The words ‘once upon a time’ begin many fairy tales. However, “Once Upon a Time” is also the name for one of the lovely styles that TinyPrints.com offers in its Vintage Baby Shower invitations.

My favorite invitation would appeal to anyone writing a book:

The text on the sample invitation reads, “Once upon a time, there lived a mom-to-be named Madeline Bellington whose friends decided to throw her a baby shower!”

The time and place of the shower are listed, and the sample invitation ends with the request, ‘Please bring your favorite childhood book for the new baby’.

This Tiny Prints story invitation implies the theme and brings to mind a plan for the shower.  You can picture this invitation being carefully tucked away, then eliciting fond memories years later.

The most elegant baby shower I’ve ever seen was one at which I was not actually a guest.  I was in my  early twenties and walked past a baby shower held in the Garden Room of an elegant hotel. The room was reserved for those attending the celebration, but the doors to the room were glass paneled and it was easy — without seeming nosey or actually pressing your face to the glass — to watch the fun and to bask in the happiness that  escaped whenever the door opened.

The room was romantic and the theme imaginative. It was difficult for anyone who was interested in babies not to linger awhile to soak up the atmosphere.

Whoever planned that vintage-themed baby shower used accents in the gift wrap, flowers, and ribbons in rich shades of pink and blue.  There was a large old-fashioned wicker baby carriage that held the gifts.

Children’s books made up the centerpiece for each table.  On a buffet was a crystal punch bowl  and large vases filled with luxurious  flowers.

Even the shyest of young women would want to stay a few minutes more to see what was served for lunch, but when one of the waiters asked, “Can I help you?” there was no choice other than a mumbled reply, a shake of the  head, and a hurried departure.

Lots of my friends were having babies then, and I gave several fun theme-based showers. But I never attempted a version of the shower I’d seen in the Garden Room. It seemed too ambitious and expensive, and besides, I didn’t have a garden, let alone a garden room!

I know now that creativity and imagination often trump money. Confidence was the only thing I lacked. And by putting my mind to it, I could have given one of my friends a memorable baby shower.  If I did it now, I could do it without fuss or spending so much money. Here are my ten tips for planning a unique baby shower.

1. I would begin with the  Tiny Prints “Once Upon a Time” invitation and combine it with the theme I glimpsed years ago.
2. On each TinyPrints invitation, I would ask the guest to bring a written memory of the mother-to-be; a glimpse of her life story up to the day of the shower.In the future, this memory would be priceless, but for the present it would be something for the mother to include in her baby book.
3. The invitations requested guests give one of their favorite books for kids. The books  would be collected before the shower, and displayed as the centerpiece on each table.  Author gifts are often books, so my gift to the baby would be my kids book, Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes, a legendary tale of King Arthur, Merlin, witches, and magic.
4. To carry out the storybook theme and to meld it with those ladies from the past who, in my memory, are still dressed in deepest shades of pink and blue, I’d tell the guests that they were welcome to use those colors when they dressed for the party.
5. Because beauty can’t coexist with chaos, I would start with a shiny clean house.
6. Because I love homemade desserts, I would bake rich dark chocolate brownies and pair with my favorite vanilla cake.
7. I would take small scoops of chocolate and vanilla ice-cream, separate them into layers on wax paper, and place them in plastic containers to re-freeze till shortly before serving with the cake.
8. At the last minute I’d put out nuts and mints. The punch would be simple, a mixture of chilled fruit drinks blended together.
9. Instead of the  immense, costly flower arrangements from the Garden Room baby shower, I would buy flowers  from a farmer’s market or grocery store and put them in my prettiest vases, along with ribbons in the deepest shades of pink and blue to give a touch of elegance.
10. Most importantly, beyond the colors, flowers, and the theme, I would hope that this shower would recapture that sense of overflowing happiness, of life worth living, that emanated from that room. Because that was what I felt, and what held me there. That was something worth remembering. If I could fill the room with well-being and excitement for the future, I would give the best and most lasting of gifts  to the mother-to-be and her baby.

#

I wrote this blog post while participating in the Twitter Moms and Tiny Prints blogging program, making me eligible to get a Tiny Prints gift code worth $50, plus 25 Free Tiny Prints greeting cards– a total gift value of $149.75! For more information on how you can participate, click here:  http://tinyprints.twittermoms.com/about

A further disclaimer:   I wrote this blog to support and to show my appreciation for  Tiny Prints. I like their products and the sense of style they evoke.  Tiny Prints runs a text ad on CityCastles.com As part of the Twitter Moms program, I had to include the disclaimer, but I will not not accept either the gift or the free Tiny Prints greeting cards that Tiny Prints is awarding other bloggers.

