Would you let your toddler pick out her own holiday gifts?

When my son was still a newborn, wrapped up in Santa onesies and "My first Christmas" bibs, my mother told me the story of the first few holiday seasons they celebrated with me as a baby. She told me about pushing me through the toy store in a cart and holding up toys to gauge my reaction.

No response? My parents put them back. A slight response? Still not good enough. Wide eyes and giggles? Into the cart!

My parents didn't have much money back then and so it wasn't a frivolous shopping trip. They delighted in seeing their baby delighted and that's where they chose to put their Christmas budget.

It's lovely and sweet and paints this picture for me of my parents, young and excited, sharing this fun holiday moment with me long before I was old enough to be cognizant about everything that was going on.
But when I heard it as a new mother myself, I was aghast.

Sure, we could blame it on hormones or stress or lack of sleep or even the mama-bear instinct that immediately sets in after having a baby. But the truth is that I had so much fun carefully picking out tiny baby gifts for my tiny baby with the tiny budget I had to spend. I could not imagine celebrating the next holiday season wheeling him through toy aisles in the same giggle spree.

How could I? That was my job now! It would spoil the whole entire gift-giving season! Or at least that's what I thought then.

At least that's what I thought for the next year. Until my newborn became a toddler, full of expression and opinions babbled and laughed and wailed about while wearing little leather elf shoes. Then I got it.

I did choose gifts myself to place under the tree that year. But I also took a trip to the toy store and tested out kiddie drums and blocks and stacking cups and Elmos and dolls and all kinds of things. Because I was still tired and stressed and hormonal, it just made sense to toss the winners into the cart right then and there.

That was one moment in time. The next year, it was full-on Santa and stockings and other kinds of magic. But that year, some of the sweet and dreamy, sugar plum loveliness did happen in the aisles of a big-box store with my toddler, me, and a pile of presents in the cart.

My shock and awe at my parent's gift-giving strategy melted away, just as that strategy grew to include writing lists and making cookies and goopy DIY messes and all kinds of wonderful stuff. But once upon a time, it all came down to a squeal of a toddler under the fluorescent lights of a toy store.


Would you let your toddler pick her own holiday gifts?