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s/o present opening
So, do kids not open birthday presents at the party anymore? What's the reasoning for that? We don't have to worry about this quite yet, but it seems like a big change from when I was a kid (decades ago, I know). We always thanked people in person as we opened the present. Do kids now write thank you notes?
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Re: s/o present opening
Great idea!
Abigail Taylor 09.18.2008
As I said below none of my friends open gifts at the party. It takes forever, people get bored, kids get restless (and grabby) and it is just a mess. I would be annoyed if we had to sit and watch a child open all their gifts, keep ds entertained (and away from the new toys) and what happens if the birthday child doesn't like the gift? Or already has it? They have no filter and then it is embarrassing for the parents.
Also a lot of my friends have parties outside of their home and their is a time frame of the place, like 2 hours, and they don't want to spend an hour of it opening gifts.
Yes, kids write thank you cards! I would have my ds do a thank you card even if he opened the gift in front of the giver though.
We always open presents. My daughter is 2 1/2 and we have done this at each birthday. I think it's rude not to. I think it's weird to just say, "Thanks for the present, we are opening it later."
We don't have blowout parties, but we do have several people over. It has never been an issue, even with other kids there. You either have the other kids help open the presents, or bring the presents to the birthday kid, or actually have little party favors wrapped up so no one feels left out. No big deal.
And yes, we always write thank-you notes. Always! Even if you're thanked in person. Just what I do.
I don't think it's rude to not open gifts at the party. We have only had one bigger party for Cadence, on her first birthday. I set the gifts aside and intended to have her open them later so it wouldn't take forever. Several of the guests asked if she could open the gifts now. I would have felt rude refusing that request.
DD- 9
DS-6
c/p- April 2016
missed m/c- 6w5d; discovered 8w2d- September 2016
Selfish as it may sound, I think one of the best parts of watching presents get opened is seeing the joy of the receiver. I put a lot of thought into picking gifts and I like to see them opened.
If you're talking about a party with 20 kids, then yeah, I understand not opening gifts. But if it's a small crowd, go ahead and open them.
It doesn't really bother me to wait and watch presents being opened. I don't think we've been to a birthday party where the kids didn't open the presents and show appreciation for their gifts and get excited with their friends.
It wouldn't upset me though if the parents decided to just hold off opening presents though to avoid the chaos. I guess I'm fine either way, but I do like seeing that the reaction to the gift when they open presents.
We've always had larger parties with 20+ kids. This is the big reason that we have never opened gifts. Also, it wasn't until my child was 2.5 - 3 that he really got into opening all the gifts. Before that, he would open one gift and get side-tracked.
Also, we've had issues with other kids opening gifts and playing with them before Alec even had a chance to see or play with the toy..as a result, we've lost pieces to toys and even lost a present. This happened at Alec's first and third birthdays (and we didn't even open gifts)
I don't think it's rude to not open gifts or rude to open gifts. For us, it's been a big cluster **** so we avoid this whole process. For smaller parties, we would definitely open gifts.
This is what I meant, we have big parties and for us it just isn't worth the craziness and confusion and I really do think people get bored watching. But I don't think it is rude either way, it just isn't our thing, or our friends thing.
I think that if you have a huge party, it makes sense not to open gifts. It just sounds like a logistical nightmare. For us, we've only had small birthday parties with family and a few friends which made that part of the party manageable and fun.
All the kids gather around and help open the gifts. Audrey and Ethan couldn't have cared less that someone got to play with a gift before they did. Everyone felt included, it went quickly, and it wasn't chaotic. Just a bunch of kids sharing and playing with new stuff. Maybe last year was a magic year for that to have worked so well. I don't know.
We had also toyed with the idea of asking people to not bring gifts, but we decided to have a gift-free Christmas and Eid and chose to keep birthdays as our universal once-a-year gift giving time.
They just thanked everyone in person and we didn't send thank you notes. But I do love the idea of sending thank yous with a group picture from the party. Great idea!
We do a family birthday for the girls together and we do open presents with it's just our extended, relatively civilized family. But at a regular birthday party with a ton of kids, no way jose.