Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Tacky

Today I completed a whole batch of birth announcements for Liam. In them I included a line that said,"No gifts please; Liam's good health is the best gift we could ask for!"

After revieweing one of the cards, Mac informed me, "That's tacky! If people want to send you a gift, they are going to anyway."

"Fine. But most people think you are supposed to send a gift whenever you get any kind of announcement. It seems like it is more tacky to send announcements to people if it looks like I am just trying to get them to send a gift. I mean, pretty much everybody already knows I had a baby!"

"Yeah, so why are you sending them?"

It's a good question. I am not sure exactly. But I guess it is because not all my friends and family read the blog, and I want them to be able to see Liam; Because the internet seems ephemeral to me and I want to mark my son's birth with something more tangible, something more permanent; Because I did it for Megan and I don't want to fall short with my second child; and Because deep down, I am still a traditional girl at heart.

In the final batch I omitted the "no gifts" phrase. Maybe it was inappropriate. But I am still hoping nobody sends a gift just because they got an announcement.



2 comments:

  1. Hmm, it has never even occurred to me to send a gift when I receive a birth announcement! Maybe I'm in the minority. But when I get an announcement in the mail, that's my cue to write the birthdate on the official calendar, so thanks for sending it!

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