Baby Shower Invitations

Tiny Prints on Facebook

Another exciting Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes event!

Thursday, September 16th,  6:30pm

Clear Creek Books
1200 Washington Avenue
Golden, Colorado, 80401
Bookstore phone: 303-278-4593

This should be a great event for kids.  I’ll do a reading, and we’re also featuring a scene from the book performed by two talented young actors. If you’re in Colorado, I hope you can join me.

Thank you to Clear Creek Books for having me as their guest!

When I was a child there were few glamorous grandmothers. The few that I observed astonished me, and sent a chill down my spine. I felt great pity for their grandchildren .

My little grandmother, with her black and graying hair tucked into a bun at the back of her head, probably envied those young-looking grandmothers–their brisk ways, smart hairdos, high heels, and their tightly girdled bottoms–but they scared the daylights out of me.

Those glamorous grandmothers seemed to be all tense laughter, bony hips, and hard edges.  I couldn’t imagine their grandchildren ever sitting next to them on the sofa in order to burrow their heads under their arms and to feel their soft, comforting closeness.

My grandmother had been a pretty child and was a beautiful young woman, but life had left her few resources for glamor. Other than the love felt by every child who knew her, she had little wealth to sustain her as she grew older.

She had cared for her children,  grandchildren, and nieces and nephews.  If  love  given so generously brought a tangible return, that little woman would have been wealthy. But that wasn’t the nature of her kind of love; it was a gift. And like faith, the return was intangible.

Occasionally I envied the kids whose grandmothers were slim and glamorous. They told  stories of cross-country vacations taken with their grandparents and after Christmas, they brought telescopes and beautiful classic children’s books to show and tell;  gifts that had the extra glamor of being mailed from another state.

My grandmother lived frugally, with her long-deferred dreams locked silently in her heart.  There was no money for her own necessities, let alone  greeting cards and books for kids. Even if she had the money, she didn’t drive, and in those days, there wasn’t an online gift shop to help her shower her grandchildren with gifts.

Her house was small but welcoming.  She was a busy person and an expert teller of the serialized story. Often the stories she told were about “Jenny Wren” who lived in her yard, and had a tiny nest full of baby birds.

When I visited, there were no trips to restaurants, but she made me bread and butter sandwiches topped by fragrant and delicious raspberry jam. Late at night, I was lulled to sleep by the soft voices of my mother and grandmother in the other room.

I don’t remember that she ever gave me a gift, other than an infrequent birthday card or a few coins for ice cream that she  folded into my sweaty little palm. But I treasured those shiny coins! They were hard to come by, and Grandma had sacrificed to give them to me.

In the present, there are many glamorous grandmothers. People are generally in better health and have more wealth. They have the strength and the resources to give gifts to their grandchildren, the kind of gifts that mine could never give to me.

However, the gifts that most impress me are the gifts of knowledge, the time and effort, and the sacrifices  that I have seen ordinary people give to their grandchildren.

I know grandparents that cheer at every soccer game, and cry at dance recitals. I know grandparents who work with their grandchildren to improve reading skills and who take the time to help them achieve better writing skills.

I have known grandparents who provided rides to school, baby sitting, and daily child care for their grandchildren so that working parents had less worry and expense. Those grandparents give gifts of concern, effort, and time and money.

Those are priceless gifts to young families and should be remembered whenever we are celebrating grandparents and grandparenting.

Those gifts, like my grandmother’s coins, are true gifts of the heart.  And in the end, they are the gifts that last.

On this Grandparents Day, September 12, those gifts should gleam bright. They are a legacy to be held tight in the memories, and treasured in the grateful hearts of children and grandchildren.

**

This post, Celebrating Grandparents and Grandparenting, is part of a Blog Carnival on About.com: Grandparents at

http://grandparents.about.com/b/2010/09/01/september-blog-carnival-grandparents-and-grandparenting.htm

Did a relative or friend who likes to read recently give your child a new book as a gift?   Are you sure?    What I mean is, are you sure about the “new book” designation for the gift?

Personal experience and the hushed confessions of  friends (and a few strangers) have led me to believe that the people who give books as gifts are avid readers, and that these readers seldom give away a book unless they have first read it themselves. When avid readers are together, we admit our faults and tell the truth: we always read a book before we give it as a gift.

This isn’t the kind of revelation that Oprah’s T.V. producers are shopping for, so I will use this venue to confess:  I am an Avid Reader.  And so are some of my relatives and friends.

We admit it, here on this post: that book we gave you last Christmas?  We read it first. We aren’t proud of it, but we aren’t going to go through a 12-step program or join a support group either.

