3yr old Birthday Party protocal

My twins 3rd birthday is in a few weeks, and we are considering having a party. I know when I was a kid we used to watch the birthday boy/girl open all their presents in front of us (which honestly was a little boring from my perspective), but I think times have changed. As, we have been to a few parties lately where they emphasis is not on the gifts (we just put them on a table and never saw them again) so no gifts are opened during the party.

Any suggestions - wwyd, or what have you done?

 

I am pretty against opening gifts at the party . I too find it very boring, but more than that, I have seen numerous occations when the birthday child says something along the lines of "I don't want/like this gift" or "I already have this", which makes the gift-giver feel bad. I have seen lots of tears due to these kinds of comments. I have also seen the B-day child refuse to let anyone else play with the gifts, which also leads to tears.

Best of luck!

 

most parties that have time limits (ie at bounce places or bowling allies) don't allow you to open presents because you get 2 hours to play, eat and have cake so presents are generally opened at home and then we get a thank you note afterward...stuff that has no time limit (ie at your house or at a public part etc) I find the presents opened in front of the kids...

personally I wouldn't open presents in front of the kids only because I know from experience with Ian that when he can't open presents too he cries...

 

We usually have family parties so we open up the gifts in front of the family near the end of the party since family usually likes seeing the kids open up the presents. My girls just turned 8 and had their first friends party and we ran out of time so they ended up opening up their gifts when people were leaving and some of the kids stayed until their present was opened. The party was at our house but the kids were having so much fun playing that we just forgot until one of the kids said something as the mom was trying to leave. We did hand out thank you cards though since not all kids got to see the girls open their presents. I think it's really up to the person on what type of kid they have. My girls and son have always been very good about saying thank you and acting like they like the gift and then later on letting us know if they liked it or not.

 

At nearly every party I've been to, the presents have been opened afterward. We did go to one (a 3rd b'day) where the boy opened presents, and it was a little weird -- a lot of the kids didn't even pay attention, and the ones that did all wanted to play with his new toys.

 

Our parties have been family only, so the kids did open their presents during the party. Now if we were to have a party with other children there, I would probably wait until after the party to open presents.

 

We have always opened up the gifts while the guests were here, with the exception of the girls' party we had with their friends last summer. We opened the gifts after everyone left and made sure to send thank you notes.

I went to a party recently where the kids got to open the presents as soon as the guest arrived with it. I loved that idea because then they had 1:1 time with the gift giver. It was cute!

I know for our family parties, we will continue to open presents while everyone is here because the older generation has said that they like to see the girls open them. But, going forward I think for their party with friends we will open after everyone leaves to save time (and chaos!).

 

I think either way works, but I personally feel if the gifts are opened after, thank you cards are a must (for us, they are a necessity either way). I have taken the kids to a few parties lately where the presents were not opened & we received no thank you card or anything. It was like the gifts just disappeared & that was it. My 2 were disappointed because they spent a fair bit of time picking out the gifts & they never even knew if the birthday child liked them. I do sometimes think that by opening gifts after the party, we are missing an opportunity to teach our children how to accept gifts graciously.

 

I have never been to a kids party where gifts were not opened (although I haven't been to that many). At the 2 birthday parties we've had our kids have opened their gifts, but we only had family there. I think it's a good way to teach kids how to graciously accept gifts.

 

I agree with pp about not opening gifts at the party. It also makes it hard to keep track of who gave what, etc. We opened that at home (twins had a party on Sunday).

But I have to say, we have been to four birthday parties since they started school.
1) 1 kid wrote thank you notes to everyone
2) 1 mom just sent a blanket thank you email to everyone with a picture from the party
3) 1 mom let the electronic invite service send a generic thank you for coming
4) 1 mom did nothing

I'm just appalled, seriously. It's obnoxious. We are doing thank you notes this week, I'm having the kids dictate and sign their name. We are also do a thank you note from each kid. It's slow, but it's important.

I also want to say, I had to chase people for RSVPs and three people who rsvp'd yes didn't show up, only one of them let me know.

 

I think it's kind of rude not to open the presents. It feels like you're taking from people but not taking the time to be really grateful for the gifts. Thank you cards are very impersonal most of the time... sure doesn't make up for the reaction of someone opening the gift and saying thank you face to face.

I understand why people do it though, it's just really weird to me.