Sunday, June 4th, 2006
Gifts
I've been thinking about this, and how I want to proceed with it.
As I've mentioned before, our neighborhood has almost a dozen of babies under 4 years old (all of whom are boys, except for our little girl). There is another baby arriving soon. And there is a baby shower, hosted by the sister-in-law who also live in the same neighborhood (and has 2 boys herself). This will be that family's first baby. All of us are on neighborly terms, meaning, we have nothing in common with any of these people except for the fact that our kids are in the same age group. Nothing at all. But the ones who do have children on occasion do get together for playdates. The question is, should I go to the baby shower?
See. When our baby girl was born last year, we received all but one gift from any neighbor. One. And it wasn't the Pregnant Woman nor her sister-in-law. And I suspect that we even received a gift was because we gave them a gift card when their 2nd boy was born 6 months prior to Fiona was born. And the fact that we live immediately next door to each other.
We had a girl, GIRL, as in, a different gender than our first child. So yes, I feel just a bit bad about the fact that we didn't get any pink from any other neighbors.
Am I too calculative? I know I don't have to feel obligated to go, and I'm not obligated to give a gift if I don't want to. But the fact remains that the only girl in the neighborhood did not receive gifts from these people to celebrate her arrival.
And they are inviting me to attend this baby shower / asking me to bring presents covertly/discretely. Let's be honest. A baby shower is about getting stuff for the baby. I'm so cynical.
Would you get presents for them if you were me?
In the same vain of discussion, is it unethical to re-gift? Or does it depend on the gift / situation / person receiving the gift?