Don’t judge us too harshly. Surely it counts for something that we wanted  your child to have a special gift.  We went to some trouble and bought books for kids when it would have been easier to give them a birthday card with some money inside.

Remember that we bought the book  for your child with the best of intentions.  Perhaps we even wanted to benefit children’s literacy.

We never planned on reading it before your child did.  We struggled and reasoned with ourselves about it. But, alas–we struggled in vain.

Avid readers read books. Whether they purchase books as gifts for your child or for a seriously ill friend, they will postpone delivery of that gift until they have read the book for themselves.  This may seem heartless. However, it is a fact of nature.  The nature of the Avid Reader.

This is a plea for understanding and compassion.  My name is Linda, and I am an Avid Reader.

And so are some of my relatives and friends. Perfectly nice people, with normal human faults and a few peculiarities.

Avid readers read books whether the book belongs to them or they purchase books as a gift for kids, your kids.

You probably wonder: If  they were nice enough to take the trouble to buy a book as a gift, why give into temptation and read it first, for themselves?  Why this selfishness?  After all, you wouldn’t buy a friend a lovely new sweater, wear it once, have it cleaned, and then wrap it and give it to her for her birthday, would you?

Probably not.

But what if it was the softest shade of green and it made the blue of your eyes look lovely, and it fit you better than it will her?  What if you are going someplace special, and you have spent so much money on this gift that you can’t afford anything new for yourself?  You begin to see the dichotomy. You see that split in the personality between generosity and selfishness.

The tempting voice says, “you are not going to keep the sweater, you are just going to borrow it. This is not selfish. It’s OK. You will wear it for a short while, and then you will give this beautiful sweater to your friend.”

Now, would you wear the sweater?  You would not. And not just because you know that the voice of temptation will quickly turn into a Snickering Fate, who will make sure that you meet your friend while you are wearing her new sweater. Or you are sure that she would detect the cleaning fumes and suspect the sweater was  “previously owned”.

In theory, the same rules apply to books as to clothes. You buy new books or new sweaters to give as gifts.

You leave the book, just as you would the sweater, alone until you  wrap it.  This is all reasonable and proper.  But Avid Readers aren’t reasonable and proper when it comes to books.  When it comes to books our soft hearts turn to granite, and our generous nature becomes avarice.

Avid Readers  are compulsive about reading. They are obsessed with reading.  They are addicted to reading.

On one hand, this is a person with a strong interest and great enjoyment of reading, not a person who is fighting for their soul while living a life of quiet desperation. On the other hand, this is a person who won’t let go of the gift until he has had his satisfaction from it. Let’s explore the situation as it unfolds.

Your friend, A. R., has just purchased a children’s novel for your child’s ninth birthday.

The book  is on A.R’s desk and is ready for the birthday wrap.

A.R. stops to admire the cover and flips back to some of the pages of the book that he read as he made his way  through the assorted children’s fiction in the book store.

Then a word, or a phrase, something on the page, catches his eye. He leans over the desk to read a bit further. After a few minutes he sits down,  just to finish the page he is reading. He nods to himself and then chuckles quietly over the funny bits.

“This is interesting,” he mumbles.

Because no matter what the Avid Reader’s taste in books, or whatever genre the avid reader favors,  he or she will find something interesting or amusing in a new book, whether the book is a  mystery or the newest children’s novel.

Avid Reader will be amused or interested in what he reads, and will be compelled to keep reading, simply because he is holding a book.  It is an equation to him: New Book + Avid Reader + Chair = another book added to his summer reading list. You mustn’t be too hard on him.

Avid readers love books; they are the people who enter a book store with a smile of anticipation on their face.  They have entered a magic place, a place of delight and great adventure.  The books on sale there are precious to these readers.  To them, a book is more than a book, they are  possessions of high value.

And, I say, for the moment, let’s forget all of this Save The Whales business, and work on Saving the Avid Readers; we need them as surely as we need whales, and both are a species that is worth saving.

And to authors writing: Avid Reader is not just a reader, he is a lover of literature. We value him because he treasures our writing in the same way we do.

Book publishers, whether bricks and mortar or online book stores, adore Avid Readers. And in these uncertain days of book publishing, this brave new world of e-books and the Kindle,  they have begun to court, even stalk him, as a rare species that must be preserved in the interest of their own survival.

As the author of Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes, one of those books for kids,  I hope an Avid Reader is reading my book at this very moment.

“Read on, Avid Reader,” I whisper.  “Please love my book, and when you finally pass on this slightly used  children’s novel, this tale of King Arthur, Merlin, and Arthur the Brave, please put it into the hands of a child who will one day be an Avid Reader just like you.”