January Birthday - Arlington Heights,IL

HI,
My girl was born on 1/5, so it's even closer to Christmas. Our philosophy is to celebrate Christmas as usual, so she doesn't feel different from everyone else (whatever your philosophy on Christmas may be) but make the birthday the choice of an experience, rather than a gift or things. For example, if your son has always wanted to go to the Shedd Aqaurium, then I'd wait for his birthday and take him. Or, if he's always wanted to learn how to do something, get him lessons. I feel spending time with each child is also a precious gift and experiences are things they always remember, not necessarily the things or toys. Good luck!

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I have a birthday a few days to Christmas and I can tell you it's not as fun as you'd think! You either get the birthday/Christmas present that isn't as nice as you'd get for two separate gifts or you get overloaded with stuff and then there's no other holiday for the rest of the year.

I suggest getting him just small gifts and have a small family party. Then celebrate his half birthday in July with a party and gifts! My parents let me do that and I loved having a party in the summer AND having a nice gift holiday in the middle of the year. Your son will probably be partied out so having the kids sing at school and a small family party will be fine. My friends were jealous that I got a half-birthday party and wanted them too :) It made up for all those years of having a birthday mashed into Christmas!

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NS's answer is awesome!!! My sister was born on Christmas Eve....for 42 loooog years...she never really had a "birthday party"....I gave her a surprise birthday party last year in August...she never suspected!!!
My daughter was born in February. I know your pain. I, too, ask for clothes....you know what? People buy what they want to buy. I "save" presents and dolle them out over the next several months.
NS is right on target. I plan on doing "half" b-day when she gets a little older..
Good Luck!!!

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My older daughter shares her birthday with your son, and my twins' birthday is Jan 5. The each get 3 decent presents for Christmas from "Santa" and then their stocking stuffers, along with everything from the rest of the family.

When it comes to their birthdays, I will take the girls each out for a day on their own. We have a budgeted mini shopping spree where they get to pick what they get and do either breakfast or lunch wherever they want. Now, for the actual birthday party, since we live in the Northeast and usually have a ton of snow at that point in time, we invite all of their friends to the local bowling alley and have a party there. If the weather cooperates, we will have a sled-riding party instead.

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Well our oldest child has a Jan birthday..its 2 weeks after Christmas. He is currently 10 1/2 yrs. This is what we have down since we celebrated his 6 birthday party. We now have his party instead of Jan. Every year our house was consistently sick with a stomach virus or something around the same time.
Now we celebrate it in the summer. Also for some of his birthday parties instead of presents we collected can food for the local food pantry.

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My birthday is Jan. 3 and I hated it when I got one present for my birthday and christmas, when I was a kid. Now of course I don't mind. As I got older teen and up most friends forgot my birthday, christmas break or still dragging from celebrating new year's eve, or they were too broke to do anything. Another person posted to celebrate his half birthday, which is a great idea, too. I say celebrate the birthday with a big gift. Buy little things for christmas. Plus, you can always store a few things away and bring them back out in the summer. If you are already planning now, why not buy some summer toys or water toys on clearnace for his b-day or christmas then he can open them in the summer.

My kids are on January 6th - I've requested gift cards for their birthdays so I could stretch out the gift stream. And I've done 1/2 birthdays so they get the fun summer jumpy party.

I think you are one of the few people who I ever heard say something like this. Usually people are upset that there children are gypped at their birthdays around Christmas. Get one big gift if it eliminates your making of choices, however, the other thing is to just take a lot of them and rotate for the year like they do in schools, or get bins and give him daily choices.

Hi My Son's (4) bday is jan 20th. So for Xmas i give him tiny gifts- books, colors, stuff like that. For bday i give him one big item he has wanted all year along. I gave him a toy scooter this time. hope that helps.

My son will turn 6 on the 3rd, so this is an issue for us, as well! The past 2 years I have gotten him new clothes for his birthday, plus one small toy or movie. He LOVES clothes and I'm a pretty good thrifter and can get him things I know he would like and can use. My older son's birthday is Feb. 3rd. so I splurged on a birthday party celebrating both of them at the end of January at Legoland so that each could invite 5 friends. They had a blast and so did their friends, but they've both informed me that this year they want separate celebrations. So much for killing 2 birds with one stone, right?! I like the half birthday celebration idea, but for the younger one, that would've been the July 4th weekend and for the older one, it would've been last weekend. It's too late this year to change the celebration date. Not to mention, how to get grandma, grandpa and aunties on board for changing their gift-giving habit? I've tried asking family members to consider clothing as a GREAT gift, since both boys really do love getting new clothes, but it's just not as much fun for the gift-giver to pick out, I guess. I have no answer, but am in the same boat—toy deluge—so I will be reading all the comments in the hope that we can come up with something that could fit our family too!

Here is one more answer (not sure if someone suggested the same). My sister-in-law's two children both have January birthdays. We celebrate on a very small scale with family - then in warmer months (June or July) she will have an official birthday party - it allows her more options for the party as outdoors is good in summer months AND spreads the gifts out.

My daughter has a February birthday. We try to ask people to bring her clothes at her birthday instead of toys. If she gets a lot of toys, we just put some up for later. She's only 3 though. I don't know if that would work for a 6 year old.

