Parents know how exciting Christmas can be for children because we feel the same way about naptime. But the extent to which babies can tell a difference between the holidays and any other season remains a mystery. Babies are showered with presents, love and joy before they are even born, so what obligation do we have to make sure they have more presents on Christmas morning?
5 Reasons Not to Buy Your Baby a Christmas Present
- Babies already have everything – If you don’t think babies already have everything, you haven’t considered why somebody needed to invent a wipe warmer. Many things startle a baby: an ice machine, barking dogs, sneezing, etc. Cold wipes aren’t in the top one thousand. You will need to invent something like the flying bottle or a chocolate crib if you want to give your baby something he or she doesn’t already own.
- Babies will never know if they don’t get a present – The odds of babies realizing they are supposed to have Christmas presents is remote considering babies will scream tirelessly for a pacifier without realizing the object of their desire is clinched tightly in their hand. As long as you keep up with feedings, your baby will be content with simply your love and the deluge of gifts they already get on an everyday basis.
- You will be doing most of the unwrapping anyway – Babies are as skilled at opening presents with their hands as parents are skilled at opening presents with one chopstick. The unwrapping process will either last beyond New Year’s Day or somebody is going to do most of the work for them. You might as well give a baby an unwrapped gift, which begs the question of whether an unwrapped gift can even count as a Christmas present.
- Babies are more interested in the wrapping paper than the present – Babies might not be good at unwrapping presents, but you would be better off taking a bottle from a hungry baby than taking wrapping paper from a baby on Christmas day. Much like babies prefer to play with an empty toilet roll over whatever commercials tell us is the must-have toy of the year, babies are almost certain to enjoy playing with the wrapping paper more than whatever expensive gift the paper wrapped.
- The mess – There is a direct correlation between the number of toys your baby owns and the likelihood that you will step on one of these toys with the spot of your foot that induces the most pain. Babies and kids in general have an innate gift (pun intended) to scatter toys throughout a house in the most difficult places to clean. Also, if a baby is going to continue playing with wrapping paper, that’s just more trash that is lingering around your house indefinitely.
5 Reasons to Buy Your Baby a Christmas Present
- Because it’s Christmas – Christmas is a time for love and forgiveness, even if that means loving and forgiving someone who vomits on you without remorse, cries every night between the hours of 1am to 5am and thinks its funny when they make you change their diaper. In comparison, withholding presents from babies for being so cute everyone wants to shower them with presents seems silly.
- Pictures – You don’t have to be Anne Geddes to take an adorable baby picture on Christmas. Give a baby a Santa hat and a present bigger than their body and you having the makings of the cutest photo album on Facebook.
- You can give your baby a present for yourself – You don’t have to buy your baby a new swing set for Christmas. Your baby will be just as excited to watch you unwrap their new jogging stroller, baby gate or white noise machine.
- Guilt – Saving a few dollars on a baby’s Christmas gift might feel thrifty at the time, but eventually the cost of your guilt for not being more generous will be more costly to you. Somebody is going to ask you what you bought your baby for Christmas and you don’t want to have to say just room and board, especially if the people asking are your baby’s older siblings who need you to set a positive example.
- It is better to give than to receive – Even though we can’t remember what it was like to be a baby showered with toys for reasons as unwarranted as because they won’t stop throwing toys, it probably is better to give than to receive. At a minimum, it’s true that inspiring a baby’s smile is a better present than anything a Secret Santa has ever given.
