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Baby Showers
PnJ Mooney
member
Gift opening
PnJ Mooney
member
in Baby Showers
My mom is in the process of planning my shower and would like ideas on opening gifts. After asking around, some seem to like the gift opening part while other say they are bored out of their mind. Any happy medium or alternatives to opening all the gifts? TIA
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Re: Gift opening
BFP#1 on 02/14/09 BIRTH to Mason 6lb9oz on 10/12/09
BFP#2 on 5/28/11 EDD 2/1/12 Natural M/C on 6/13/11
BFP#3 on 1/20/12 EDD 9/30/12 Natural m/c on 1/27/12
BFP#4 on 4/23/12 BIRTH to Isabella 7lb1oz on 12/19/12
Exactly. At a shower, the guests want to see your face light up when you open their gift. Serve food during it or have them do a 'baby bingo' game where they mark what gifts you get on a bingo card the hostess creates ahead of time (you can either use generic things that you're pretty certain you'll get like clothes, blanket, bottle, etc. or she can check your registry the day before and see what's been purchased and use those items as the spaces). The person to bingo first wins some small shower prize!
At my shower we had an empty chair next to mine. Whoever's gift I was opening would sit in the chair next to me and someone would take our picture when I opened their present. We only had about 10 people though so it wasn't like an hour of present opening or musical chairs. But it was fun to see the photos of everyone sitting with me and their gift- beats writing it all down!
You can also pass around the paper sheet you are using to keep track of presents and let people write their own names/present/something nice on it.
And cake definitely helps.
Opening gifts is part of the shower as most people want to see you open the gift they gave you. At my shower we served the cake just before I started to open, and they also were playing gift bingo so that kept everyone busy. We had mine at a restaurant so they all were still seated at the table and could eat/play the game very easy.
I would just have cake served and have Bingo being played while opening gifts. That will keep the guests busy and most of the time they will sit and talk to each other during gift opening anyways.
Can someone explain what registry bingo is?
Thanks!
Also, be relatively quick about the gift opening. I have one friend who was SOOOO slow about it. Being dainty w/ the paper, would stop opening a gift if the person started talking - etc. THAT was mind numbingly boring. I know I wasn't the only person sitting there thinking "HURRY up. Please.".
But when I go to showers where the bride or mom to be are quick about it - I dont' mind the gift opening as much. I'm not talking rushing through it, but being effiecient about it, showing the gift, thanking the giver, then moving on to the next gift.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I agree about being quick about it. One thing that really, really helps is to have scissors - just cut right through tape, ribbons, etc. and it makes a big difference in time.
?
Ditto PP that mentioned cake should be served while presents are opened.
If you are having a large shower (say, more than 40 guests), the present opening can be very tedious and boring. If this is the case, it's best to start opening presents while everyone is eating (sorry, guest of honor will have to eat later
), or to start an activity while the present opening is going on... like decorating fabric squares for a quilt for baby, or something along those lines.
Meh, I don't need to see this.
There are things that you can do to speed up the process of gift opening. Have one friend/sister/mom sit and record gifts that are given to you. Have another friend/sister/mom sit on the other side and get and give gifts for you to open up. This is a very effecient way to open up gifts so it doesn't take forever. Like others have mentioned, serving cake or playing bingo are a good distractions.
This... I wish we would have done this at my shower. Everyone tends to get bored after the second or third gift!
Also, I forgot to mention, this is good at bridal showers too but get a friend to actually cut ribbons & stuff that might be hard for you before it gets to you so you really just have to pull things out of the bag or tear off the wrapping & not mess around w/ it...and being all gentle w/ wrapping just slows things down. One shower I went to, the one mom was in charge of displaying everything on a big table after it was opened, which I thought was kind of nice bc you could go over there afterward & kind of look at stuff without feeling like you had to totally pay attention during the whole opening of gifts.