No gifts necessary

I am about to mail the invitations for L&M's 4th birthday party!! :shok: :faint:

Anyway, I want to let everyone know that gifts aren't necessary. The main reasons are: I am inviting their friends from daycare and they will have a party there on the following Monday where they will receive gifts; I don't want the parents thinking they have to show up with a gift. 2- my girls already have T.O.N.S of stuff that they don't play with now without adding to the pile up.

I am having a hard time phrasing this without seeming ungrateful or rude.

 

"The only gift we request is your presence!" I used that on the girls' first birthday invites, but only a couple people actually adhered to it... but I thought it sounded nice.

 

I love it, Leighann!!

We did this last year, but my wording wasn't as great as my BF who said, "Our family has been so blessed over the years by many gracious gifts from everyone that this year we are requesting you only bring your child and have a great time"

And as Leighann said, even though we did this, too, most people brought gifts anyway.

 

I am a huge fan of requesting gifts that are given be given to the local children's home/hospital or whatever.

"Instead of bringing L&M presents, we request that you bring one unwrapped toy ($10 limit) to be donated to __________ children's hospital because we are grateful for L&M's health."

Or have everyone buy a goat ($120 for a full goat, $10 for a goat share) from heifer.org

 

I like this because it lets people know that not only are you serious that you don't want them to bring presents but that, if they do, they will be donated. I would maybe phrase it somehow that says presents aren't necessary but if they want they can bring something that will be donated.

 

Hi:

For our twins 4rth birthday, we collected canned goods for our local food bank, in lieu of gifts. Post-birthday, we took the kids to the collection center. It was a weekday night and I was AMAZED by the lines and lines of people (including lots and lots of kids) standing in line to get canned goods. People came up to my kids to say "thank you."

Meg

 

Most of the parties for kids from our daycare are no-gifts, and people just write "no gifts please" (or sometimes even just "no gifts") on the invite. That's what I wrote -- there wasn't much space on the little cards from Pump It Up...

I guess we're used to it, so no one worries much about the wording. But other ways I've seen it are:
"[Child's name] has plenty of stuff, so no gifts please."
"The only present is your presence."

The first year we had a big party (when they were 3), a few people brought gifts, but for their 4th birthday I don't think anyone did. :good: Some kids do make a card or a picture for the birthday kid(s) which is usually greatly appreciated.

As a side note, do they really have parties AT your daycare where kids bring gifts? I'm pretty sure our daycare wouldn't even allow that.

 

It's an in home day care with 4 full time kids and 4 after schoolers, but yeah.

 

We've done the donation thing for my older two. The last one we did was something like: "In lieu of receiving gifts, Maeve will be donating birthday party supplies to the food pantry. She would welcome any help with this." Some people brought big baskets of cake mixes, frosting, kids paper party products, but others only brought an item or two. I felt like this also kept the cost way down for anyone who still felt they needed to bring something but couldn't spend much. A few people do always give a little gift also, but I think it's impossible to prevent that! Your girls might be too young for this, but I let my older kids choose what charity they wanted to give to. We started at age 5 and only do this for thier "friend" party. They still get presents from their grandparents, aunts/uncles, etc.

 

I think this is a wonderful idea!! :good: