Grandparents and Holiday Gifts: Giving grandkids presents from our grown child's childhood.

Our social media feeds and retail websites are exploding with gift ideas for our grandkids--a dancing robot, AI Flying Orb, a remote-controlled spider. No wonder some of us are living a sentimental moment when we see in our attic or basement the adorable play kitchen our kids spent hours with or the 6-year-old-sized red roadster that once made its way up and down our halls. We've taken good care of these toys--even refurbished a dent or two--so why not offer them as holiday gifts to our Grands? Recycling raised to a delightfully nostalgic height.

The question is, can we--should we--unload the treasures from our children's childhood via holiday gifts to our grandkids?  They might make for a magical moment--and they might not.

 The "might not" falls under the heading of communication, as in, ask the parents if they think the gift might work. For instance, some toys may not trigger the happy feelings we think they should. Our kids may have had unpleasant experiences with neighbors when they took that roadster out for a ride on the sidewalk. Or they may think a toy they loved is not right for their child. Or their cramped city apartment may not have the space to house a play kitchen; there may be no storage space for large items. 

There's another point that toy historian Chris Byrne makes. That is, the toys our children played with when they were small children--and the way they played with them--helped form them as adults.  Stephen Sondheim, for instance, loved word games as a child. Playwright Terence McNally played constantly with a puppet theater. Byrne himself loved Matchbox cars. Does that mean the toys we saved from our children's youth are right for their children? Moreover, is there something to be said for keeping up with trends? Here's an excerpt from a Ted talk Byrne gave on the subject of toys and their ties to our personal history:

Widely popular toys are sometimes the first shared cultural experience many children ever have, and they can become cultural events as well. Think back of the fads of the past decades. We had Rubik's Cube, we had Cabbage Patch, Zhu Zhu Pets, Pet Rock, right? And now we're in the middle of Squishmallows.

But I truly think that when we look back at what we loved, we can see the seeds of who we were going to become,

personally and professionally. Now I grant you, this is much more an art than a science, but I believe that each of us has an inherent play style that's as unique as our fingerprints.

So before we tie a ribbon around it and lug the play kitchen over to our adult child's living room, we might want to talk to the parents about whether they want to impose their fingerprints on their child (our grandchild)--or just let them play with their mom's or dad's toys when they come to visit us. 

painting: Picasso