Q&A: Is there any way to prevent an influx of gifts you don't want?

The lovely people at Amazon.com have informed me via email that they are going to be having a huge sale starting this Friday morning at 6 am PST (US West Coast time, 9 am for those of us on the East Coast, 8 am for those of you eating leftover bars that day, and 7 am for those of you in Mountain). If you click through from this link, I'll get a little tip out on anything you buy, so think of me if you're going to do any online shopping this Friday I'll put the link up at the top of Friday's post, just to help remind you to line my pockets.

And on that note, Kristen writes:

"Can you address how to talk to relatives about not giving your child crappy, made-in-china, plastic toys?  We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or seem greedy, but we would much rather receive quality wooden toys, non-character items, and books.  With the recalls recently, this has become even more important.  Is there a tactful way to de-tack relatives?"

At first glance, the obvious answer to this question is, "Yeah, right." But I know that Kristen has a one-year-old, so she's still in the phase of parenting in which she does have a reasonable amount of control over what her daughter plays with, eats, etc. And my feeling is that all of that stuff gets harder and harder to control as the kids get older, so you might as well do what you can while you can. Two years from now you'll be buying princess-shaped gummy snacks made out of HFCS, hydrogenated fats, and red dye #5, so this is the year to try to hold back the tide of American consumer culture.

I think the amount of success you'll have in requesting certain toys depends on the personalities of the gift-givers. My grandmother, for example, was always delighted to receive specific requests for things my kids wanted. If left to her own devices she would have chosen the brightest, biggest, least apartment-friendly toys possible, just because she loves the kids so much. But she was thrilled to know exactly what the kids wanted (one year it was an awesome wooden parking garage that is still standing after years of abuse) and this year her Christmas gift was the adoption fee for the cats. (Oh, the cats--is there another animal species as crazy and hilarious?)

So if you have relatives who like to take requests, you're in luck, because you can request specific books and toys (like the wooden cutting food set, for instance) and everyone will be happy. But if you have relatives who want to give what they want to give no matter what you'd like, you're not going to win the battle.

Which means you need to decide how you're going to react to the gifts you don't like. Are you going to thank them politely and then donate the toys the next day to the thrift store? Are you going to thank them politely but decline the toys? Are you going to try to educate them about toy safety, recalls, plastics, and the whole ball of wax? Again, it depends on the personality of the giver and your relationship with them. You'll probably react differently when it's your 90-year-old great-aunt than you will when it's your sister.

Has anyone been able to politely stem the influx of toys from relatives without hurting any feelings? Please tell us what you did.

Comments

[Kristina Brooke]

My daughter is 18 months and we have been able to avoid unwanted gifts by doing the following:

(1) We set a theme for gift-giving time. For example, for her birthday we asked that people give her a book that is a personal favorite and to write a not in it. I am an English teacher and every one knows that I love reading and I want to pass that on to her. We received over 55 books for her birthday, no two alike. And, no one gave us a non-book item.

(2)I am honest about how we feel. We told all friends and family that we are boycotting toys MIC and that we have thrown the ones we had away. We also made sure to send all our friends and family a list of suggestions: you can see my list at http://reviews.kristinabrooke.org/?p=43.

I think that most people will respect your wishes and if not, say thank you, and give it away or return it.

[Heather]

If you can't purge down to your satisfaction, you could try rotating toys. I know people who keep a stash of tubs in the garage and keep only some toys in use.

Re quantity: I do think it's okay to keep toys down to a managable amount. Can you clean it up every day? Do your children know what toys they have? Do you have a place to put everything? Are there toys they haven't played with in weeks? How you handle this depends so much on how direct your family is, but gratitude doesn't, I think, need to extend to letting your house be a chaotic mess all the time. If you think there are too many toys, there probably are. And it's easier to change early on.

My own opinion is that a modest number of great, beloved toys is actually more enjoyable. I've noticed that my son seems to play longer and more contentedly if he doesn't have too much crap lying around.

But then, I'm lucky that relatives mostly buy thing, and my friends (with zero comments from me) mostly buy non-crap. (And, I admit, a few of the crap things my son has loved. I still can hum the music from that Learning Table--dee da da da da da da da dee dum dum!)

Fwiw, while I am amazed at how many toys some kids have, I feel that there are some reasons I can honor, even if we have a more spartan house ourselves. One friend told me that her house growing up was where all her friends would hang out, and her brothers' friends, too. So she wants to create a space where all her boys have room to spread out and play as hard as they want. Like I said, it's not my way, but I don't have a problem with her, since in their case the toys really seem to be just toys, not an affection substitute.

