The Perfect Gift

by Kristy MacKaben

Whether you think it’s obnoxious or convenient, gift giving for birthdays has changed in recent years. While gift registries were once reserved for weddings or baby showers, kids are now making their birthday wish lists public.

Websites like Amazon, Pinwheel, WishPot and TallWish allow children to select gifts from different retailers to create specialized wish lists.

Local stores have also gotten in on the action. Brilliant Sky Toys, in Sandy Springs and Atlanta, offers a gift registry service where children go into the store to select gifts they wish to receive, and the sales associates create wish lists, and wrap the gifts for friends or family members who buy the gifts. The service is especially popular with out-of-town family members who call to purchase a gift that the parents of the birthday child pick up and give on the child’s birthday.

“It’s easier and it’s the convenience of people coming in and knowing the child will get something they want,” says Sandy Springs store manager Lisa Nicholas, explaining children usually pick gifts for the registry in the $10 to $40 price range. Though it might seem awkward to tell people what to give your child, most gift givers like the service because they know the child will enjoy the gift, Nicholas says.

Learning Express, a specialty toy store with locations in Alpharetta, Marietta and Atlanta, takes wish lists to another level. The store allows birthday kids to come in a couple weeks before their birthdays and pick out their desired toys and put them in a special birthday bin with their name on it. Then, friends or family members can find the bin behind the counter and pick a gift, which is wrapped in the store.

“They get a box and fill it with the stuff they would like to get for their birthday,” says Christina Merced, sales associate at the Alpharetta store. “It’s funny to see the things they put in there – anything from little knickknacks and lip glosses to $100 scooters for the grandparents to get them.”

Most parents make sure the gifts vary in price, so that there are plenty of affordable options. Merced says the average price of a birthday gift ranges from $10 to $30.

“There’s two sides of it,” Merced says. “The parents of the birthday child know that the kid will get what they like and they won’t get duplicates. But the biggest benefit I hear is from parents who come shopping for another child. They don’t have to spend hours trying to figure out what does this child have or want.”