The birthday dilemma

Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr

In today’s post I’m hopefully running away to join the Carnival, the Birthday Carnival that is. I’m submitting this post to the All About Parenting Blog Carnival over at About.com.

In just a few short weeks our little man is going to make his first official trip ‘round the sun. We are excited for his first birthday, but we are a bit in awe at how fast it seems to have creeped up on us. We still define ourselves as new parents because he is our only child and there are a number of things we have yet to experience, namely the birthday party.

Now we are a simple folk, my wife and I don’t exchange gifts for holidays and birthdays. It’s a personal decision we made shortly after we got engaged and it works just fine for us. I used to have a real big problem in always looking for the grand gesture when it came to birthdays and holidays, a problem which my wife recognized early on in our courtship.

We had only been dating about six weeks when I took her to a gala of sorts and proceeded to buy her a cashmere wrap, send her flowers and rent a Jaguar so she didn’t have to jump up into my big old F-150 in her evening gown. Right there and then she put the kibosh on what she perceived could be a very expensive first Christmas by setting a $50.00 limit on what we could spend on each other. Though incredulous as to what I could buy her for that small sum I reluctantly went along and decided to fashion her a gift basket. It was the first of many great Christmases we have had together.

As our wedding approached neither of us owned a digital camera, so we decided to buy one to capture all the festivities. We also decided that the camera would be a joint birthday gift to ourselves since our birthdays are only a few weeks apart. And so with that joint birthday gift we made the decision that from here on out that exchanging gifts wasn’t something we were going to do. Having a child may change this, especially at Christmas time when he is old enough to understand things, but even then it will be something small.

Now that his first birthday fast approaching we are presented with our first parenting dilemma. There will be no “theme”, just a small gathering of friends and family at our house. I’m thinking a Mediterranean menu for the adults, and I, of course, will be making pizza for the kids, especially my football buddy Mary who loves her pizza cut in triangles. We’ll have a cake and sing him his first birthday song, but we really don’t want friends to feel obligated to buy him any presents. We’re not having the party to see what kind of loot he can manage to score; rather it is more important to us that those that know and love him are there to share in his first big day.

The dilemma we face is how do we tell people “please no gifts” without offending anyone. It’s not that we don’t appreciate the thought and sentiment of our friends and family who want to get him something, but rather that we don’t want him to grow up with unrealistic expectations for birthdays and holidays. We have considered writing on the invitation (ok, email ) that “your presence at his party is gift enough” and let people bring something if they want. We are not “anti-gift”, but we definitely want it to be known that their being there is the most important thing. The gift of your time is arguably the greatest gift you can give a child in our opinion.

One of the things I want to teach our son that it’s not what you get for your birthday that matters, but rather who is there for you and what they mean to your life. I think an excellent example of this is what my godson asked his parents to do for his fourth birthday. When my friend told me this story I was very surprised, not at the request but by how incredibly mature it was for a four year old. Instead of receiving gifts from his friends for his birthday party, he asked that his friends make a donation in his name to the Animal Rescue League. They are a big dog loving family and his mother volunteers for them from time to time.

So, rather than get some cool toy for his birthday that he would surely enjoy, he had the compassion to want to do something to help the puppies. Weeks later I am still impressed by this incredibly mature act by a very cool little boy and a bit humbled by the lesson he taught me by this act. My biggest hope is that I can in turn use this lesson to help build a foundation for our son to be as mature and compassionate as him. Personally, I think it speaks volumes to the values my friends have instilled in their son and I am proud to be his godfather and honored to count them among my closest friends.

Tagged as: About.com, Animal Rescue League, birthday party, birthdays, Christmas, Digital camera, Evening gown, Family, gifts, Home, maturity, Party