Goody goody
My son's birthday party is this Saturday. Know what I've been consumed with in preparation for the party?
"Goody bags." You got it in one.
I'm not that worried about the birthday cake that I haven't ordered yet, or the decorations that I haven't purchased, or even whether it will rain and force everyone inside. It's the bags.
I have a love-hate relationship with goody bags. I feel torn between the desire to make really, really great bags with lots of fun stuff and the desire to not go bankrupt (or crazy). I love the image of the kids gasping in delight when they open their goody bags, but I hate spending a lot of my hard-earned cash on stuff that might end up in the trash within hours.
The pressure intensifies whenever my son attends a party like the one where every kid got his own Curious George puzzle and a bunch of other toys. It lets us when someone hands over a little sack of plastic garbage. Sometimes it's actually a relief when we go to a party and there's no goody bag at all, but those are getting rare.
I actually succeeded in creating a good-yet-thrifty goody bag for last year's party. I gave every child a plastic beach pail with a shovel, a bottle of bubbles, a mini-can of Play-Doh, and some really nice stickers that I landed at a big sale. So I know I can't top myself this year, and since it's the same group of kids coming, I don't want to do the exact same thing I did last year. Not that anyone would remember. Hey, there's a thought…. Or heck, I could just hand out some dollar bills: here, kid, go buy yourself something nice.
Finally, part of me wonders what the whole point of the goody bag is anyway. To make the kids who attend the party feel better about having to hand over the present to the birthday boy or girl? To say thank you for coming to the party, even though we'll send thank you notes later anyway? To ratchet up the pressure on high-strung people like me who just can't seem to shake off the desire to please everybody all of the time?
I think I'll take D) all of the above.
We had the same issues with the school birthday party last year. Our daughter is a day apart from another girl and we offered to do something jointly. The other mom was a stern "no" on that front, and we knew the were getting cake on Friday. We ended up doing fruit cups and a goody along the line of yours.
I dread when my daughter is old enough to know that we're bad parents for sending fruit instead of sugar!
Posted by: RobMonroe | April 16, 2009 at 10:18 AM
Oh yes, the school party. My son has a kid with a peanut allergy in his class, and that complicates things even more. Ack.
Posted by: Jenn L | April 16, 2009 at 02:43 PM
I dread this. Why must we give out plastic bags of crap? Love the play dough idea 'cause that's fun that lasts a long time. How about flowers? Pansies or something?
Posted by: Natalie | April 18, 2009 at 08:48 AM