I’ve already blogged about my admiration for Retro Wife and her £40 son’s Saturday Night at the Movies-themed birthday party. Take a look – the popcorn cupcakes are fabulous, as are the film reel invitations. Anyway, it’s full on birthday party season at nursery and school. Is it just me, or are there more birthdays between September and March than at any other time of the year? At this rate my two older boys will be invited to around 20 parties each this year, with the baby bringing up the rear with a handful of his own (poor 17-month-old doesn’t have friends yet, apart from the ones I force on him because I like their mothers). Anyway, 45 or so invitations means the children being able to attend at least 30 parties between them, and this means an awful lot of present buying. And therein lies the rub. Or should that be rubbish? Sorry to sound ungrateful, but my children get given enough plastic tat to fill a skip every year. I personally don’t think birthday presents should be straight-t0-landfill items, and tend to buy the following: 

• A book or two, checking it’s age-appropriate (I buy older rather than younger). I try and find limited editions of classics in my local bookshop. Last year Pan Macmillan released a special gold edition of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s The Gruffalo to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the book’s publication. At £5.99 it was fantastic value, and designed to give a lifetime of pleasure.
• Arts & crafts stuff. Thick books of coloured paper, packs of crayons, bumper stationery sets for older children, glue sticks, glitter, stickers, paint by numbers colouring books. I steer clear of paint and Play Doh because some mums don’t thank you for introducing more mess into their house.
• Hair accessories for girls. Not the plastic kind that fall apart in five seconds. The child might thank you, but landfill and mum are unlikely to. Smart Alice bands, packs of coloured scrunchies, perhaps a good quality hairbrush.
• Matchbox toy cars. Mine can’t get enough of them.
• Lego extras. Packs of windows and doors, or stuff to go with an existing set. You need to find out if the child is into a particular set, Pirate say, but they’ll love more figures and pieces to play with. You can see the full range at the Lego website, where you can also play games and join the Lego club.
• Some of my favourite places to buy presents are Yellow Moon, which makes a donation to charity with every order, and Creative Charlie for craft stuff. Not on the High Street for personalised items (you can get a stone engraved with an initial or name from £11.50), Scarlett Willow for named placemats (this is at the top end of the scale at £19.95), and  The Pod Company and The Handpicked Collection for quirky, cool gifts such as the eco-friendly pump-up animal torch (£5.95).

See the light with an eco torch

And the worst presents my children have been given? Up there is a synthetic backpack in the shape of a monkey that was so small you could barely fit an apple in it. ‘Lego’, not manufactured by Lego, that didn’t fit together. Bright pink fleece hats (I don’t have daughters).

A mother at school suggested everyone putting £5 into a pot and the child then choosing their own present. It was vetoed as half the mothers felt that their child would miss out of the fun of opening a pile of presents. I was all for it. Toting a sack full of plastic to the charity shop makes me very sad. Though I appreciate it might make my children sad too for very different reasons.

Another mother suggested each parent buying just one present for children sharing a party, rather than one each. This was taken up, and meant each child still got to take home a stash of goodies.

Any ideas? What are your top present ideas? And the worst you’ve been given? Go on, ‘fess up. And don’t get me started on party bags.