I like some of the suggestions about experiences as a gift for a birthday....No offense but why does everyone have to have a birthday party for their kids every year? One mother was complaining to me about the 15 birthday parties she had for her son in one year.....Well...only pick and choose a few...Preferably the kids he is close to...Not only that but who the heck has all the money to buy a multitude of kiddie birthday presents.. No wonder our kids have a sense of entitlement. Create fun experiences for your son and your family for birthdays...Those will be great memories for years to come.

My kids birthdays border the holidays as well and we have the same issue. We have a couple of different approaches--one Grandma gives them their big birthday gift on their half-birthday -- in the summertime when they can get something they couldn't use in the winter such as a trike, inflatable pool, bike, scooter, etc.

Another option we've done with a close friend whose daughter has everything and birthday is shortly after Christmas, is to give her a gift card along with something small for her birthday, The gift card is for an outing for her and her Mom to join us -- to a movie, trip to Color Me Mine, play, or for a boy it could be Lego Discovery, etc.

AE

My Kids birthday's are in May and I still feel it's so soon after Christmas we are still opening new toys! We have started making their birthday for charity. Several other friends have done it too. They by no means get no gifts. Some friends and family members still brought gifts but they were much smaller and it wasn't so overwhelming. It also was a great lesson for my son and so fulfilling. Since he loves animals and currently can't have the dog he wants for his birthday we collected for a local pet shelter. I wrote about it for Mamapedia Voices, you can read it here: http://www.mamapedia.com/voices/the-best-gifts-dont-need-...

A lot of the comments also have ideas.

I am in the same boat - my daughter's B-day is the 14th. We tried a no gifts party and everyone brought gifts. What I have been doing is putting them away and opening them in later months. Not sure if this will work with an older child though.

I like the idea of gifts to charity - I am not sure my daughter would understand that they are not for her at her age, but your son might at 6.

I've heard of a couple of ideas... and will be looking for more because our 2nd is due Jan 3.

1) Do a "half year" party, basically do something special on the child's birthday for just your family then have their birthday party in a different month so that the gifts are spread out.

2) Have the birthday party be a fun activity (Glazed Expressions, Michael's parties, bowling, etc) and ask that party guests bring a gift that can be passed along to a local charity or children's hospital.

My daughters are 7 & 4 and have February & March birthdays. Double whammy in our house. When Christmas is coming and they are making their "wish list" we ask them to pick at least one thing off of the list that they would like for their birthday. My youngest has never gotten everything that has been on her list. My oldest, does not ever ask for much so she makes it hard. She usually only has two or three things on her list, and so far they have not been expensive items. Makes it hard for us to come up with a nice gift from Santa . When her birthday comes I let her pick either a nice gift or a birthday party. She has picked a party the last couple of years. We always take the girls out to eat (we don't eat out much as I love to cook & my husbands cholesterol is high) and they get to pick wherever they want to eat (no McDonalds or fast food as that is only a lunchtime treat on a special day, never for dinner. LOL) they love picking their dinner spot and going out. Last Christmas they had small stuff on their lists like Polly Pockets, Pet shop, etc. Santa bought my oldest a Digi (handheld educational game) and my youngest got a Leapster (handheld game). We ended up giving them a Wii from Mom and Dad. They didn't ask for it, but I thought it would be a nice family thing instead of board games all the time. That ended up being a great choice because then for their birthdays they could pick a game that they wanted. The Digi and Leapster are the best gifts ever....talk about peace and quiet on long car rides!!! We love it!! The Wii was great in the winter when we were stuck inside. All four of us would play together and the girls think that's the best. Everyone gets a movie in their stocking....even mom and dad & it's way better than candy and little stuff that ends up broken or all over the house.

Season passes to the zoo,children's museum,local pool waterpark are the best gifts. If people ask you what he wants suggest one of those.The children's musuem passes can include all children'e museums. We just visited the ones in St Joe Michigan for free!

I've heard the idea of giving a class or an event as a gift. You could do this for your child, and suggest it to relatives who ask for gift ideas. Active grandparents sometimes pay for a class and take the child to it--now that's a gift that keeps on giving!

My birthday is January 3, and I always felt gypped with a combo birthday/Christmas gift. Of course, back then, we only got a few gifts anyway. How about a savings bond? My now grown kids are really excited about cashing in their bonds now that college is looming-they totally forgot they had them, and now are so in a hurry to get them.

My son will also be turning 6 on January 11th! (1/11/11) :) I am looking forward to hearing the responses because I deal with the same thing. He gets so much for Christmas that nobody knows what to get him, so he ends up not getting much for his birthday. And, if they give him money/gift cards, he usually has to wait awhile to use them because everything is so picked over from Christmas! I feel for all the people with birthdays in Dec/Jan. And since its cold at that time and our house isn't big enough for a big party, I am always looking for places to have his party. Good luck and I hope you get some good advice!

They do get so many toys, so I love the idea of experiences as a gift. For my kid's birthdays, we give them a special "outing" for their birthday, so each kid birthday we go to a place we have not yet been as their gift from us parents, whether it be a museum, a zoo, Medieval Times is on our list that we have not yet done. That kind of thing. So far with 2 kids ages 6 and 4 we haven't yet run out of new places to go. If we begin doing kid parties, that will be the gift from us. (We already do family parties.) For Christmas, we do a gift exchange with one side of the family. For that, we have received memberships as a family gift. This year was to Shedd Aquarium. Next year I'm thinking possibly Museum of Science and Industry. Other ideas are kid's museum, Brookfield Zoo, Morton Arboretum, that kind of thing.