I had an idea that i thought would be great, but now i am beginning to wonder if it is rude of me to do this. what do you all think? We are soon to be a family of 4 living in a very small house. i am really sick of all of the toy clutter that we have already, so i thought that a good idea for christmas and birthdays would be to give a gift list to any relatives that may be buying gifts for the kids. on the list would be things like: magazine subscriptions, gift certificates to certain stores, toys that go with an already started set(ie. dollhouse stuff to go with my daughters dollhouse), cash, certain educational toys. the reason for this is that every year, i have had to go through all of my daughter's old toys on b-days and christmas, to make room for the unbelievable loads of new toys. well it is down to where we have certain things that i cannot part with, or that are the basic educational things that i shouldn't be getting rid of (puzzles, art supplies, kitchen set, doll house) needless to say the whole process is agonizing for her too, because she doesn't want to part with ANYTHING and i usually have to do it when she is not around. also, she wants to take up violin lessons this fall, and it would be nice if she could use her own $ to pay for part of this. am i being too rude with the whole "list" idea, or is it something that sounds like it should be taken into consideration? people do it for weddings and baby showers! why not birthdays and christmas? thanks--sweetpeace
I don't know if it's rude or not, but we posted on our son's web page that we were giving him Thomas the Tank for the winter holidays. We asked that anyone who was thinking of giving him a gift consider giving him parts for Thomas. I currently have things on ebay from his recent birthday party. We just don't have room for any more junk. Electronic or cheap plastic junk just doesn't fit into our lifestyle. We have a rule that the person who gave him the useless gift has to see him playing with it at least one time at our house and then it can go on ebay. Kathi
I don't think it's rude. It actually seems really sensible. My parents have done it for ages on our (my brother and my) behalf, because our family never know what to get us. Kathi: My brother and I loved Thomas too when we were little. TTFN Sage
A gift list is a great idea. Our kids grandparents and other relatives always ask at Christmas and birthdays and we suggest the things we need for our kids, such as clothes, or certain educational toys. No use getting a lot of plastic crap you don't want anyway.
i think it's a good idea, but i have no idea how anyone will respond to it. we don't have any kids yet, but our family goes nuts during the holidays, buying too much stuff, and often times things that one might not really want. i have tried to persuade everyone to simplify things a little, but so far no one is with me on it..
I whouldn't make list, but i whould hint the notion that "my kids have to much toys" Your relatives whould get the message, The same thing happens to my aunt every chrismass, she has a family of 6 two adults and four kids, its kinda funny because every christmas there house becomes Toy's Are Us or some kinda toy store. They whould stuf everything in the basment, and it came to the point where there was toys everywhere. Eventually everyone in my family including cousins, aunts, uncles noticed this and they started buying more usefull presents, like clothes. So i whould show how much toys are actualy there .
We went through the same exact thing with our kids. We have to go through their toys about once a month (while they are gone, of course) and get rid of stuff little by little....so they don't notice too much. We got the nerve to ask grandparents to buy yearly memberships, magazine subscriptions, or give money for activities (karate, etc.) My MIL was offended but got memberships to the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. She still bought a bunch of crap for them also. Then my mom got them a membership to the Brookfield Zoo and will be helping pay for karate. Pretty good idea if it works. We've also asked them (for adult gifts) to take money off our tabs (we owe them both a bunch of money) instead of buying us gifts. We don't need anymore crap either!!! Good luck!
This so reminds me of the two foot tall plastic cactus lamp. Couldn't even sell it on ebay, it was too ugly. Kathi
LOL I can totally relate. My mother gets all manner of crappy gifts from my Grandparents. She has a fibre optic lamp thingy which is just hideous. We kept it out over the holidays to show off as a joke then it went away and hasn't been seem since. So now my Dad insists they get her vouchers. Never had any problems since. TTFN Sage
