@goldensrbest I totally agree with you. I remember when my girls were young. We'd always have birthday parties. I love birthdays, now they do too as adults.
I'd get frustrated because it would be obvious that the parents went to a nearby 7-11 and bought something that would fall apart the first time it was used.
With a little forethought a person can still get a nice gift for a kid. A kid doesn't matter if it cost $10 or $100 as long as it's something that they like.
It's so much fun to give someone a gift that's something they'd mentioned they liked or that they'd buy next time they have a little extra cash.
My youngest daughter (now 40) has collected pop up books since she was 5 years old.
I taught her how to carefully handle them. As she got older the intricacies of the book became more and more of a challenge to open.
For this Christmas I sent her one by her favorite designer. It is a Harry Potter pop up book. It's extremely intricate. Just opening it up brings one surprise after another.
She called me when she opened it up. It was just like she was 10 years old again. She kept saying, "Marmy look at this and ...(there'd be a pause) and she'd say, "Oh! Marmy....There's this and there's that...I didn't see that before".
When my girls were young every Christmas would have a theme. All during the year I'd make a mental note on something they had or did that gave them a lot of pleasure.
Then that would be the theme for them at Christmas.
Here's an example. My youngest daughter (the one I mentioned above) wanted a dog. However, we couldn't get a dog because back then we were traveling a lot. We took the girls with us and traveled all over Europe for a month...that's why we couldn't get a dog.
So, for her that Christmas it was all about puppy dogs. I would also have all of the packages for each daughter together. It was always the same...daughter 1 (the oldest) would be in the front and on one side of the tree. Daughter 2 would be on the other side of the tree and daughter 3 would be in the middle. They'd go right to where they knew their stuff would be.
Where was I? I drift off...OK, so the theme for daughter number 3 was puppy dogs. I'd once asked her if she had a puppy dog what would she name it. She said "muffy". In her spot was a stuffed dog with a real dog collar on it and engraved were the words "muffy". He was inside of the dog house (it was really nice, all plastic and would probably fit a tiny dog). She got a lot of books all about dogs (and a few cats because we did have 3 cats at the time)...She had a real leash for the dog. There were dog toys. Back then CD's were what people used. She got a movie about cats and dogs.
She got a lot of other little things but that stuffed dog went everywhere for a few weeks.
Another time my middle daughter always wanted to own her own Hallmark store. (We'd spend a lot of time looking at things inside our local Hallmark store).
So on her side of the tree, she had a name holder with her name engraved in it. She had her own cards to hand out with her name, etc. She wanted a new desk for her room, so that was there. There was a really nice chair. Her Dad had built her a group of shelves and we'd put some cards and ornaments on them. It looked like a small version of a Hallmark store.
The oldest daughter had a theme on year of everything French. She wanted to go to Summer school at the Sorbonne in France. Everything was French. I had a friend who was and is an artist. She painted for me a large picture of a scene along a small town in some imaginary place in France. There were books (some in French) a video of ....(you guessed it...France). It was a lot of fund doing that theme.
You know come to think of it...everything French stuck with her because she has a Master's degree in International Foreign Affairs and a minor in Business French.
All of my girls speak french but I've never heard them that I can remember. My teenage granddaughter just won a contest to represent her school in competition. The school is Governor's school, held in Va. It's pretty amazing to be able to do that. She's like her mom with all things French.
So now that you are probably bored to death...
I enjoy coming on here because it helps me remember with joy things I haven't thought about in years.
I think if you were my friend, you'd never be bored. My friend I eat with during the week would probably tell you that where I'm concerned, you never know what I'm going to do or say from one minute to the next.
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