Opening presents at Birthday Party - Page 3

[bri276]

Subjecting your guests to an hour of witnessing you open presents can be inconsiderate

ITA. I mean, personally I don't mind either way, but this year we didn't open at the party. Last year, it was at least an hour long fiasco. This year, we had over 35 people, so I think it would've taken twice as long. Everyone was having fun socializing and hanging out in the sunshine, it was pretty hectic and there was no way there would be room for everyone to sit down to watch. One of my mom's friends did insist that I open her gift the minute she got there! so of course I did. But DD fell asleep halfway through her party, and didn't wake up until people were starting to leave (I tried so hard to time it so that she would nap afterwards, but she unexpectedly woke up really early that morning).

I sent thank you notes to everyone including a picture of DD wearing and/or playing with the gift they gave. I felt a little bad because I know some people enjoy seeing their gift opened, but with that HUGE pile of presents (many if not most people brought several gifts, some brought five or six!) it would have been overwhelming and very time consuming for everyone.

I think the bottom line is that every person should be thanked for their gift. I could never take offense to not having my gift opened in front of me, as long as I was sent a note. The whole idea of sitting there opening this humongo pile of toys and clothes for two hours seems so odd to me!! the party was about spending time with friends and family, and that's what we did.

[Ceili]

It's about 50/50 around here in terms of whether people open presents or not. At party places here they seem to build in time to open presents. You have x amount of time in the play area and x amount of time in the "party room". So around here it is more common for presents to be opened at those types of b-day parties.

Personally we don't open presents at parties. We put gifts in the guest room and we open later. We promptly send thank you notes and pictures of ds opening/playing with the gifts.

[LilMama23]

We don't do birthday parties, but if we did, DD would open the presents after the party. I have been to far too many birthday parties where the kids opening the gifts commented, 'That's ugly!' or 'I already have one of these.' I would be afraid of embarrassing anyone.

[mamazee]

I worry about kids whose families can't afford a big gift feeling bad when gifts are open at the party. We invite kids from pretty disparate backgrounds.

[mumto2]

In our area, it's the done thing for the birthday child to open the present from each guest as they arrive.

The birthday child and parent do the meet and greet with guest and parent and open the gift then. That way the guest can be thanked for the gift and welcomed to the party, parents generally chat about how lovely the gift is and why it was picked out. Then guest runs off to begin party playing. Repeat.

No one else need see what gift has been given, no one is bored by watching the gift opening, birthday child is not put on the spot as parent is there so the interaction is less formal. I have never seen a birthday party for any age child operate any differently to this.

[madskye]

We didn't open at Maddie's 1 year birthday party. We had about 50 people, and a ton of gifts, and the thought of some kind of orchestrated gift opening brought back my Baby Shower Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

My MIL was all over me to open the gifts and I had to tell her no, we weren't doing that. I find that DH's family is big on giving checks, and they like a bit of pomp and ceremony to the gift giving--which I think is fine if it's just family, but not in front of a large group that includes friends and neighbors.

This year, we went away at birthday time, so we didn't really do a party.

[KayasMama04]

I let dd open her presents

[Ceinwen]

The usual process around here is to open b-day gifts.

However, I would be very much in favor of not doing so.

I've seen wayyyyy too many over-excited and over-stimulated toddlers and preschoolers go absolutely bonkers at gift opening time.

It just gets uncomfy to watch, kwim?

And to me, it's very much NOT a learning situation.

Older school-age children, at a smaller party - that I can see, no prob.

And we always send out handwritten thank you cards, too.

[lisalou]

There are cultures where it's actually rude to open a present in front of someone. A Kuwaiti student I tutored gave me a thank you present and quickly stopped me from opening it. My dh spent a lot of time in Japan and you get a lot of gifts but generally you don't open them in front of the giver. I think for both the idea is this way you as the receiver don't have to put on a false show of gratitude. In this country for hostess gifts you are not obliged to open them in front of the givers or serve them. The idea is the gift is for you and that it wasn't brought necessarily for the givers to enjoy.

We do thank you notes without fail. And we don't really have birthday parties that are more than just immediate family for dd. If we did I would be hesitant to have a present opening for a lot of the reasons above. I can't rely on a 4 year old to be gracious about her presents and I wouldn't want to see anyone who had poured a lot of thought into their gift hurt by that.

[reader18]

We've always opened gifts at the party, however, it's usually just been a few close friends and family. No more than 10 gifts to open. I enjoy seeing the kids open the gifts and being able to personally thank the person in person in addition to a written thank you.

We've been to parties where gifts were not opened but they were big parties (like the whole class was invited). I agree that that would take too long and 20 kids can get too restless.

In regard to the kids saying something embarrassing about a gift (i.e. I don't like this, etc), I think its important to teach your child to be gracious. Truthful, but thankful & kind. If they said something inapporpriate to a guest, I would take them aside, explain how they should have responded and ask them to apologize. You can't stop kids from saying things that embarrass you, but you can teach them to be polite, considerate and gracious.

[olliepop]

My dd is 4 and has opened the gifts at all of her parties. Mostly family attends and at the most, four friends, so it's not chaotic or anything. Our family is from out of town so they most definitely want to see her open the gifts. After the party bags are given, I usually give the parents of the friends the option to stay for the gift opening.

i think it would be sort of unpleasant to be off on the sidelines while the party was going scribbling the thank you list...

One of my friends usually jots down who gives what (discreetly) during the gift opening. She's not missing anything and since our parties aren't very big, it isn't too overwhelming.

[starry_mama]

I hate hate hate opening gifts at parties. I mean, if the gift-receiver chooses to do it that way, thats 100% fine with me (its not really my choice now is it? ), but I don't like to do it. We had a baby shower thrown for us, and I have to say, it was the WORST party I've ever been to! Instead of hanging out with our friends and family and eating delicious food and enjoying the day, we spent hours opening gifts. What a waste of time!

I don't even like opening presents with family members at Christmas. : I just feel too "on the spot".