I have a knee-jerk bad reaction to baby showers, but that's because the last two I was involved with were drama-fueled stress bombs.

When my friend H was pregnant with her first we threw her a Tupperware Shower.

By which I mean a Pure Romance party. Our friend N hosted the party at her house, but we made H the hostess so she got the free stuff from the purchses of the party comers. And we had baby-themed cocktails, lots of yummy finger foods, and H just wanted diapers since her mother and her MIL each threw a shower already. We made onesies with iron ons (mostly Ramones and funny song lyrics) and hung out. It was fantastic.

Most of the showers I have heard of lately have been the co-ed likkered up variety. No games except normal party type games of horseshoes or billiards or whatever. And baby/wedding type presents. More like adult birthday parties.

Vortex, I'm just thinking that if you did call it a shower, wouldn't that be a good thing?

I deliberately did not because I didn't want expectations of typical shower activities (i.e tasting baby food). I wanted people to come wish my friend well, and bring a gift if they wanted to.

Vortex, your not baby shower is what I remember baby showers being.

(i.e tasting baby food)

Which is what my mother got stuck doing today. There were also mushy candy bars in diapers that we were supposed to try to identify. I did not participate.

There were also so many gifts that I thought we were never going to get out of there. But we finally did and now I am home with TCG!

Anything baby poop or food related is gross.

I like shower gift bingo as a game because it's something for the guests to do while the endless gift unwrapping happens, it creates a break as people win and get their prize (so the GOH isn't the only one unwrapping something). I also like diaper/wipes raffles.

I think the key to having fun showers that people enjoy instead of endure is A) GOOD FOOD AND LIKKER! and 2) Having good party prizes.

I like gender specific showers. But I also like co-ed showers. Equally.

But I also like co-ed showers.

There were 70 people there today. I can't even imagine if it had been co-ed. I'm suddenly very glad that my grandmother raised me with the superstition that baby showers are bad luck, so I have a good excuse to never have one.

You can't use your belief they are bad luck to not go to them?

The Jewish tradition (or, at least, Ashkenazic Jewish -- I don't know if other Jews follow this one) is that celebrating or preparing too much before the birth of a baby will attract the attention of the Evil Eye, who will then cause a miscarriage or stillbirth. I don't know anyone who still literally believes this, but I do know tons of Jewish people who get uncomfortable with talking too much about the baby before it's born, or having too much baby stuff in the house, since that old tradition is still somewhere in the back of their minds. Most baby stores in places with significant Jewish populations will take this into account, and they'll let you buy the crib and stuff and then not deliver it until after the baby is born.

I like Judaism!