Dora's Corner: The Art Of Gifting (Age) Appropriately!

As it always happens most toys/items that we prefer to gift - mainly for the youngsters - tend to be for older kids.  Being without children I expect I have become more wary of buying more suitable, age-appropriate presents for children.  Not because I care about what others might think because I really do not.  I merely wish for kids to have toys/items that they will get the most out of and can play with right away.  Besides being different has always been my hand-to-play --if you will, but gifting is an art-form, and I always strive to buy gifts that others will like.  Not something I like, but what I know others are into and such.  It really just boggles my mind how often so many others do not take this 'unwritten rule' of buying age-appropriate gifts to task, and end up gifting things that a child may not be able to use for some while.

The last present I bought a couple of days ago was for my great-niece who is a wee 15 months-young.  No special occasion this time around.  It was something I do for all children in our family or circle of friends.  But I must say that this one little girl has just tugged at all of our heart-strings.  Personally, she is the 'apple of my eye'.  I don't demean the place that the other children in the family have in my life.  Nor do I place them on different  levels of priority: "no one is more loved than anyone else!"  I do not love one person more than another.  However, I will not pretend that some have a different place in my life.  There is a difference in all relationships.  The more some do for me and communicate with me then the more I cherish that relationship we have.  But this great-niece of mine perhaps took such a role in my heart and in my life because she was born a year after we lost my mom to esophageal cancer.  Oh but how my mom would have loved this little great-granddaughter of hers.  My great-niece surely would have been spoiled even more-so by my wonderful mom! 

Anyway, back to story-in-point, in being at many parties for children --I have seen some people gift things that were intended for older kids.  Do most people just not get the idea behind companies printing the age-appropriate data on their items.  My guess is "no!"  It bothers me and maybe it can be considered one of my pet peeves because of the obvious reasons I stated above.  If the gift is for older children, then I would like to think that the people on the receiving end will take-to-heart or better yet, take-to-mind and just wait until their child is old enough to play with respective toy or whatever.  One could avoid all of this if people just learned the idea of appropriate gifting.  You wouldn't give a newborn a book (unless it is for a collection or something), but you get the gist of what I am stating today.  Hey, at the end of it all, maybe it is just me who gets disturbed by such things.  Oh, bother!

Just my take for the day!