I never buy birthday presents for kids' parties. They often miss the mark and unwrapping them is chaos, so I give money instead.

I never buy birthday presents for kids' parties. They often miss the mark and unwrapping them is chaos, so I give money instead.

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When my older son turned 5 last year, we invited his whole class to his birthday party. We hosted a rowdy group of 30 kids disappearing down ball pits, whizzing down slides, and climbing padded ladders for two hours. It was definitely some kind of carnage. The other kind of carnage we experienced later that day was going through the birthday presents he received — nearly 40, by the time you included those from family.

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