What to do with unwanted personalized gifts?
We are so fortunate that many people have given us presents for our newborn.
Some of the gifts we really enjoy. Others, not so much. We generally give away the gifts that we don't want (for whatever reason), either to friends or to charity.
However, we have received some gifts that we don't want that are personalized. My son's name is common enough, but his birthdate and name together are not necessarily easy to match. How do I give these gifts to someone who will appreciate them?
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I would keep them for later. A newborn doesn't need a coin bank, for example. Nobody else is going to want a coin bank with your child's name and birthdate. A twelve year old will happily save coins in a jam jar. But a twenty-something, moving out into their own apartment, may be delighted and touched to have a coin bank, engraved with their name and birthdate, that was a gift from a relative who may now be gone. It can be in their new home as a reminder of how they were celebrated from the moment they were born.
If you are only going to keep objects for your child that are to your taste, you are going to have unhappy friends and relatives, and possibly an unhappy child. Those of us whose homes are full of brightly coloured plastic things, tacky stuffed animals with oversized eyes, and silly posters from TV shows and movies aren't tasteless morons who like that kind of thing. We're parents. We let our children have things that excite them and we let people give our children things we would never have bought ourselves. You might as well get used to it.
You might want to hang on to personalized gifts for a while, in case the gift-giver should notice the item is not around. If it really is unusable by anyone else, a quiet disposal may be the only way to let it go, since you would not want to risk the item ever crossing paths with the gift-giver. If there is a possibility someone could use it, you might give it to a charity in another city you pass through.
One time my father put gift dishes he didn't like inside of a wall he was building. I wonder if that house has ever been remodeled?
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