far away from our families so didn't have to deal with this, but my family is large, and showers (or parties of any sort) quickly get out of hand. People who are not from big families often just don't *get* it (I have 60 first cousins on my dad's side alone, and as many of them are already grandparents, multiple layers of other cousins as well). wow, that is pretty impressive, if I'm understanding who exactly you mean by first cousins on your fathers side - i.e. your father's siblings' children, then that's of the order of your father having 8 siblings and each of them having 8 children, I don't find someone having 8 siblings at all surprising, just the fact that then all of them also had such big families, or if any of them had smaller families, the others having even bigger ones to make up, which does seem a lot more unusual. My dad's mum was the youngest of 7, so only 6 siblings, but I think he has only around 15 first cousins, 2 of the siblings didn't get married, the others had more middle sized families. My dad is one of 11 siblings who survived to adulthood and had children (14 in all, 3 died before 1 yo). One brother had 2 kids, the rest had between 6-10 children each. I am one of 8. My grandfather was also one of 10+ (can't remember exactly). Catholic farmers.... I have lost count of the next generation. My parents already have 25 grandkids. My mother is only one of 3, and I have 5 first cousins total on her side. However both her parents were from large families and most are very close as well as friends who have been part of the family so long they're relatives, so though there are fewer close blood relatives, there's a very large extended family and non-cousins who might as well be. My siblings and I are scattered, but my dad is the only one of his siblings ot move away, and most of my cousins stayed close to home, so there are about 50 cousins who live within 60 miles or so, almost all of whom have kids and spouses (age range is 35-60). I'm at the opposite extreme, it's not the smallest family in the world, but before I married, my entire family including me, extending as far as first cousins was 12 people. My parents and the two of us, my mum's sister, husband and 2 children, my dad's sister and 3 our of 4 grandparents still living. In some ways I'm envious of larger families, if it's bigger there seems to be more chance of being close, or living near family members, but I've noticed it doesn't always work out like that - as my family is small, it's not an onerous task to keep in touch with everyone and to send cards and gifts, net result is that we are close, whereas in a big family you couldn't do that so easily and end up not close to anyone - Though I have 6 living siblings (one died aged 30, w/o kids), the closest family is 1500+ miles away (CA, I'm in TX, others are in OH, GA, and Guam). As for my cousins, because we didn't grow up near them, and I'm on the younger end, I'm close to some, not others. Makes it hard for parties though. My sisters got married in OH - where my dad's family is - and had a helluva time keeping the guest list to manageable size. I got married in TX, where we have no family, but offered an invite to all relatives if they wanted to come, well, many did, some I wasn't close to but it was a really nice thing and made me closer to them now. My siblings drive me crazy, and am I'm not close to all of them, but I honestly can say I wouldn't trade them for the world. I am glad they're there. It has been especially significant in times of crises, like when my brother died and the few times we've come close to losing my dad. Sheer numbers are no guarantee though. |
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