My son got an invitation to a birthday party yesterday. I should have realized something was wrong when: A. He doesn’t even know the birthday girl (her father works with my husband, I figured that they were new and didn’t know anybody yet) and B. The invitation instructed us to bring $3 to cover the cost of a kid’s meal at Burger King. Usually the parents pick up the tab at restaurant b-days (at least for the kid guests) but maybe that’s how they do it where they are from.
So today my adorable, yet clueless husband asked the girl’s father what she would like for her birthday. I guess he hasn’t figured out why I have about twenty boxes of legos stacked in my closet. Hint: About once a year legos and duplo blocks go on sale, about 25% off. I buy a lot, and that’s b-day gifts for a year. It’s fun for girls and boys, and a kid can’t have too many legos. However, I digress.
My husband comes home for lunch today with a printed page full of birthday gift suggestions. The cheapest item on it was a $20 Barbie (being a parent for four years, I know what everything costs :)) Most of the gifts were in the $30-50 dollar range. A lot of expensive, hard to get Beanie Babies, a Barbie house, ect, all the way up to a bike! Perhaps they just made up one list to give to everybody, including grandparents and rich uncles, but still, $20 for the cheapest present? FTR, we don’t live in a rich neighborhood, in fact we’re Army and quite poor. Now $20 may not seem like a lot, but as any parent can tell you, birthdays are not evenly spaced throughout the year, and you can go months without one and then all of a sudden you’ve got 6 parties in a row. It can be a real strain on the ol’ budget (hence my planning ahead). I’d say the typical price for a b-day present here is $10-15. What on earth can these people be thinking?
Anyone else have a tale of the truly tacky? I’m thinking of e-mailing them this thread, so that they can get good ideas on how to gouge the guests at their daughter’s graduation and wedding.
And in case anyone’s interested, the girl is getting the legos!
I was visiting a college friend in Arizona about a year ago. One of her friends’ friends was having a housewarming party for a home he had just bought. On the printed invitation, there was a list of “gift suggestions.” I mean, REALLY!! A grown man soliciting presents for HIMSELF!
Anyway, I didn’t know him from Adam, but my friend and I brought him a bottle of liquor. When we gave it to him, I said something like “Here you go… in accordance with your instructions.” Sometimes I’m a snot.
On top of that, he fed us like one bag of chips and salsa. When people started to drink the “presents,” he hid some of the more expensive brands in a closet. What a party.
Most parents know better than to ask for money and expensive gifts. I don’t think I would even let my kid go to the party if they didn’t know the person and if they did go… I would send the Legos too!!
Your son doesn’t even know the girl? Does he want to go to a party for someone he doesn’t know? I would save your legos, these people are beyond tacky.
And anyway, even if he does go, will there be guards at the door to turn away little boys and girls who show up without presents? Actually, at this party, perhaps there will be…
JESUS!!! How lame is THAT! We are far from wealthy, but for my son’s birthday we did the Chuck E Cheese thing, had 8 kids, fed them and paid the extra $2/kid to give everyone a “party favor bag” and brought an extra cake (the C.E.C. cakes are kinda lame)… I think the party package comes to around $8/kid, no big whoop, but man, I wouldn’t DREAM of asking the parents to chip in!! (We also got pizza for the parents). I was going to put “no gift neccessary” on the invitations, but we decided that was even tackier than just leaving it to the individual people to decide… I couldn’t believe the presents that people brought though! I think most people spent like $20-40 on a gift! I was actually kind of embarrassed, but it was very nice.
I was at a wedding once where they had one of those dances where you dance with the bride and pin money to her dress… I thought that was kinda… tacky.
I remember as a kid, we didn’t have birthday parties at places like Burger King or Chuck E Cheese, we had cake, candles and party games.
I was happy if my friend’s brought me little cheapo jewelry from Alco (the closest dime store) I remember getting the game Mouse Trap etc…But as kid I didn’t care how much it cost, just enjoyed being special for a day and hanging out with my friends.
As a non-parent what happened to those “old days” where the focus was on the kid and the kids having fun, not on how much money is spent?
(mental note: If I ever have kids be sure to not get caught up in the me, me, me as a parent and show the kid that it’s okay to have fun and the gifts are tokens of love or friendship regardless if it is only a dollar or two)
Yeah I had birthdays at my house when I was growing up,… but right now our place is a disaster, plus we have the 75lb Dog From Hell, and we live in a different town from my son’s school where all his friends are… so it just made a LOT more sense to have a pile of 4yr olds at Chuck E Cheese rather than here.
