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Shower Hostess Gift?
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post #1 of 15

1/14/13 at 2:44pm

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1,307 Posts. Joined 10/2005
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If someone is throwing you a baby shower, are you planning on giving them a hostess gift? One of my girlfriends has offered to throw one for us and I'd like to do something nice to say thank you but I'm stumped for what to do. Any ideas?

Hmmm. I am really not good with hostess gifts. For both my bridal shower and bachelorette party, I just sent really nice thank you notes afterward to the ladies who hosted them for me. Maybe that was rude of me? I should probably come up with a hostess gift for real this time, since the friend who's hosting it for me is someone I haven't known quite as long...

post #6 of 15

1/15/13 at 1:08pm

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Maybe a gift certificate? chocolatechip's mention of her bridal shower reminded me that DH and I gave all of our biggest wedding helpers gift certificates fo massages as a thank you gift. You could also do a gift certificate to a favorite salon or local bar/restaurant that you know the shower hostess enjoys?

post #7 of 15

1/15/13 at 1:13pm

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I should add: I don't know that a gift is expected - if I were throwing a shower for someone I certainly wouldn't expect a gift. At most, I'd probably consider baking the hostess a batch of her favorite cookies or something like that? Perhaps more would be called for if the planning/implementation process were somehow extra complicated? I dunno - I'm really clueless about this kind of stuff which is why I always love to read (and learn from) these threads.

post #8 of 15

1/15/13 at 1:18pm

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I don't think a gift is expected. I just wrote a thank you card in the past, but I tend to bring my sister wine for most things. :)

post #9 of 15

1/15/13 at 2:28pm

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Since this is baby #4, I really wasn't expecting a shower at all, but with 3 girls and 4 years between each of them, a lot of our stuff (despite our best efforts) ended up pink or is expired/well used, so we do need stuff for this baby. When my girlfriend offered I was beyond grateful. She's made the most adorable owl invitations and really seems to be giving it 100% and wont let me help with any of it! I've offered to do the favors or bring food etc and she just keeps telling me NO NO NO! So, I want to do something extra nice for her to show my appreciation. I know it's not expected, it's just something I want to do to

Some of the things I'm considering are: making a gift basket with bath goodies - homemade salt scrub, a bath pillow, loofa, candle,etc or possibly a necklace (from etsy) with her kids names on it or something like that. I also thought maybe a "movie date night" basket would be good - like a gc for redbox, popcorn,candy, wine, etc.

Hmmm... what to do, what to do!

post #10 of 15

1/16/13 at 12:06pm

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My wedding was such a community effort that I would have had to give gifts to half the people who had attended if I'd gone that route. LOL. I did have one pair of friends, however, who really went above and beyond, designing our invitations and thank you cards, cooking all the pizza for the wedding (they own an organic pizza food truck) for just the cost of ingredients, picking up the beer kegs and setting up cooling systems for them, etc. They were amazing. So afterwards, I put together a gift box of "Seattle stuff" for them (they live in CA), both edible and non-edible.

So, firespiritmelody, I do really like the idea of collections of small gifts on a theme! Both of your ideas sound really lovely.

post #11 of 15

1/16/13 at 12:43pm

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firespiritmelody, i love those ideas! the movie date night idea sounds awesome (man, I could go for that right now!!!). and i know what you mean about *wanting* to do something special for the person who's putting so much effort into this special experience for you. it's great that your friend is throwing you a shower, and it's wonderful that you want to show your appreciation in such a thoughtful way

chocolatechip, i know what you mean about the community effort wedding! ours was that way too, to the extent that i remember being a little uncomfortable with giving our helpers such nice gifts simply because I didn't know where to draw the line... so many people had put so much effort into it to help the event to come together. i wished we could have just paid for the entire wedding party to stay for an extra couple of days to have some kind of wedding recovery spa retreat or something! i still fantasize about having a big friend/family reunion party at our wedding site someday - maybe for our 25th anniversary or something like that...

post #12 of 15

1/17/13 at 2:13pm

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Okay, now I'm all excited about gift baskets. The friend organizing my baby shower really likes good food and cocktails. But isn't a really big cook. And she's really artsy. Any thoughts? I'm thinking about a little bottle of some nice liqueur, plus sparkling water and some citrus fruits, or something like that?

LightForest, I think if we'd had an official wedding party, maybe we would have thought more about gifts. We just decided we didn't really have room where we were getting married anyway, and it was one too many things to keep track of, when we had so many people offering to help already! Plus, there would have been 20 bridesmaids and 3 groomsmen, or something like that, just because of the kinds of people my husband and I are. We did, however, rent the campground at the park we got married in, and anyone who wanted to was able to camp overnight after the wedding (which we did too), which was super fun!

post #13 of 15

1/17/13 at 6:54pm

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Quote:

Originally Posted by chocolatechip

LightForest, I think if we'd had an official wedding party, maybe we would have thought more about gifts.

We just decided we didn't really have room where we were getting married anyway, and it was one too many things to keep track of, when we had so many people offering to help already! Plus, there would have been 20 bridesmaids and 3 groomsmen, or something like that, just because of the kinds of people my husband and I are.

We did, however, rent the campground at the park we got married in, and anyone who wanted to was able to camp overnight after the wedding (which we did too), which was super fun!

Oops - I shouldn't have used the term "wedding party". I didn't mean bridesmaids and groomsmen - I just meant all of the guests who attended to have a big party! Sounds like our weddings were very similar: we rented out a sort of retreat center (a very hippie, non-froofy one) for the weekend and out of town guests stayed in yurts sprinkled around the property. Evenings were spent in kivas around campfires - stuff like that