Aaaallll the birthday presents 😵‍💫

[SparklesTheSoupDragon]

DD turned 3 last week and had a party on Sunday. Having done my MN research, 20 kids were invited based on an expected 40-50% decline rate, particularly after a thread I read about people having only one weekend free between now and September, but also it’s a Sunday so religious reasons, activities/clubs for siblings, other parties, holidays, general ‘being busy’ that summer brings, family time, not to mention some parents just don’t like kids parties.

Obviously I ended up with 19 kids attending so I now have a box of 19 gifts very kindly given to DD 🙈 She’s 3, she doesn’t need another 9 presents, let alone 19. Is it morally acceptable to open them myself, give her a small selection of stuff she’ll like and keep the rest for future uses/charity shop? Or are they her birthday gifts and therefore she gets to open them all, maybe over a staggered period of time, and have a chance to play with them because someone has gone to the effort of selecting something for her (albeit from their generic present cupboard 😁)?

Some of us don't have large amounts of space. Some of us work from home and need our homes to be reasonably uncluttered. Some of us find we are better and happier parents when our housework burdens are less and that not having huge amounts of clutter helps with this. Some of us find our kids play better when they are not overwhelmed with too much stuff.

You keep all your child's gifts if you want to, but please don't judge others who choose differently.

They are hers. Id get annoyed when my sil wouldn't give our gifts to my nephew, because he had so many. When my fil visited he saw our gif in a pile in the corner of the conservatory. She refused to give them to her son. It's not hers to decide with, it's a gift for my nephew. I switched to money, then just stopped as it all felt soulless. You should let her open them all. They'll be some things she doesn't like, just pop those into the charity shop.

I did a whole class party for my son’s 6th birthday and 32 kids came. As you can imagine, a mountain of presents! He got a selection of the presents and we gave a lot to a Christmas present drive for kids in low incomes (with his knowledge!) at a local community centre.

I’ve started specifically asking for money instead of presents for my kids - the parents love it and my 8yo got over £100 (20 kids giving £5 each) which meant she could buy a hoverboard that she desperately wanted.

I just wrote something like ‘F is desperately saving for a hover board and has asked for a couple of pounds contribution to her fund rather than presents. If you’re happy to do that, she’d really appreciate it, thank you.’

The other parents were
delighted!

So we’ve gone for (hopefully) an approach to appease all concerned. DD gets to choose 2 presents a day out of the box and open them while Mummy furiously scribbles down the name of the giver & the gift for thank you cards. Anything not immediately loved or taken to is going in a box and will be stored in the loft in a week or so for a rainy day, which gives her a bit of time to sort through her stash before it goes upstairs but also gives me some hope to cling to that there will be a bit less clutter soon.

To add, what has gone down the best so far is a packet of cake mix, a box of cookie mixture and some icing pens. So if you ever need a gift for a small child that can also be rolled out last minute if needed and at a reasonable cost, the baking aisle is most definitely your friend.

Completely agree! Let them have what's been given to them!

It's just too much isn't it.

For my daughters 6th birthday recently we had 24 at the party and she got so many presents. Actually a few gave money too, she ended up with about £40.

I let me her keep what she liked and asked her if there were any that she wouldn't play with. Prob about half she said she wasn't bothered about. Some were really lovely too like a Barbie Extra but rather she was honest. There's been a few that I have regifted for parties and added the money to her piggy bank. I'd be going out and buying similar anyway. So that's worked well and she's pleased she's got some money to spend on something she wld like.

The rest are in the "present box" and when I use them I'll give her money 👍

DD LOVED opening her presents at 3 and writing the thank you cards afterwards. I wouldn’t dream of depriving her of that. How very uptight and depressing!

The majority of DD’s were craft related or books, the only things we passed on were duplicates.

Wow how mean, it is her birthday, let her be spoilt. Let her open 2-3 pressies each day then they don’t just get cast aside in favour of the next present.. Definitely don’t charity shop them as they were bought for her. I get that they don’t need all the presents they get so maybe once opened (by your child) keep them in a box she can access and when you are playing with her focus on a new toy from the box.

Everyone does things differently differently but I would definitely let her have them at some point.

50% decline?! Nah it's usually everyone plus random siblings let's face it! Give most then regift a couple, or tombola.

Just curious, why do people not just say no presents? At an older age I get the kids might want presents, but DC is 4 and still struggles to get through even a modest pile and does not really need anything.

Vast majority of parties we go to ask for no presents. (Not UK).

