"No gifts" or "Yes gifts?" Edith Zimmerman and I hash out who is superior

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I got the following email a few weeks ago from witch and artist

Edith Zimmerman

of Drawing Links who has two young girls:

Q: Have you ever done an installment on the “please no gifts” phenomenon? For some reason, it drives me insane, it’s as if the invitation actually says, “please no gifts like there were at EDITH’S DAUGHTERS PARTY, we WOULD NEVER sink so low.”

I know it’s just to cut down on plastic/crap/toys/wrapping paper, but the kids like picking gifts out for their friends, and I feel mildly outraged on their kids’ behalf. Or am I just way overthinking it, and maybe I really just feel guilty about all the crap we have/buy and worry my kids are going to be spoiled etc.

I wrote back,

Ha! I’ve never thought about it that way. You come at it from such a nice, thoughtful, giving perspective compared to how I was at the Target the other day, trying to pick out a child I don’t know. Why didn’t I take my kid with me to let him choose his friend’s gift? I think I just wanted to go to Target alone like a walking cliche.
I swear, when we say “no gifts,” it’s because our kid is over-gifted from his grandparents, and I don’t feel like keeping track of who gave what, and I never judge those who don’t say no gifts. But this is food for thought.

She replied,

I thought I would be a no-gift person. I admit to also being slightly relieved when invitations say no gift, on top of feeling shamed.

Maybe it’s partly the age my kids are, when everything is so new and exciting. I guess in an ideal world, each kid would spend a day or two crafting some special gift at home for their friend, rather than their parents going out to buy something. But I know that world doesn’t really exist.

Claire: Now I’m coming full circle and feeling guilty for depriving my kids of the gifts, like maybe do I secretly really hate them? I am going to have to come to your house and examine all their things to reassure myself that your house is not as teeming with, say, Legos as mine is. This is probably a dumb idea, but do you want to turn this into a phone call chat dialogue?

Here is an edited version of our subsequent phone call:

Edith: I’m still trying to figure out what the protocol is for gift opening because it seems like people don’t do it in public anymore, which I find weird because the kids want to see their present being opened. At my daughter’s birthday party a month ago, I just let her open the presents that her friends were freaking out about. Like, this kid clearly wants her present to be opened right now, so we’ll just do that. But then it was okay, we just played it by ear, and then we opened the rest of them later once everyone was gone, and then we texted everyone a photo of her enjoying the present in the moment.

Claire: That’s really thoughtful.

I’m still trying to get the lay of the land when it comes to thank-you notes and gift acknowledgements because it really seems to span the spectrum. Some people don’t say anything at all. Other people, we’ve gotten maybe a couple handwritten notes.

When I was a kid, and you opened gifts at the party, it could be awkward if someone gave you a gift that was really thoughtful, that you really liked, or maybe even expensive. Then someone else gave you something that was sort of womp-womp.

At least in our world, the kids don’t open gifts anymore in front of other kids because of that same issue of gift equity, and maybe it’s also exhausting to make all the kids sit down and watch this happen. Maybe I’m eschewing that whole aspect of it just because I’m lazy. But also part of it, too, is like, yeah, the kids have so many gifts just in general from the other relatives, it seems like an extra round of admin.

What was the gift that the little boy got for your daughter that was so great?

He obviously didn’t get it at all. It was his mom. I told her, “Georgia’s getting into makeup and I’m not really sure what to do about that.” It was sort of a throwaway comment. But she got this amazing nail kit. Because Georgia’s little sister is almost two, they just take it out every day and play.

I don’t know if that mom has other kids or not, but I will say, as a mother of boys, it is a treat to shop for a girl.

I don’t know how much goodie bags have come into your world yet, but when your kid comes home with a little bag of shit and it’s just pieces of garbage that they may look at once or twice, you’re like, “Here’s this little stupid plastic toy top or a weird dumb bracelet that nobody wanted.” Part of me thinks, if I say no gifts, then we don’t have to do goodie bags. Although I have gotten a bunch of comic books to give away¹. I figure it’s something for the kids to enjoy on the way home, and they can also recycle it.

I’m totally with you on the gift bags. I was thinking that the gift was in exchange for the party. The party was the gift for the kid who comes to the party.

See, I think the gift for the kid is that they get to celebrate their birthday with their friends. I had a party for my older son at one of those inflatable places. We have some cake afterwards, and it’s time to go home. One of his friends was like, “Do we have a goodie bag or anything?” I said, “Your memories of this day are your goodie bag,” I really showed her. But you put in so much work to arrange a party.

I think one of the takeaways is, as you go through it more, you realize it gives some people pleasure to make things really nice. Let’s say Valentine’s Day: I get so exhausted, and I just have them buy miniature bags of candy and write “From Paul” or “From James” on it.

Then some people will order custom-made little tackle boxes with each of the kids’ names on it, with special personalized candies. You have to make a deal with yourself that they’re not judging you if you don’t have it in you to do that same job if that makes them happy.