Re the Goodwill question. My husband called last year to ask what quality of clothes they wanted, and they said everything. Even shabby adult clothes and grubby paint-stainted toddler clothes. Some things they send abroad and some things get made into rags. So, call your local one first, maybe, but don't feel bad--better being used than sitting neglected in your closet.

[shirky]

you guys all crack me up. If I got an email like that from a relative I would laugh so hard! And then give socks. Woo! life is hard enough already, you know?

[Kristen]

Melissa and Doug have pretty strict standards about their toys -- always have from the beginning. They're not as well made as Haba and Plan toys, but still fine.

As far as CPC goes, I have inlaws that are terrible with the CPC, which, thanks to the recalls are now going to be CSC (cheap stuffed crap) which is almost worst.

I've asked them several times to send gift cards (which is fine for my mom but they are very much about giving gifts). Thankfully, this will be the first x-mas away from them, so I can have a bit more say.

I say offer them specific options and just tell them she/he REALLY likes this or is really into this. Make it known it's something that they want. And then scare the crap out them with all the recalls.

[Sarah]

First I sent a letter saying what we wanted and didn't want for our kids this year. (reprinted here: http://www.citizenbeta.com/sblog/?p=115). I blamed a lot on toy recalls, saying we wanted to keep things to a minimum and only allow certain types of gifts.

Next, I created a wishlist at a toy company's site and sent that to the grandparents. So far I have had positive responses and the grandparents were happy to have such specific requests.

[pnuts mama]

@ shirky- hee hee, can you believe i actually asked for socks (from those who asked) for the pnut last year? all she had at the time were pink ones and needed bigger sizes- and we got TONS and they were awesome...even got one pair of knitted ones from grandma.

while i hate the mass email part of that letter, i also hate re-sending the same info to each person who asks for it. so, it's what we've come up with. and, to be fair, my sister in law hit "reply all" last year to let folks know that she had gotten xyz from the suggestions so folks wouldn't double.

so far, no bad feedback, but who knows what they say behind our backs? (i can only imagine...)

[Susannah]

wow, so many interesting posts here. Some of my thoughts, in no particular order:

princesses: what IS it about princesses?? I remember my obsession with princesses and ballerinas and pink like it was yesterday instead of 38 years ago. My parents mostly distained it, which made me very sad. Eventually I talked them into the pink tutu, tights and tiara, and even lipstick- which I lived in for weeks. Somehow I survived my love of pink frill with my feminism intact and grew up to become a surgeon. I still like pink.

I think princess must tap into something very powerful in girls' psyches- don't understand it at all, and worry about it with my nieces who have princess-fever bad, but I think we girls are much hardier and more capable of accepting contradictions and true fantasy-play than my parents gave us credit for.

About gifts, I remember a secretary of mine who was (I think) seventh day adventist. I gave her the obligatory Christmas gift the first year I knew her and she politely handed it back, saying in her religion every day is Christ's Day and she doesn't observe Christmas as a special day. I remember the odd mix of feelings- embarassment, annoyance that she had rejected my thoughtfulness, admiration for the purity and simplicity of her beliefs, and finally relief that what I had on my hands was an opportunity for genuine interaction free of all the Christmas hype.

After that I took the time every January to write her an especially detailed card thanking her for her help over the last year. I think she liked that very much.

I guess this is to say that I do think the giftee might sometimes have a legitimate say in the gifts. But if it comes from a sense of a positive celebration of deep-held values and respect for others' choices, that seems different from expressing distain for the gifts themselves.

[reen]

We also started early (before birth?) with the relatives, pointing out the relative merits of books, non-character toys, etc., as more stimulating to the imagination than one-dimensional plastic crap that beeps and blinks. So we're fortunate that they ask us for a wish list.

Now if I can figure out a way to apply that to the godawful clothes they buy, I'll be set.

[kelbelfel]

I'm so sorry I don't have time to read all the comments but I tend to lean towards the "be a gracious recipient" side of things and then exchange/return/donate on the sly. We have a hard-and-fast "No guns/GI Joes/military toys" rule that we're quite verbal about and otherwise just try to suck it up and return things. But our oldest is soon going to be of an age where she'll realize what we're doing and then I'm not sure how we will handle it. Sigh..

