You may remember that when the twins turned 16 we did a Significant Sixteen Gift: the post I just linked to is only about Elizabeth’s gift, which ended up being a birthstone ring I can’t find any posts about it but we got Edward a watch in the same approximate price range. I’d thought he might like some dapper clothes/accessories (as a younger child he went through a vests/bowties stage, and then a blazer stage), but I discussed it with him and it sounds like he’d be better off going to Goodwill and looking for some fun inexpensive used dapper stuff. He doesn’t have feelings about brand-name clothes yet, so I can’t buy him overpriced hoodie/shoes he’s been pining for. Birthdays FOR THE MOST PART involve items from the material realm. (I considered getting one anyway and filling it with the playbills of plays we’ve gone to, and giving it to him LATER-but I am having enough trouble shopping for CURRENT gifts he might not want, without working on POSSIBLE FUTURE gifts he might not want.) I have tried to get into the Experience Gifts trend, but the thing that stops me is how EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE that is to do? With the exception of Rob, who wants NO ITEMS FROM THE MATERIAL REALM and so we give him a ticket to a symphony/play and he is happy and relieved, the Experience Gift thing doesn’t currently work for the way we do gifts or the way we do experiences: they come from different parts of the budget, and with different ways of calculating value. I asked him if he wanted one of those binders for saving playbills, and he was not interested. He is a theater kid he has theater t-shirts we have gone to plays. He likes candy, and for an adult I might look at Expensive Special Candy, but he is not at that stage, and Snickers and Kit Kats don’t cost very much, so I’ll get him candy but that’s not enough progress, because this is a long-looking paragraph of ideas but all we have gotten out of it is books and candy. He likes t-shirts but, especially combined with handmedowns from siblings who ALSO like t-shirts, he has so many t-shirts. He likes books we’re already getting him books.
He likes Terry Pratchett, but that’s mostly books, which he has, and he also has an Unseen University t-shirt.
ETSY BOOKENDS PLUS
He likes Dungeons & Dragons, but he’s liked it for years so he already has as many dice sets as he wants, plus the various guides he wants, plus the dungeon master panel thing to hide his materials from the other players, plus a hoodie, plus a t-shirt, plus a stack of the magazines, plus a rugged-looking leather journal. I said, “But…are you okay with a birthday present pile that’s all rectangles?,” and he said he didn’t mind if it was rectangle-heavy but he’d prefer if it wasn’t ALL rectangles. He gave me a pretty good list, but it’s all books.
More pressingly, Henry will soon need birthday gifts to open. I know some of us got to know each other back when I was pregnant with Henry, and so I will use a gentle tone as I mention that this post is for Henry’s birthday.
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