I’m not sure where I first heard of giving four gifts with specific purpose. That is Want, Need, Wear, & Read. I know I most recently read about it at Simple Kids earlier last week. We had already purchased Lorelei’s gifts by then, but it is a concept that resonates with me each time I read it.
There are unlimited possibilities for gifts, but limited space in our house. We still wanted to give her gifts but we both wanted to narrow the focus.
The night before her birthday we received a box of gifts from her GG (my gramma) and her gift from our wonderful friend Erin. Because we ended up with more then the 4 gifts from us for her birthday, we decided instead of opening all her gifts first thing, we would change things up.
Opening all gifts at once, knowing what those gifts were, would have resulted in three year old overload. Instead, my wonderful husband (without the aid of a blog or parenting book… he asked me to write that… haha) came up with an idea to have an alarm that would randomly go off throughout the day. This was amazing. It resulted in all her gifts being enjoyed as if they were the only gift she was going to get, and there was very little asking about gifts. The alarm would go off, she’d jump up with excitement and if we were at home she’d run over the couch and sit nicely waiting for her gift to appear. She remembers each and every gift, what outfit she was wearing when she got it (she’s three, there was a different outfit for almost every gift), and who gave it to her. I’d call that success.
Her gifts from us:
WantÂ
She actually didn’t really want anything specific, so we decided to get her a necklace with a little girl reading on it from Sarah Jane Studios.
Need
A new Toothbrush – these ones have Snoopy on them – and yes, one of her gifts was opened in the tubby.
Wear
A new skirt from the girls section – XS/4-6 – this was post quiet time (and no naptime) and she was getting very sleepy. I love that she paired it with a batman shirt.
Read
She got two books – “Pinkalicious” and “Cat the Cat, Who is THAT?” – we had a gift card to a local bookstore that expires next week, so we decided to go ahead and get her two books.
