STARTING 4/8/17: Six Word Saturday is now being hosted by the lovely Debbie at Travel With Intent.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Age-appropriate gifts

With the upcoming holidays, I'm starting to spaz think about gifts. Everyone in our family is difficult to buy for and expectations are huge when it comes to their expectations from us. You know, because we both went to college and we don't have kids and we know how to manage our finances so we're not currently collecting any kind of social assistance. Yep, Joe and Cate, the rich ones.

Add to all that the idea of age-appropriate gifts for the nieces and nephews when we have no concept of what's proper really. My mother, who should've known better, bought my then 3-yo cousin a pocket knife for Christmas. His parents, who should've known better, let him play with it. I think it was barely February before we received a phone call that he had sliced apart the back of their new sofa. See, not age appropriate.

So we have his nephew (10), his niece (8), my nephew (1.5), my niece? (debuting in January). My niece will be easy and we'll probably just send a token small something since she's not here yet. I'm thinking we'll get my nephew some drums. Or an orange vest and some signs to go play in traffic. Hooker boots for Joe's niece, and maybe a cigarette case for his nephew. All good, right?

Or, we could take a page from my MIL, whom we lovingly appropriately refer to as FruitLoop. She just sent Joe his birthday gift in the mail. Here it is (excuse the lousy pic, Gwen was so unimpressed she was laughing and out of focus):

Yes, she sent him 77 cents. Because he was born in (wait for it) 1977. Age appropriateness at its best!

The only question is whether this is a belated gift or an early gift? His birthday is in late January. I received a definite "Happy Belated Birthday" card from her the next day (my birthday is nowhere near this time of year). No 78 cents though so I think I got screwed. She did call me her "Sunshine Catey" though. Yep, that's me. Sunshine. And Catey. With a Y. Maybe $1.65 was just too much for her to come up with all at once. I'll be on the lookout.

11 comments:

C. Beth said...

Wow. 77 cents. And basing it on the year of birth doesn't even give him the chance to "move up." Wow.

Your gift ideas are fantastic, especially the cigarette case. Good thinking, Sunshine Catey.

TMC said...

Holy crap that's an awesome gift.

Whenever I have to shop for kids (it isn't often), I always go educational, like getting them books, or else I stick to the classics like legos, lincoln logs, puzzles, etc. Things that'll help grow their brains.

kim said...

anything with crayola attached to the description is appropriate--have you seen that new contraption from Crayola that re-uses the crayon scraps by melting them down and reforms them into new, psychedelic colors?

Shoot, I want that for Christmas myself!

Kimmy said...

LMAO!! Are you kidding me??!! She could have at least got a little creative and looked for all the coins for 1977.

I know what you mean though, with the whole high expectations. That would be my dad! He's so hard to buy for yet, if you get him some piddly thing, we didn't put much thought or effort (or money!) into it. Maybe if he just TOLD us what he wanted in a reasonable price range, then maybe he would get something decent. To top it off, his birthday is Jan 5 so it gets kind of expensive for us with his gifts this time of year. grr!

Lora said...

oh yeah, me and Dave are totally rich too. Just ask anyone in the family.

I love gift giving, hate the spending. I used to want to start a gift shopping business so I could shop for rich people.

No more pocket knives, okay?

2cats said...

Buy a family gift for them. Like maybe a day at a water park. Or dinner at the local pizza place. One gift for all makes it simple on the brain. OR gift cards all around.

blognut said...

Are all of the coins dated 1977, too?

And are you planning to give his mother a pile of coins for her birthday as well?

betty said...

LOL! it is hard to buy for the family especially if you don't live close by; I always go with gift cards, so much more usable and no exchanges needed

I did buy my nephew very noisy gifts when he was younger; my brother made up for it when we had our kids, LOL

betty

Lauren said...

Wow, everyone complains about family but that's a challenging bunch you married into.

I'd be tempted to tell them all not to expect gifts, that I'll be on my yacht for the holidays.

Nessa said...

That's a great gift. It would have been even better if each coin was minted in 1977.

Thursday Thirteen - My Drive to Work

Ryan Ashley Scott said...

Ha! I snorted at Fruitloop.

With husband's family, we are considered the rich ones (yes, even as we are currently looking for work - because none of his family have jobs. Ever). We always spend less on them because they don't have money to spend, either. They may not like it, but I refuse to go all out financially (we still do very thoughtful gifts for his parents) when they are constantly looking for handouts all year long.