1st Birthday
No one at a first birthday party is buying a gift for the one-year-old. It’s okay to hate that fact. Once you get over the horrible emotions then it becomes clearer than anything else. Presents are for parents. Parents who have successfully kept a human alive for one year on mostly cold coffee and pure disbelief that they haven’t yet failed at everything are buying these gifts.
So we put real thought into what actually deserves its place at their party. Not gifts guaranteed to get trampled on at midnight. Not number five of the five same mouse/key-monkey/puppy they’ll receive this year. We went hunting for special stuff. Stuff that’s a keepsake they’ll actually keep. Toys that’ll last long enough to be played with past this year’s milestone. And stuff that’s just for parents, because holy shit being a parent is hard and someone should notice that these folks made it through year one.
We also thought long and hard about the people who’d be buying these gifts. Parents don’t celebrate first birthdays alone. Grandparents, aunt and uncle, friends with no kids who have no idea what’s age appropriate and panic buy a huge white elephant they can’t bring through their apartment door all converge on these guys. We tried to make this as easy for everyone as possible. Every gift here is one we wouldn’t mind handing over ourselves staring down the party guests as we all celebrate together.
Great first birthday gifts tend to fall into one of three categories. They’re built to last. They photograph well but in a way that means something to you other than as a blue tile on Instagram. They genuinely help with some problem you didn’t know you needed solving but currently are. Hopefully a mix of all three. That’s a tall order. But throwing a bunch of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks shouldn’t be how you pick a present for someone you like.
We kept this list short intentionally. A first birthday is a huge deal disguised as a miniature celebration. Don’t let someone you care about spend hours scrolling through hundreds of gifts to pick something that was okay. These are gifts that were better than that. We picked them and we have not since doubted our decisions.