[hedra]

I lean toward the balance and moderation mantra in general on this. That is, if they're list people, we give them a list. If they're not list people, and they ask, we give them TOPICS/GENRES and nothing more specific. If they don't ask, we accept graciously.

We leave the nefarious 'weaning of the grandparents' to the rest of the year. I found that two things repeated over time have sunk in:

1) Request for less 'stuff' overall, period. THey tend to set a budget first, and then buy till they run out. If we request fewer 'things' period, they tend to increase quality, and reduce quantity - and having the other kids join the chorus of 'less is better' helps. Harder if you only have just one lone voice in the wilderness...

2) Let them help out more at your house, be around more in your space, etc. The more time our ILs spend at our house, the more they see that we don't need STUFF, we need time (and more storage boxes!). So they're leaning toward giving us more time, this year. The same is true for the kids - more time with grandma, learning to bake. More time going to museums with grandpa. Those are far more valuable than anything they could buy (though I'll still pitch the college fund, even though they view that as utterly unromantic and steadfastly refuse to play).

Good luck.

Oh, and on the noisy plastic junk... our oldest is an auditory child. Anything tinny or out of tune or overly electronic made him miserable. We just told people that, and they bought him QUALITY music toys, instead. If it has a nice tone, it is a happy toy. The second... well, he's visual, and boy he could not care less about whether it beeped shrill and nasty as long as it FLASHED AND BLINKED. Which meant that our nice collection of wooden and metal muscal toys was joined by a collection of flashy-beepy-toys. But they lit him up, and everyone (even us) could see that. M and R are more balanced, they like both. But the idea may give another way to present the 'please no flashy-beepy things' approach... OH, and researchers are also finding that constant exposure over time to 'on key' sounds improves ability to stay on key when singing, later. So if they want to support musical ability, the more in tune, the better!

Good luck.

As for the princess thing, we've dodged a bit of it, but it takes both acceptance of princessy and dedication to expanding the horizon beyond princessy to keep it from taking over entirely. M and R do play princess now and then, but I also regularly hear M shout 'I'm de KEEN!' (queen)... and she still sleeps with her die cast trucks and a stuffed shark, even if she's dressed in pink from head to toe.

[hedra]

Heh. I said good luck twice. And that's really true - when trying to change others, well, good luck. Sigh. (It took 10 years just from OUR kids, which means about 17 years total to get the 'less stuff' message to sink in... love them, but... oy.)

[Kristen]

We haven't evolved into a non-gift giving family and still enjoy giving gifts to eachother. This year, instead of putting my family's gifts in gift bags or boxes, i am going to buy a reusable shopping bag from that store and put the gift in that. Hopefully it's a gift that keeps on giving to my family member and the environment!

I'm also in the same predicament as the other Kristen and I'm trying to encourage my family members not to bombard my 6 month old son with Chinese-made plastic toys on Christmas.

[regiemino]

Gee, this is a common problem! And I was feeling so alone.....

I have a certain degree of tolerance when it comes to the CPCs. My older kids do like characters - my son would be lost without his Anthony doll (of the Wiggles). With my five-year-old daughter, I have accepted the Disney princesses but draw the line at Bratz. I once overheard my daughter telling someone that her mother called them "skank barbies". Nice. I am so classy. But I digress....

Our problem is the sheer number of gifts that our loving extended families shower on the children they adore. Last year it was disgusting. And this was after we asked the certain offending relatives to pleeeeease go easy on the gifts. My MIL insists, with a straight face, that she did not buy much at all last year. I swear there were 8 packages for EACH of my three children, just from her! And about that many again from my generous BIL who has no kids of his own. It was to the point where my husband and I don't feel that we can buy anything for our own children.

So, this year we have instituted a
one-package-per-child policy. We let all relatives know (offenders and non, alike) and we will see if it works. When my MIL gasped for air, "...but, ....but,...but", we told her to feel free to buy a few smaller things, but wrap it up in one loving package. Luckily my husband is the bad cop with his own family while I smile and nod sweetly in agreement (he's the best!). Keep your fingers crossed for us to have a peaceful, joyous, holiday without teaching our kids to be greedy gluttons of material goods. Please, baby Jesus.

