Parents who control what their kids get for gifts (vent)

Apropos to nothing (again, I am full of them today):

We are a divorced family. I have to laugh every year when my kids made/make lists of what they want(ed). There is a daddy list and a mommy list, and neither the twain shall meet. It was/is a carefully crafted list with a lot of thought going into them to make sure that all sides are covered and no duplication will occur. 

(even funnier? the big ticket items are always on dad's list. LOL)

Dolllar store or the dollar section at Target. My kids LOVE this stuff. it's fun, until someone squeezes too hard and you wind up sitting on the floor of your MILs house scraping it off a handmade quilt that happened to be on the bed. With a knife and a piece of ice. So in your case, yes I'd say it would work. If you're considering it for your own family well, just know the consequences.

I agree with the art supplies in addition to creepy doll. I get sketch pads when they go on sale at the box craft stores and my kid goes through them in about 2 weeks. You can also find the big kits for dirt cheap on Amazon lightening deal as we go further into the holiday season.

Maybe try looking at it less as dictating more like she is ensuring that anything you get will be a hit with the child. I throw out broad ideas for gifts for my daughter but honestly if I put something out there specific, it is because I know my kid will be apecrap over it and the giver will be a hero!

I do admit I groan when she gets art supplies. We do crafts a minimum of 3 days a week so it is not like we wouldn't use them, it is just easier to make it a surprise activity she doesn't know about rather than have her know about supplies and badger me about it regardless of what I have on tap that day. I work from home and there are days when I need to her be occupied with non-messy things like legos rather than messy art supplies that require a high level of attention from me to prevent them from being applied from end of my house to the other.

We also have limited space and gift givers who like to give large toys. I finally had to tell my ILs nothing larger than a breadbox so that it would fit on her Expedit shelving. We do appreciate anything anyone gives her and have only returned one thing (because she already had the same exact toy) but there have been gifts given in good cheer that were a complete nightmare for my husband and I. We just grin and bear it and try to hide it as soon as we can.

I have a SIL like that. If I bought an unapproved gift she would return it. Target cut her off she returned so much stuff. The last time I bought a gift for her son, it was a Lego set that he had asked for at Thanksgiving. A week before Christmas she called and asked it I minded returning it for another set he wanted instead. After that I gave them VISA gift cards, but that only lasted a couple years as they complained about the cards. So now it's cash only. Makes Christmas very boring when exchanging with them.

Continuing with the Cooking analogy, could you frame it as, you know I love to cook and love cookbooks from x or love making x kind of food (a mexican cookbook, or cookie cookbook) IMHO, if I'm asking someone for a list its because I want to get them something they really want and not guess. Or in the case of my mother, it's preventing her from getting me what she thinks I "need" but that's another thread. Could you use generalities, like I love x scented soap/candles, love to shop at x store etc.

Not everyone is into crafts. I have a friend who says she is sad when she hears about people not reading because books are so important to her. Why should she be sad because people aren't into what she is into? She doesn't do a lick of crafts which makes no sense to me because it is important to me but I don't look down on her for it or think it sad that she doesn't. People like to do different things and that's okay. No need to feel sorry for them or their kids.

grinningcat, it is obvious that the gift shopping experience is very important to you. Putting limitations on it makes it less fun for you, I get it. But in the end gifts are for the recipient, not to fulfill your need for a completely unlimited gift finding experience. 

I think you are thinking too much about the element of surprise for a kid her age. My daughter is 4 and she has asked for everything we see in a store, everything she sees on TV, everything in the catalogs we've been getting, everything her friends have for the past month. Obviously she is not going to get everything she has asked for and I edit that "list" to a few things when people ask what she wants. She wants so many things she practically forgets the stuff she has asked for has no clue what she is going to get so it is a surprise for her!

Get her something off the list and the add-on crayon/coloring book. I doubt her mom would get upset if it given with something that was on the list. It is kind of like getting something off a baby registry and adding on a little toy to the bow to make the wrapping all cute.

And please, please, please rethink the sticky googly eyes. They are fun but not for the people who will eventually need to remove them from EVERYTHING. My child is somewhat obedient and follows rules like markers/crayons only on papers but she loses her freaking mind with stickers. I hide them to use when I can oversee the use but she eventually finds them when I am someplace like in a shower. Takes her 5 minutes to cover a piece of furniture and it takes me half an hour to remove them and the sticky residue (lots and lots of furniture polish FTW). I would not like it if someone gave my child googly eyes. Just saying.