This is absolutely miserable, why would you not let your child open all of the birthday presents people have bought for her?! Honestly, just miserable and hugely ungrateful.

They are gifted to her they belong to
her. How about we take your birthday presents and go through and give some
away? Stagger them yes so she’s not overwhelmed, give things she doesn’t play with and has outgrown to the charity shop but poor child give her her gifts it’s very mean if not. They are hers not yours and someone’s has kindly gifted them for her enjoyment. If it’s something she already has then by all means don’t open that.

Maybe some of you have plenty of storage space and don't mind tripping over a house full of toys? I visited a friend who had a reasonably sized house but her living room was swamped with a ridiculous amount of 'stuff' ... far too much to be played with ... 90% of it plastic tat. My DS was generously given countless Lego sets ... he's never enjoyed Lego - what was the point of keeping them?

When my dd (now 18) was in reception class one very forward mum invited the whole class to a birthday party for her son, she specifically asked for no toys but said her son was collecting football cards so if anyone wanted to buy a gift a packet of football cards would be perfect, this opened up a discussion between all of us parents in the class and we all decided that we would all either put a fiver in a card or buy a small token gift of no more than £5, most (including me) opted to put a fiver in a card, it was brilliant and really took the pressure off of having to buy/wrap gifts and also not having to find room for 20 gifts every birthday!

Stagger them yes so she’s not overwhelmed, give things she doesn’t play with and has outgrown to the charity shop but poor child give her her gifts it’s very mean if not. They are hers not yours and someone’s has kindly gifted them for her enjoyment.

Wow how mean, it is her birthday, let her be spoilt. Let her open 2-3 pressies each day then they don’t just get cast aside in favour of the next present.. Definitely don’t charity shop them as they were bought for her. I get that they don’t need all the presents they get so maybe once opened (by your child) keep them in a box she can access and when you are playing with her focus on a new toy from the box.

They are hers. Id get annoyed when my sil wouldn't give our gifts to my nephew, because he had so many. When my fil visited he saw our gif in a pile in the corner of the conservatory. She refused to give them to her son. It's not hers to decide with, it's a gift for my nephew. I switched to money, then just stopped as it all felt soulless. You should let her open them all. They'll be some things she doesn't like, just pop those into the charity shop.

All these management strategies (staggering and rotating gifts and shifting them around and keeping mental tabs on what she has and doesn't have and carting things off to the charity shop) sound like a lot of time and effort, on top of all the mental load and life admin of running a household with young children. Can some of you try to grasp the fact that we are all different? Some of us prefer to be in a position to give our kids more of our time and energy, and that's easier when the entire house is not drowning in a sea of clutter.

And the gifts may be "hers" legally, but the house belongs to the parents. If there isn't space, there isn't space.

People spent money and effort buying your LO a gift. I'd be pretty disappointed if I knew my gift was chucked in the dump without giving the child a chance to play with it even once. Your LO will love opening the gifts and if she doesn't like them after a while you can give them away then.

Next time say you don't want gifts so people don't bother wasting their money and time making the effort.

Totally agree, this feels really sad. My house is always full of clutter after a birthday party but slowly it sorts itself our when they grow out of things.

Let them open them, thank accordingly. Then sneakily put 2/3 away. They'll forget and can come out on a rainy afternoon in winter to save the day.

It's not weird competitiveness, it's just not wanting a house full of crap.

You might enjoy having 5 copies of the same puzzle, or 15 packets of colouring pens and books, or 8 water pistols in your house taking up space and not being used.

But FUCK that in my house.

I asked for a donation to a children's charity in lieu of presents and most people respected that.

At my DC's infant school all of us parents got to know each other quite well and often one parent friend would become the spokesperson and ask the birthday child's parent whether there was anything in particular the child wanted.

When it was our turn we listed a couple of larger Lego sets at different price points and a bunch of children (parents) contributed to that instead of doing individual gifts.

Birthday child got a fabulous gift that was way more than what one child would ever buy for them, and parents of guests didn't have to go and buy their own gift. Enough kids/parents did do individual gifts instead of joining in the group one so out of 20 children you could get 6 or 7 presents anyway which was more than enough variety!

By senior primary they all just gave Amazon gift cards anyway and the thank you cards just mentioned what they put the voucher towards.

Seems completely miserable that some people give presents away before DC have even seen them. Especially when a parent has taken the time to purchase online or go to the shop and spend money that they may not have. I'd be horrified if I did that and then saw the item in a charity shop.

DD would always get all presents and open them with great excitement -sometimes this would take days.

And I don't have storage space at all!