Opening presents at child's birthday party

[RavenStar]

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to handle gift opening? My DD just turned 5.  The past two years this part of the party has been very chaotic.  My DD wants to open the gifts herself and the other children at the party want to help.

Last year we tried giving the other children their little gift bags at the same time.  That didn't work.  They were more interested in what DD was opening of course.

Also, once the gifts are opened all the other children want to play with them.  The new toys are very special to DD and she's not willing to share.  I totally understand this.

What do other people do?  I'm trying to remember how my parents handled it.  We were probably told to sit down and watch.

I'm wondering if it makes more sense to have her open the gifts as people arrive.  The other child is so excited to give it to her right then.  I know there is this gift giving ritual, but I'm wondering if it's really realistic.

Anyhow, I welcome any thoughts you have.

[MAMom]

At one of the party places in my town where my kids have been to parties, the have a system where all the kids sit in a circle at present time.  Each child holds their present and then one at a time they stand up and give the birthday boy/girl their present and then go back to sit and watch them open it.  It seems to work well b/c each child gets to participate in that way (or maybe b/c the staff are trained party professionals...lol).

We switched to opening presents after the party ended when DS turned 6, and that worked fine.  In previous years, we just did cake right after presents, so the kids forgot about the presents, and DH relocated them into another room.

Another solution is to do a bookswap party, so each child brings a book to swap & brings home another.  When we've done that, the birthday child still gets presents from Mom & Dad, sibling and grandparents, so there are still several things to open.

[motherhendoula]

Are the parents of the other kids also at the party?   I would think the other kids should just watch and have a little patience at this time.  I think we usually had the cake out first - so kids might still be entertained by eating while watching Birthday kid open all the presents. 

I have also been to PLENTY of parties where the gifts were NOT opened at the party....but at home - when all guests had left.

[MomtoDandJ]

At my 4yo son's friends' parties (and at his bday party) the bday child didn't open presents. He just said thanks and said he was excited to open them later. The kids all seemed fine with it and it avoids the problem of opening in front of the kids.

[chattyprincess]

Dd is 4.5 and in kindy. This year we have gone to a ton of "formal" parties at play places and things, there has yet to be a party where a child has opened the gifts at the party. Generally the child drops the gift at the front table and takes off running. They don't open the gifts there and just bring them home and do it then. It seems to be the "status quo" of the age/area that his is how its done. I like the theory since this time of the party is always insanity and it makes it much nicer to have the kids playing and having fun instead of sitting and watching little susie open 100 gifts all things that they want!

[~pi]

We've been to a number of 5yo parties lately, and the gifts have rarely been opened at the party. They get opened later, and thank you cards/emails are sent after the fact.

[Shaki]

Depends on the age and the size of the party I think.

When DD was 2 we decided she couldn't handle sitting down for a huge gift opening session and didn't want to make the other kids sit through it either, so we did the thing where she quietly opened each gift with the giver as they arrived at the party. This was a bigger party with lots of guests. The gift givers were primarily adults (close family and friends) and we explained when they arrived that we weren't going to do a sit down gift opening and asked if they'd like to have a quiet moment with DD to give her their gift. At that time DD was young enough not to care about other kids playing with the gifts, so the toys were opened and put in the middle of the floor and all the kids played with them.

When DD was 3 she only had 3 guests to her party so she opened the gifts at the party AND we gave pretty big goody bags to her guests which they also opened and played with at the party.

When she was 4 she just celebrated with one special friend, so we opened the gift with the friend and also gave him quite a big goody bag to open while they were celebrating.

For her 5th birthday we had a large party and did not open gifts at the party. The gifts were put on a table and DD opened them later. This is the norm at all the larger birthday parties we have attended, for this age group. I actually really like not opening the presents at the party, because it keeps the party focused on the kids having fun together and reduces the potential for metldowns (either for the birthday child or for a guest). I do think that a detailed thank you letter is important especially when the guest doesn't see the birthday child opening the gift.

[RavenStar]

Thanks for the great suggestions.  The party we had was mainly a family party with mostly adults at our house.  There were about 4 kids around her age.  The rest were toddlers and babies.  Some of the kids had a really hard time not opening her presents, even after being asked several times.

I like the idea of having a place to put presents and open them after the party.  Then, as several of you said, we could send out nice thank you's afterward.

With a smaller group, I also like the idea of sitting in a circle and each child giving the birthday child their present.

Book swap sounds fun too.

Thanks again for your responses!

[JudiAU]

Is there some reason why you need to open the gifts at the party? I don't think I've been to any children's parties where they open gifts anymore. I've heard of people doing it but only when there are a very few guests.

[RavenStar]

How funny that opening gifts at a party is considered "rare".  Tradition I guess is the only reason.  It's in the past two years that it dawned on us to do something else.  The rest of our family and friends with children open the presents at the party also.  Before this year, we hadn't considered anything else.  It was only because of the chaos that we realized there were other options.

[RavenStar]

Thanks again to those of you who offered suggestions!

[hakeber]

Here all the presents go into a big box that goes home with the Birthday child and the presents get opened at home, or if the party is at home, the birthday child can either open it as the guests trickle in (opening them as they arrive and hand the gift over), or after they all go home.

We still have a few unopened presents (unwrapped but not opened and played with) from DS's last party in March.