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We had a discussion on my bmb about birthday party gifts, and I'm wondering if I'm the only one who does this. I buy toys on clearance sometimes with the intentions of giving them to ds for Christmas/birthday but more often knowing that we will have a birthday party coming up soon. Then I can go in the closet and pick something out for the kid once we get the invitation (just the past 2 months we've had 4 parties, so this saves me a lot!) once ds is old enough I will let him pick out the gift.
Second question: registering for a birthday party. Is it a yes or no? I hadn't even heard of this until this morning!
Re: Gift closet
I think birthday registries are a bit too much. My kids appreciate what they get. Some of our family asks what the kids want and I'll give suggestions, that's all.
Birthday registry sounds like a terrible idea. That being said....my family and I all maintain Amazon wishlists so we have a constant way of knowing what each other might like for birthdays, Christmas, etc. I think this is acceptable.
I don't buy gifts in advance and store them simply because we don't have any extra room in our house for 'stuff'.
Kind of? We had a string of little kid parties and we never know what to get. Then one day we discovered that we both loved the book "The Monster at the End of this Book" and it became our go to gift. Now if we have an Amazon order we may tack one or two books on so we have a couple on hand and we avoid the shipping we might face if ordering one separately.
I figure they are only a couple of bucks and if we end up not needing them they can be given to charity.
Also, I am a big card person and I have a box of these at the ready for multiple occasions.
A birthday party registry sounds pretty over the top.
I have some plastic bins in the basement. As I see deals for gifts I know I need to buy (family-only), I store them there. I shop all year for Christmas and birthday gifts. I have all Christmas gifts wrapped before Thanksgiving and if I'm really on the ball, in October. We don't have a massive CC bill in January. And, I get awesome deals by shopping all around. Last month, I saw something super cute fro MIL for Christmas and it was marked down 60%.
Birthday party registry. Um no. A registry is for things a baby or a couple needs to start out. Key words, "start out." The purpose of a registry is to get the parents our new couple over the hump of extreme purchases in preparation for their life together or a new baby. If I got an invite to a kids' birthday or an adults' party that had a registry on it - I wouldn't go. Seriously, I wouldn't. And, I don't think I could be serious friends with the type of someone who made a birthday registry for their kid. Seriously?
My sister actually had done gift registeries and so have I. One year I decided I was done with the college glassware & other mix matched items so I registered at Crate and Barrel for Christmas so that my family knew exactley what items I wanted.
My sister makes a wish list every year for Christmas on Amazon, when her kids were little, she did the same for them. Their birthdays are included. The reason being is that all of their family live out of state, so we all have to ship them gifts anyways. This way we can easily pick out items we know they want and don't have to coordinate with other family members to see who is getting her what. Because once someone has purchased something, it's not on the list anymore. For her kids it was great, with having two sides of the family all over the US that were sending them gifts, They would make wish lists on Amazon for them and didn't have to worry about duplicate gifts either or the kids getting something they weren't into or already had. Sometimes my sister would get her kids something big (like a leap frog) then put all the supporting games they wanted on amazon. So I think for registries, I think it depends on the situation. I think for family, not a bad idea, for a party with friends, probably not.