Weddings and baby showers, AFAIC, are the only events that warrant a gift registration or preprinted list for the invitees (is that a word?). In my case, (for my wedding) we told our parents and my grandmother about the higher-ticket items we wanted, and did our gift registry at Target. We were not so blinded by the excitement that we forgot that our friends were as broke as we were.
We did baby shower registry at Target as well, but since it was our first baby, we needed everything. Hand-me-downs were happily and gratefully received.
We did Bowen’s first birthday party here at the house, (no gift suggestion list) and I wouldn’t mind having it here again, but early April still tends to be a little soggy 'round these parts. We’re going to have a Chucky Cheese or Discovery Zone party this year, so the kids have something less messy to do when they’re done eating cake.
This is more bad than tacky, but here goes. A while back, my friend Sara* asked me to come to a hostess party. That’s like a Tupperware party, where the hostess is trying to sell a line of products. She gives you snax, shows the products and takes orders. Then you get loaded on wine and tequila. But I digress.
Linda* was the hostess. She is the brightest, cheeriest person you’ll ever meet; at least when I see her. Two years or a little less ago, her three-year-old daughter died of a birth defect they didn’t know she had. I didn’t know her then, so I don’t know if her perkiness is a facade or a coping mechanism, but there it is. One of the other guests was Kim*, who is somewhat abrasive, but no one ever thought she would be this low.
During the exploration period, when the guests were watching their kids try out all the toys, someone commented, “Linda is so adorable!” Said Kim, “Yeah, you’d never know her daughter died!” Insert sound effect of needle scratching across a record.
Linda claimed not to have heard, but I know Sara did. The party broke up very shortly afterward. Or, to be precise, appeared to break up, but reconvened at another house. Kim has not been in Sara’s house since.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
Yes, the money dance is a tradition, and no, it is not tacky, at least not in our family. I come from a large, somewhat traditional Italian family(Mom’s side). We have always done the money dance at the larger weddings. No one was expected to give money, but almost everyone does. The “patriarchal” figures always pinned $100 bills to the bride, but also I remember my mom giving me dollar bills to pin to the brides for dances. No one was ever frowned upon for not giving, it was just a tradition. I guess it was a way to help out the new, young family start out right. There was always a lot of protesting by the brides, but they knew it was inevitable anyway!
“Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few.”
-Tao Te Ching
Calling and asking what the kid wants is an excellent idea, but a list of big-ticket stuff is just plain rude. Bleah.
I agree with Chris on the wedding & baby shower thing, too. Newlyweds and soon-to-be parents generally have a genuine need for stuff (I registered at Target when I was pregnant with my daughter too. I love that place). When I was pregnant with my son, alot of people asked me “when is your baby shower?” Well, I didn’t have one. My daughter & son are only 2 1/2 years apart. I still had her big-ticket stuff. All I needed was clothes. So I sorta put the word out to friends & relatives who had just had boy babies that I would be happy to accept hand-be-downs.
As for the dollar dance, I think it’s fun. I don’t like pinning money to a bridal gown, though. At my first wedding, we had a dollar dance, and the best man & maid of honor collected the money. I’ve been to some weddings where a dollar will buy you not just a dance, but a shot of liquor as well. Those are the ones I like.
As for tacky- when my mother and father got married, my father wore a black suit with red pinstripes, a black shirt, and a white tie.
His mother never forgave him for this- every time she would look at pictures, she would scowl and say, “And there’s Johnny, looking like some sort of mobster.”
JMCJ
This could be YOUR sig line! For just five cents a post, JMCJ Enterprises will place YOUR sig line at the bottom of each message!
I find the whole gift-registry thing tacky, mainly because it’s clearly something invented by department stores to sell more stuff. We recently went to a wedding where the registry had a website, so that you could see a list of what had already been bought. Personally, I think it’s part of the rite of passage into marriage to have to return those 3 extra crockpots. It was one thing when most brides were young things being married from their parents’ house, but these were a pair of 40-year-old lawyers. We love you, guys, but buy your own toaster.
The other thing I hate is cash bars at weddings. Not that I want to drink that much, but I feel that if you invite someone to a party, you should provide the food and drink. If you can’t afford the booze, don’t serve it.
And, yes, the money dance/tree/whatever is tacky, but at least it’s supposed to be tacky.
