Ugh. Such a tough situation...

Husband and I have always asked the the girls not get a bunch of toys and stuff for birthdays and Christmas, and that's gone all right so far. The problem now is that I feel like a complete ungrateful jerk (in my mind only of course, I'd never say anything!) about the clothes they always seem to get.

I hate clothing with sparkles, sayings, writing, ribbons, bows, cartoon characters, embroidered patterns and flowers on jeans, all that stuff. Of course, that's most of anything at all you'll find in major department stores and all those places! I can't say they don't need clothes at all, because well... that's an obvious lie. I just don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I also don't want to be returning clothes or using them scarcely if ever. Usually don't get gift receipts.

Wonder if anyone would be upset if we just asked that they give no gifts or put any money they want into their education funds.

 

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We recently decided to have our daughter's birthday party a "no gift" one. The invitations stated that gifts will be graciously but firmly declined. We were also tired of gifts that she couldn't use and felt bad about returning them or just giving them away. I think the party went over well: with one or two exceptions (e.g. people who had bought gifts before they received the invites), everyone honoured our request, and no one seemed to mind.


Our friends had a birthday where the gift was a cash donation to a local charity.


The trick is getting the child to buy into the idea. A younger child often doesn't like the idea of missing out on all that good loot...

 

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What about asking for gift cards? Thats what I get from my parents for my son. They came up with it themselves. Dad just told me, I don't know what he likes or will or won't wear so I'll just get a card for XXXXX store and you can take him and pick out what he wants.

You could just say that you love that they buy clothes and not toys, but would it be possible to get a gift card instead of the clothes, as there may be certain things you need specifically or (depending on how old your lil ones are) they may want to pick it out themselves.

 

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I'd agree with Poppy about the gift cards. Family members have also given Aime clothes that were inappropriate, didn't fit, etc. and we send a Thank You card back to them, signed by Aime, thanking them for the gift and letting them know that the clothes had been donated to our church's Haiti mission. We went on to explain that the clothes would go a long way to clothing children who had little to no clothes of their own.

Silver

 

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I agree with the gift card idea too. Almost every store you can think of has them now. Our son even got one for Gander Mountain on his last birthday. Granted he is 19 years old, but hey younger kids like to go fishing, camping, and stuff like that too!!

 

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