[chicapie]

Great comments, all, and interesting strategies.
One great resource to throw out there that fits with this theme is the ever fabulous Center for a New American Dream's pages on "Simplifying the Holidays" (http://www.newdream.org/holiday/index.php) and "Kids & Commercialism" (not on the holidays per se but useful year-round, on advertising in schools, etc.: http://www.newdream.org/kids/)

[Sarah V.]

This has been mentioned by some people already, but I can't stress it enough - there is a *manners* issue here that a lot of people seem to be ignoring.

Gift-giving isn't meant to be about handing out a list of your preferences to people so that you can get them all met. It isn't meant to be about expecting people to provide X for you and acting as though they have a duty to do so. It's meant to be about showing appreciation for others and what they do for you. If someone has gone to the trouble of buying you a gift, then what *you* are supposed to do is show them you appreciate that trouble, not act as though you had some sort of right to get exactly what you wanted (or, in the case of your children, exactly what you think they should have *regardless* of whether it's what they wanted). When someone gives you a gift, responding by telling them how you can't accept it because it's such poor quality and/or you really wanted X instead is just plain rude.

Now, of course there are exceptions - safety being an obvious one. I think it's fair to assume that none of your relatives want their present to *hurt* a child, and, if something turned up in the presents for which there had been a safety recall, I would feel it totally appropriate to say "Oh, goodness! Didn't you hear - there's been a recall on these! What a shame - it would have been so lovely for Littleone to play with!" And... I suppose that if there was a really huge ethical issue about such-and-such, I *might* very gently try to say that although I really appreciated the thought, I just couldn't take this particular present because of X reason. Frankly, it's hard to think of much that's so serious that it would be worth offending someone who had been nice enough to try to get you something. I sure as hell wouldn't consider it appropriate to do so just because I had a preference for wood over plastic.

Ultimately, I don't think it is going to warp my child for life if he spends some of his childhood playing with toys that are cheap or break easily or don't fit with someone else's idea of what he 'should' be playing with (and, by the way, just when did it become such a bad thing for playtime to be about something fun rather than about having everything made to high-quality standards?). But what I really don't want is for him to grow up thinking it's OK to respond to presents with any version, no matter how well-meant, of "This isn't what I wanted. Take it back."

[Tami]

Yes, we probably all have gotten something we would rather not. And for a time wonder what to do with it... But, I agree that taking great consideration to the GRACIOUSNESS of gift giving is IMPORTANT more than the gift itself. We like to share a gift, too and sometimes those things might not be well received. So, we like to always include their "store gift receipt" and a little note also attached, explaining the meaning(s) behind our gift(s). For example, we purchased a book for our niece's 1st birthday that was years beyond her reading skills. However, she lives a long ways and I knew it would be a while until we shared another gift. So, we explained in the note that the book we thought Mom and Dad could read to her as she got bigger and could understand it more. And, knowing we explained the thoughts behind the gift, it gave us a chance to share more than the gift itself, BUT THE SPIRIT BEHIND THE GIFT GIVEN.

[hedra]

Tami, that's lovely.

I do that for baby shower book collections, but hadn't thought of it for Xmas. Hmm. The 'list people' we know ASK for the lists, because what they want most is to give something that the child will engage with and play with and enjoy passionately. But there are some things I give because they have meaning to me, that I'd like to share with them, or that I think they could appreciate or understand or relate to.

Will have to think more on what goes into the notes this year. Most of the kids in the family want gift cards to bookstores. Period. But that's a passion I can relate to, as well. So maybe I'll just add a little note, so they will know that it's more than just 'I know you'll like this' but also 'I love that you'll like this, and I love knowing that we share this passion for books.' Thanks!

[Jennifer]

Sadly, our 11 month old loves things that light up and make noise too...but at least is happiest when she can control it. Anyway, although our families are fortunately not big spenders/gifters, I've been keeping a blog for Pumpkin since she was a few months old, and on there I've included links to "approved" toys and clothing websites (like Oompa Toys). I feel that's more subtle and, along with sighing about how many toys are piled in our little living room, I think we won't be overwhelmed at Christmas.

[hedra]

In the 'who are you and what have you done with my In-Laws?' department... today I was chatting with FIL on the phone ('do you like nuts? I'm making nut-based crusts, wondered if I'd better make some other kind too?'), and he cracked 'we're buying a thousand things for your kids for their birthday' (party is tomorrow). I paused. He quickly inserted, 'JUST KIDDING!' To which I replied, 'yeah, well maybe if it was a thousand something for their college funds or something...'

