Good news, I've found something else that annoys me! Apparently the new unnecessary event de jour is the gender reveal shower. We've been building to this for awhile, based solely on my Pinterest observations. Apparently, simply announcing whether or not you're having a boy or a girl is a thing of the past. Now you need to make a big production out of it. This is why I'm not too concerned about the economy. If we have money to throw parties simply to announce the sex of an unborn baby, I think America will make it out of this tough time.
It started simply enough with photo sessions. I'm talking about paying a professional photographer to come and take these photos mind you. You've got a few standard options in case you're interested in doing this:
- Mom & Dad Holding Balloons: Just stand out in a field or next to an old building or whatever holding a large number of balloons in either pink or blue.
- It's Balloons in a Box: Take those same pink or blue balloons and put them inside a cardboard box. You should probably stand in the same field (you know, a typical setting in which you'd find a box full of balloons). If you want to get really crazy you could draw a fanciful question mark on the box or write something like, "Baby Jones is..." The Kodak moment occurs just as the parents-to-be open the box and all the balloons fly up into the air in a majestic fashion.
- There are other options, too. But the balloons seem to be the old stand-by.
Just like with any addiction, it wasn't long before mere balloons weren't enough. Enter the gender reveal shower. You can't bring the balloons to the shower, that would be ridiculous (I assume). You have to have a completely alternate method of sharing your baby's gender.
- Say it with Cake: Cake is the go-to method to reveal a baby's gender. Throughout the shower, there sits a wonderfully delicious cake with some sort of gender neutral icing (yellow or green I suppose). Ohhh, but the cake itself is not neutral. The cake has been dyed either pink or blue so that everyone can lose their minds once the thing has been cut into. Personally, I'd be losing my mind for a different reason; I don't care about the color, just give me some cake.
I don't know what else you do at a gender reveal shower. For the sake of those in attendance, I hope games are not part of the equation. I'm not certain whether or not there are presents...but if there aren't, I'm sure those will follow soon.
In the end, people can do whatever they want to do in regards to this type of thing. But I find it all to be very silly. It all makes me think of the episode of Sex and the City where Carrie goes to a baby shower and the uptight parents make everyone take off their shoes and then Carrie's shoes get stolen, because hello free Manolos! At first the woman offers to pay for Carrie's shoes but when Carrie reveals the extravagant price the friend flips out and refuses to pay even though she used to buy Manolos in her pre-baby days. So Carrie starts adding up how much money she has spent celebrating the love of this couple; an engagement gift, a wedding gift, the cost of traveling to and staying overnight at the wedding, and the list goes on and on. She figures that all-in-all she's spent well over $1,000 on these people. She makes a good point in that not only do these people get love, happiness, and a family but the rest of us (many of whom do not have these things) have to give them presents on top of everything!?
Spoiler alert: Carrie sends an engagement announcement to the girl saying that she is marrying herself and that she's registered at Manolo Blahnik. The girl realizes she was being a bitch and buys Carrie the shoes and the girl working there gets on the woman because her kids are trying to touch the shoes. It's a quality episode.
That's how I feel about the abundance of showers and events for engagements, weddings, babies, etc. It really starts to add up and it's hard to not wonder what the point of it all is sometimes.
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