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If you stop to think, you know that a ten-cent present is often more fascinating to a child than something more expensive. The giver is far more likely to add something of himself to the gift if he's wholly responsible for it. Sometimes he will make mistakes. He will buy the thing he would most like to have, and it will not appeal one bit to Johnny. This is all part of the learning experience. Mistakes are inevitable. If one is not allowed to make them, he may never learn anything.
Gracious acceptance of a gift is harder to learn than gracious giving. Again, experience is essential. The frank-and, by adult standards, rude
-comments sometimes made by the young about presents they receive arc pei haps shocking to us, but not to the young donors. With help, as they grow up, they come to realize that our deepest thanks are for the giver's thought of us. When they get that far they say their thanks because they mean them, not because their mothers make them.
how young?
Mothers of very young children, especially if they're first children, are inclined to want to celebrate their earliest birthdays, just as fathers are inclined to buy electric trains too soon. If you must celebrate the birthday of a child three years old or younger, do it yourself, make it your party. Don't try to make a social occasion for a group of infants. It can't be done. For you to give your baby a special present and perhaps make a special fuss over him that day is enough celebration for him. But any age from four on is party-age for children.
four- and five-year-olds
Invite six, or at most eight, guests. Mother may ask them all by telephone, or she may make invitations out of light cardboard, at the top of which she draws a birthday cake to be colored with crayons by the birthday child. Here's a form for it:
Landy Smith will be five years old on Saturday, January 25th, and would like to have you come and celebrate with him
from four until six. There will be supper. r.s.v.p. (or Please Answer)
The beginning of the party will be taken up with receiving and un-wrapping birthday gifts. Be sure to have enough toys handy for guests so that not too many wrangles arise over the new ones. Usually each guest wants to play with the one he brought, and very likely will want to take it home!
Here are games for four- and five-year-olds. If they can be played out
doors, that's far the best plan. Don't give prizes. Competition is little understood by this age and prizes are confusing and often cause hurt feelings. If they are demanded by your small host, have one for everybody.
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