Party Favors

[welly01]

I gave out party favors at DD's birthday party this weekend because I felt obligated. But I was already scrambling to get all the food/decorations done and they just turned out kinda crappy. Like just cheap junk that honestly no one wants. I'm so over stressing about offering party favors.  Our parties usually consist of just family and close friends only (no school friends). Can I just quit feeling guilty about "having" to provide party favors or is this something important I should care about?

[k3am]

SS. I hate party favors with a passion. I would prefer not to give or receive them. But DD has been brainwashed, and asks every before we go to the party if there will be party favors. Even a crappy party favor is amazing to her.

[supertrooper1]

They're still only a thing at weddings in my area, and not even at every wedding. No one does them for birthday parties, or even baby showers.
Do not feel guilty!

[hocus2]

My kids inquire about favors but I personally don't care if there is one. They are very common here. Some years I spend a lot of time thinking about it and other years it is simple stuff I found on amazon. You can skip and accept that small number of kids might say something (note that they may something even if you offer them which has happened to me I found it amusing but I could see how others would consider it rude). If you find them really stressful I'd start doing stuff like uno cards or gold fish packs.

[186momx]

The last couple parties we went to had pinata's and the kids favor was the bag of candy/junk toys they collected from the pinata.

I don't like them and DD has started to not like them as she can't eat a lot of the stuff that gets put in them so just finds it depressing.

FFFC if I'm paying for you kid to swim, bowl, jump, etc I shouldn't have to give out presents too.

[erinshelley21]

I'm going to give it my best effort to never provide party favors for my kids' parties. I'll provide favors for showers that I host, but that usually entails booze. I do not want to bring home piddly shit from a party and I don't want to be that mom that does.

[sudokufan]

SS - I don't expect them, but I like them and so does DS. And for the 2 kids parties I've done for DS so far, I found them a handy way to signal the party was over without coming out and announcing folks should leave already

[mustardseed2007]

It doesn't matter what party favors you give, but my kids do love them and even, embarrassingly, will loudly ask where the goody bags are.

This weekend we went to two parties, they both had favors. One was pinterest perfection and the other included a bunch of totally random, not on theme stuff including Christmas stickers in DD's bag.

Whatever, it didn't matter. In the car on the way home DD covered her whole body in those Christmas stickers before totally passing out, dead to the world. It was pure joy to her.


ETA: At a wedding or shower if you don't have them I wouldn't think twice. 

[Covergirl82]

I don't expect them, but my kids seem to. However, I agree with 186momx, that if I'm paying for a party that involves a fun activity, I don't give them out, nor do I expect my kids to receive something if they go to a party at a fun place. We have had a few parties at a jump place that gives kids a party favor bag (cinch sack with a few tchotckies), so the party favor was already included.

I hate dollar-store toys, so for DS's last birthday party, which we had at our house, we got each of the kids a baseball cap with the school district's logo and colors. (Kids in our school district like to rep our school district, which is such a foreign concept to me, but I went to a terrible school district growing up.)

[ilovelucyvv]

I wish they weren't a such a thing because we really don't need all of the junk and some of it is more trouble than it is worth. But are they expected? Unfortunately yes.

[HeartofCheese]

I don't want them if they're crappy. =D

I also would probably never notice if I didn't get one. The kids, however, LURVE their party favors. The crappier, the better.

[twinmomma]

I don't want them to be a thing. But they're a BIG thing here. I try to make it something useful. I've done Targer dollar section water bottles or that kind of thing. Then the kids feel like they got something and I feel like it's not just plastic junk that parents have to try and toss later.

[sandandsea]

Goodie bags are huge in my area. And people drop a thousand dollars or more for kid parties and invite the whole class plus families. It's insane. I have given useful things (sunglasses, beach balls, pencils, Rubin cubes, etc) and taken the easy route with the location provided bags. They're all junk and extra stuff regardless but they are so expected. I wish they weren't!

[akafred]

I "expect" them just because everyone does them. I would not. E shocked or scandalized in any way if someone doesn't. I'm sure we have been to parties with no goody bags, but I can't remember because I am not keeping score .

I do give some kind of favor but try to make it related to the party theme and more useful long term. A couple years I have given books out, one year she had a pool party so we gave out pool toys that the kids could use during the party, one year we had it at a horse back riding farm and we had the kids make pool noodle ponies as a craft and they got to take those home as the favor (it was awesome, by the way). This past one was more goody bag at DD's insistence since she wanted candy and junk. It was a Harry Potter theme so I gave everyone a wand and goody bags with HP tattoos, HP glasses, some candy in potion vials, etc. It was soooo much effort and I would rather just buy paperbacks lol.

[campermom]

One of the smartest moms I know and work with also has 3 kids. For her youngest, she had a Friday night birthday party at a trampoline park. Pizza for dinner supplied by the party site. As each kid left, she handed them a 2-pack Reese's PB cup with a label that said "Thanks for coming to X's birthday!"

The end. Everyone's happy.

And she enjoyed her weekend, I'm sure.

[saraml13]

Sept 25, 2017 10:54:24 GMT -5 k3am said:

SS. I hate party favors with a passion. I would prefer not to give or receive them. But DD has been brainwashed, and asks every before we go to the party if there will be party favors. Even a crappy party favor is amazing to her.

Also a favor hater. DS1 sometimes gets them from daycare. He gets all excited but I generally throw out 90% of the stuff as soon as I get it away from him. We haven't started friends birthday parties yet, but I'm hoping to avoid goody bags.

[mommyatty]

DD was invited to two birthday parties the same weekend. At the first, no favors. DD mentioned it when we got home. I told her that was perfectly fine. Her response was "Okay, but that's so weird." Next day's party? Favors. All was right with the world.

I couldn't care less one way or the other. We do them because we feel obligated and because I love doing crap like that. But I don't judge people who don't do them at all. Not even a tiny bit.

[waverly]

This is timely because we are doing DS's party and I feel like I have to have something because all the other ones have. I picked out something that doesn't seem junky, but I haven't picked it up yet, so who knows?

[freezorburn]

Yeah I generally don't want more junk coming home with us from a party.

I've always put "no gifts please" on DS's birthday invites. We have too much stuff in our house, and he gets plenty of presents from our immediate families. Some of his friends have still brought small gifts, but they were thoughtful and I was glad they didn't feel obligated. Most recent birthday, he got a drawing from friend, another one brought a Kinder egg from a recent trip as well as a post card from the trip, with a picture of a historic steam train on it (DS loves trains). Another friend brought a packet of seeds. There might have been a few other things. DS didn't understand why he didn't get lots of gifts like some of his friends got at their parties, but I explained that the most important gift was friendship and time. He seemed to get that, especially since his gifts from family were pretty darn good.

I do give out goody bags but I think it's just me and not any pressure I feel under. This year I tried to give things that I knew would get used. Bubbles, sidewalk chalk, pencils with fun patterns printed on them. Tiny pots of play-doh. Also it was late spring so I found some 2" pots of geraniums and fuchsias, for the kids to plant when they got home.

[kimberlybb]

I hate party favors but most people do them here so we usually do them too. I usually only give one thing that relates to the party theme or we make something during the party that the kids can take home though. For DS’s first birthday we did a cookies and milk theme. For favors I had bags that people could take extra cookies home. For DD’s Moana party this year the kids decorated coconut cups that they used during the party and then took home.