My daughter's 4th birthday is coming and we're having a party at a local park for her. Planning to invite her pre-K class and a few family friends with kids, about 20ish families in all if everyone comes. We've been in a very intentional toy/stuff reduction process the last few months, getting ready to list our condo for sale, and just generally, we suffer from a too-much-stuff-only-kid/grandkid syndrome, so we'd prefer to go with a no gifts note on the invite, but my husband feels weird saying "no gifts" on the invite (he thinks people will bring stuff anyway and those who don't will feel weird - says that happened for another party he took our daughter to where they said no gifts and we didn't bring one but others did). Instead we were thinking about including a note to say something like "The best gift of all would be your company at the party, so no gifts are necessary at all, but if you feel inclined to bring a gift, we would love to build up our big-girl book and board game collection."

Is that tacky, to ask for specific stuff? I'm feeling weird about it but I'm prone to overcomplicating things. I know we can always just donate or give stuff away so I can just not say anything at all, ultimately, but I'd rather people not spend money on stuff that we'd just hide/give away anyway. Would love your thoughts/ideas.