| Nowadays, there are no rules or customs dictating | | | | given so no one gets their feelings hurt. |
| whether birthday presents should be opened during the | | | | On the other hand, not opening the gifts in front of |
| party or saved until after the party. On one hand, | | | | guests avoids any sense of the guest feeling as |
| opening gifts in front of guests is respectful since the | | | | though their present wasn't up to par compared to |
| guests made the effort of purchasing a gift. Since | | | | someone else's gift. And, for larger parties, gift opening |
| children will be giving and receiving gifts for years to | | | | can be impractical. To avoid the boredom of making |
| come, this provides an opportunity for them to learn | | | | the guests wait while the birthday child opens every |
| how to do so graciously. One way to make the gift | | | | gift, it may be best to put the gifts aside, focus on the |
| opening process less chaotic is to have the children sit | | | | party, then let the birthday child open the gifts in their |
| in a circle. Have two chairs - one for the birthday child | | | | own time after the party. This takes the pressure off |
| and one for the gift-giver. Move in a circle with the | | | | squeezing the gift opening process into the party |
| next birthday guest sitting in a chair next to the | | | | timeframe and avoids over-stimulating the birthday |
| birthday child to witness their gift being opened. Take a | | | | child with too many gifts at one time. To add a |
| photo of the two friends together during the | | | | personal touch in this situation, consider taking a photo |
| gift-opening and send the photo along with the thank | | | | of your child holding up the gift and send it to the |
| you card. Creating a neutral way to open gifts avoids | | | | gift-giver in the thank you note. |
| any awkwardness of deciding what order gifts are | | | | |