And holy pete, if he didn't pause in return and say, 'you know, that's not a bad idea! we'll have to think about that! Do you have one already?...'

Okay, so I've been going on about these for a DECADE on a regular basis. And now, maybe, sinking in? WOO! And who are you, and what have you done with my IL's! :)

[Kristina Brooke]

I don't think any of us are sending lists to be rude. My family and friends always ask us what to get our daughter. I think when dealing with children it is important for gift-givers to respect the wishes of parents (that would be the "thought" part in "It's the thought that counts"). If I know that a parent is nervous about the recalls, I wouldn't get his/her child a gift that is "high-risk", but that is not how every one thinks. They buy gifts based on what they themselves like and not necessarily taking into consideration how the receiver will feel. Wish list are not about demanding gifts, it is about ensuring that you are not bombarding with things that you don't need/want. And if someone does not stick to the list (which you know will happen), you smile and say thank you anyway- that goes without saying.

[Sarah V.]

Just wanted to clarify my earlier comment a bit:

My main concern was over the attitude people seemed to be showing to presents that had been *given*. Moxie was asking whether an unwanted gift should be responded to with an attempt to educate the person as to what was wrong with the gift, and a lot of people seemed to feel that that would be totally appropriate, and I wanted to point out that, in fact, that's really bad manners.

But I don't think I was clear enough on the subject of wish lists to let people know what gift you *might* like. I wasn't trying to say that these are always wrong. I think the big issue there is whether they're solicited or unsolicited. We use wish lists all the time in our family, and we're very happy with that. But the important thing is that we wait until someone asks "So, what do you want for Christmas?" before telling them "I'd absolutely love X" or "I've listed a few things at Amazon", rather than just handing out requests out of the blue.

So, if someone isn't asking you what you want for Christmas, how can you get the message across? Well, anyone who's interested enough in your kids to be buying them stuff is likely to be interested enough to want to hear about them throughout the year as well. Chances are you'll have a lot of opportunities to mention how your little one adores anything that makes a noise and shows no interest in stuffed toys, or whatever, just as part of general chitchat. And that gives you opportunities to work in your own comments on what you consider good-quality or poor-quality toys, in contexts where it doesn't sound as though you're specifically criticising things they might have bought or demanding that they buy particular things.

[hedra]

Sarah, thanks for the clarification. I do agree with your point. I learned early to find something kind and grateful to say about even the most awful gifts, because IME, too often the most awful ones came with the most thought, even if the execution (or financial restrictions) meant the results were abysmal. There's nothing worse than making an 'erm, uh, well, that's uh, nice' comment and then having the other person explain exactly how and why they picked this item, and have it break your heart that you ever hesitated to welcome a gift that was so deeply and carefully thought out. Even if it is still 'wrong' for you, it becomes right by intent. I did that once to my parents, and once to my brother, and that's the last time I ever did it. Both those experiences are lodged in my psyche pretty harshly. I didn't need a third lesson, and it wasn't hard to extrapolate enough to even accept the very pointed gifts my ex-fiance's family gave me (here, have some MAKEUP... I'm sure the reason you don't wear any makeup at all must be because they don't HAVE blue and pink eyeshadow where you live!)... Thanks! I'm so glad you're sharing things with me that you use and enjoy for yourselves. Bonus, the genuine gratitude in response to the snarky gift was met with a loud silence followed by them all deciding that the intent I'd ascribed them really WAS their intent, and weren't they such nice people? Happy all around. And funny, no more snarky gifts.

It's really the same skill set as handling unwanted (unresearched, unmerited, etc.) advice from family. We're all getting pretty good at that, no? Thank you so much for caring about us, and thinking of us enough to offer your gift/advice from the heart. Etc. Unwelcome advice doesn't take up toybox room, but the response is still the same. If it's unsafe advice, or unsafe toys, one can accept it the first time (and discard) but then after that, over time, provide information on the safety of that offering, which will likely be taken more to heart that way.

I agree that just sending out a 'Thanksgiving Message' that includes the developmental acheivements you are thankful for (when other children might not be so blessed) and interests of the child in the 'it's wonderful to watch this child's joy' manner should be enough idea-fodder for those who need it but wouldn't otherwise ask (there are still those who feel that asking the parents for ideas is an offront, as well). Doing so regularly is even better, and by the way, is a great way of creating a memory book for the child - my mom printed off every one I sent, and has kept them for the kids, so they can read my gushing about them when they're older. :)