#I got a gift card from my grandma too so I ordered an Apple Pencil and I’m!! so pumped!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mommaveggie · 7 years

Text

I threw my own baby shower, and I am not ashamed.

There's this big guilt culture around throwing your own baby shower.. because it's seen as you asking for gifts. Well, it's practically a cultural necessity to have a baby shower for your first child at least, one because everyone expects it and two because baby stuff is really fucking expensive.

People *want* to do things for pregnant people and new parents. There's no shame in accepting the help. I realized while reading a book recently (The Social Animal by David Brooks--great book!) that it's part of our evolutionary makeup. Help each other. Band together. Provide for new families so the community can thrive and grow. So it's completely natural for people to present gifts and celebrate a new family. There's no shame in accepting it.

Now that part is over with.

I did have someone offer to throw the baby shower for me and I accepted, but they had so much personal life and financial stress during the last few months that I knew it would be too much on their plate, and I would feel bad expecting them to put together a party and buy decorations and rent a place and all the things that the host/ess traditionally does. So I took over.

Pinterest, oddly, was not much help. I found more with google, because everything that was pinned was the same stuff over and over. I researched local parks and community centers but they were all quite expensive to rent, until my grandma suggested one near her house. She contacted the person and rented it for me for the afternoon for only $60. That was very kind of her and I'm grateful. She also bought some balloons and a little helium machine.

For decorations and plates etc, I went to dollar tree. Because it's spring, I was able to get some lovely little paper lanterns, paper plates and napkins, and pink and purple plastic silverware. I also bought a couple of divided trays to make my own fruit, veggie, and chip trays. We also ended up bringing some stuffed animals from the house to put around on the tables, and my mom brought some flowers in a vase as well. It was nice. :) The place came equipped with white tablecloths so we didn't have to worry about that at all.

For food, we went to Aldi and our local grocery store. We got all our produce at Aldi because it's mega cheap and good quality. The fruit tray had strawberries, grapes, pineapple (canned and drained), green apple slices, and orange slices. The veggie tray had celery, carrot. green bell pepper/capsicum, tiny tomatoes, almonds, and I had roasted some sweet peas in the oven that went in there as well. The chip tray had wavy original, tortilla chips, sweet potato chips, pretzels, crackers, and pringles. Then we also had dips next to that--salsa, a tray of hummus that had 4 flavors, and ranch and French onion dip. I didn't really want to include those last two dips as they were the only non-vegan things we had, but I was talked into it so that everyone would have something they liked. We also had home made desserts--gluten free cinnamon donuts, strawberry cupcakes, cinnamon swirl cupcakes, and my former hostess made a delicious "rainbow unicorn monkey bread". We already had platters that we could lay these things out on so that was easy. My mom brought some 2 liters, ice, and plastic cups for people to drink out of.

For entertainment we brought my old CD player and a stack of CDs. I am not a fan of tacky normal baby shower games so this was where we utilized google and my husband's creativity. I found a list of non-tacky baby shower games and picked a couple off of there: advice for new parents, baby 'bucket list' of things to do in the first year, guess the delivery date, and baby shower bingo. We literally just bought some construction paper and cut it into squares for people to write things on and made little signs for each station. I found some free baby shower bingo cards online that were already filled out, and we had little chocolate bars for prizes. We also got a little cheap bucket from walmart for the 'bucket list', it was less than a dollar. We got that in the Easter section--always utilize any holidays that are around when you're doing a party! The other activities we had my husband came up with, and we just put down paper and pencils for those, with little signs. "Write a bedtime story for Jubilee" and "Draw a picture for our homemade mobile!". At the end of the two tables of activities, I also put a stack of envelopes for people to write their names on so it would be easier to send thank you cards.

For the favors, I honestly really dropped the ball. We got a pack of those little cellophane bags from walmart and a giant bag of pink themed candy (jolly ranchers and twizzlers and suckers) that was $8 and I divided it among the bags. I also had some Lisa Frank sticker packs I'd bought at Dollar Tree ages ago, and a bunch of scented markers I was gifted for Christmas. I divided those up among the bags too and put them in a little box. Only a few people took those so it didn't matter they were crappy lol.

Then for presents, my grandma brought a wooden crib she had bought at a yard sale when she found out I was pregnant. We tied a few balloons to it and people put their presents inside it when they came in. We pulled up a chair next to it so I could sit while opening presents. When it came to present time, we passed out the bingo cards and some markers, and my husband had a little notebook to write down who gave us what so I could include it in the thank you cards.

The only other things we had to prepare were the invitations and the thank you cards. I probably should have put this at the beginning but I forgot, hah! The invitations were from a website called Greetings Island where we could use their templates, pick a design, and edit it with our own text. It included registry links and had free online viewing and sending. If we wanted to order some printed it had the option too, but I chose the free option and emailed/facebook'ed them to people. The thank you cards we got at walmart.

Over all, we spent roughly $50 ourselves on the party. It was well worth it, I think. :)

I'll try to remember to post some pictures from it later, it wasn't fancy but it was nice enough I think.

#preggieveggie #babyshower #baby shower

1 note · View note