That happened to me too. Asked what the girls would like and got a list. Picked from the list (so it wasnt buy this but a list of 5 appropriate aka what she wanted them to have items) and informed her what I got so she could let others know. Heck I even told my family.

Got the gifts first of November.

Well a few days before Christmas Eve (I think the day before even) she called and asked me to either return what I got as they were getting those items from their grandma OR switch their gift. Oh yes, let me unwrap the gits, fight the crowds, and try to find a pre approved gift. Hell no.

And the gift swap wouldnt work because the older girls gift was not age appropriate for the yonger girl.

Ugh. So feel how all you feel.

It sucks! I love to shop but its so frustrating.

Te BEST so far was she KNEW in AUGUST that I was getting older girl an AG Doll. She wanted one soooooo bad. Found a used one, sent it in, got hearing aides, outfit, hair done.

Come December she buys her a brand new one. Because oh my gosh the doll I found had blue eyes not brown. And it was used.

I spent $120 on that damn doll for her. Pissed me off. Hell pissed off ky parents too.

Wow. Just. Wow.

Seems to me that some expectations are way too high, and that the spirit of the season is somewhat lacking here and there.

We have a large extended family, so we buy one decent sized gift, within a preset budget, for a person whose name has been drawn out of a hat. We all came to this arrangement years ago and it has worked very well. We do confer with the parent of our named recipient, but we all know what the cost limit is and the system works well. I have not been made aware of andy hissy fits from either a child or its parent. Yet.

THIS! DD has no biological grandparents left. As a result, she has been "adopted" by several close friends so she has five "Grammas" three "Grampas" and numerous adopted aunties, uncles and cousins in addition to her actual aunts and uncles (who are for the most part not involved with her by their choice). Bottom line is that the kid is besieged with gifts for every gift giving occasion as well as many traditionally non gift giving occasions and we are totally overrun with plastic crap, Play Doh, enough art supplies to outfit a whole classroom of kids, and so on.

Inevitably these much loved and well meaning people will ask us what she needs or wants for Christmas, birthdays, etc. and I always tell them, "Oh, she has plenty, and you really don't need to get her anything. She just loves to spend time with you!" Which is true! And inevitably they press for gift suggestions anyway. So I give them a range of ideas for things she could use or would like as well as a list of stuff we might have already bought or plan to buy ourselves so they don't inadvertently get her duplicates. I would never, ever be so rude as to make a gift suggestion unless I was asked first.

Usually I tell people to buy her pajamas because that's one thing that I can never find when I'm shopping for her clothes next to new. Or we tell people to buy her books. For anyone who thinks clothes are a boring gift, my DD absolutely ADORED the long Princess Sofia nightgown that she got for her birthday--it was her FAVORITE gift! I get it that people want to buy her stuff because they get enjoyment from it too, but it really does get to be kind of overwhelming for her and for us.

With all of the discussions of gifts for kids, the more I think about it the more I wish people would give gifts of experiences instead of always more STUFF. An afternoon at the zoo or the movies, or a Saturday at the Science Museum or baking cookies with someone she loves but doesn't get to see all that often would be more memorable and way more fun for her than a $25 toy that she will barely look at after a week, and it would deepen her relationships with the people who already mean a lot to her.

This too. Sometimes we pesky parents have really good reasons for NOT wanting certain things for our kids. For example, when DD was turning one year old, I got wind that my MIL wanted to get her a high chair for the lake cabin. I told her that since space at the lake (HER lake place) was at a premium, it would serve us all better if she got DD a portable booster seat instead that could be strapped to a regular chair. The booster I wanted was small enough to fit under the back seat of our truck so we could use it everywhere, and it cost 1/5 the price of the big bulky traditional high chair MIL wanted to get. Needless to say, she bought what she wanted to buy. DD used it for two summers. MIL is gone now, DD is too big to use it anymore (though she still sometimes uses the $25 booster seat I ended up buying myself), it's taking up a ton of space at the cabin that is now ours and we now have to haul the big one home to get rid of it. Such a waste.

Oh man.     What a mess that turned out to be.

I do that, too, and it works well for my family, but sometimes I forget that other families might do that too.


One year I knew a cousin would love a rainbow loom, and told gift-givers on my side of the family that I had purchased one for her. 


Turns out 3 people on the other side of the family gave it to her, too!        Luckily, she really does love them, and she left one at each parents' house, one at grandma's house, etc.      She must have been telling anyone who would listen that she wanted that loom.