I think part of the deep-down witchy conversation of it is how anything can make you feel bad. If you’re feeling judged for not wanting to do no gifts, I’m feeling judged for being like, “Why aren’t we teaching the kids to be thoughtful?” When we were in Colombia, my son got some chocolate for a friend, and he said, “I can’t wait for Steve to open this. He loves chocolate so much.” I was like, “What a nice kid.” But that’s a different scenario than if you’re running around between activities and now you’re like, “Oh, dammit, we got to get a present on the way to this party.”

When you are most in your feelings or feeling like you are being perceived a certain way about the no gifts thing, what’s the narrative in your head?

I’m in this small community where we all have very young kids, so I just feel like we’re all getting our footing in the world of birthday parties and what’s too big, what’s too small, what’s just right. When some of my closest peers are doing things differently than I do, I’m like, “Oh my God, did I do it wrong?” I want to do it right and have it be fun for everybody.

I completely agree about the goodie bags. The girls love them, but then it’s just this stupid shit that’s I find myself spending two months picking up. I’m like, “I can throw this away, this stuff is crap.”

One of the best goodie bags I’ve ever seen is when mom had just a ton of leftover Halloween candy, and the kids could take some fistfuls of it on the way out.

That’s perfect.

You have to get your head right about what matters to you and to your family. I have a friend who is very generous. She will send the boys random gifts. It took me a while to stop feeling like I had to do a tit-for-tat because I thought I would look like a jerk. I was like, “No, this is the way she is.” I have to trust that she’s not doing it and being like, “Claire didn’t get us something. She must suck.”

When you were talking about the very legitimate upside of a child thinking about what their friend would like, you could even talk about getting a kid to appreciate how much something costs or not, that’s a really valuable lesson. Then I’m like, “Damn, Edith must be a more loving, thoughtful mom than I am.”

I think in an ideal world with the gift-giving stuff, each child would spend a week crafting a present that took them at most $4 to put together, and they would give it to their friend, and it would mostly just be a token of their friendship. All the kids would open the gift at the party and everyone would just be so delighted by one another’s mutual camaraderie. But of course that doesn’t happen.

My daughter and her two closest friends, basically, her party was bookended by theirs, and it turns out each of them, the other moms sent out invites that were like, “Please no gifts.” I read a tone into those messages. I think all invites now come over text. Of course they don’t write them in that tone, but I hear it like, “We’re not like you trashy materialists who fill your homes with garbage and teach your children to be disgusting plastic freaks like Edith.”

Oh my God, no.

No? Of course it’s not about me. I get it, but I’m also, like, the children are so little. Wouldn’t it be fun to just shower them with presents one day? I don’t know.

I didn’t think I would feel this way going into parenthood. I’m a pretty minimalist person in some ways, and I’m like quality over quantity, but for some reason, I’m like, I don’t know, they don’t need to learn restraint just yet.

It’s good to hear that point of view. I think it’s really illuminating, the things that can trigger you. Even when a friend of mine, when the inside of their car is clean, I’m like, “Oh, okay, you must care more about your stuff than I do. Trash Me.”

I think the takeaway is that whatever the thing is, you can always feel bad about it. The battle is not about gifts or no gifts, it’s really about what makes you happy, perhaps what makes your kids happy. I never get mad about buying someone else’s kid a gift.

I believe you. Do your kids ever complain about having no-gift parties, though?

No. Once in a while. I think there was a party maybe a year or two ago, and it said no gifts. James probably bitched about it, but I wasn’t feeling sorry for him. I was like, “Your party was a really nice party and all your friends came. You got a lot of presents from your family.” Some people still bring him a card or give a gift.

I will say one more thing: My son was invited to a party some years ago, and the parents are super Catholic and crunchy, and they said, “No gifts, but if you must please bring something pre-owned from your house.” I was reading that as, “We’re not materialists like you.” Then there was added pressure since they acknowledged that they would maybe take gifts, I had to find a used gift in our house that wasn’t disgusting.

You are sort of at a sweet spot, I think, where the kids are so new to this and anything you give them is nice and new and special, and as they get older, it gets harder to find something unique.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying this phase of life. I think it’s also very different if it’s your first kid versus your third or second kid. My cousin has four kids, and for a while we were exchanging gifts for each other’s kids at Christmas until some years ago. I said, “Can we stop? I have no idea what you guys have. I can’t buy gifts for four kids of different ages. Can we just enjoy each other’s company?” She wasn’t mad about it, but of course I still felt bad about it .

That’s my true takeaway. You can feel bad about literally anything if you just think about it the right way.

I think you are doing great and if it brings you and your kids joy to pick out a gift for someone, then do it. If it really makes you happy, just say, “I know you said no gifts, but whatever. Fuck you. We did it anyway.”

My friend, the one who loves to buy gifts, sent us this game recently. It’s like beer pong and flip cup for kids. My husband was playing with James, who was super into it, until the bad part of his ADHD came in, and he was like, “I hate this, I hate you.”

Anyway, I asked my friend, who has three boys, “Do you guys have this game Chicken Vs. Hot Dog?” She said, “No.” I said, “Don’t Google it. We’re going to send it to you.” The hot dog looks a hundred percent like a dildo. I sent it to her in the spirit of being silly and witchy more than “I hope your kids like it.”

Anyway. You’re doing great. Hold the line.

You’re doing great.