So on Snowflake Day, my sim got a want to give a gift party, so she invited all her friends. Just before the party was supposed to start she got a message that there wasn't enough room for a gift pile. So she moved all the furniture to the walls... and got no more messages, but the guests still didn't bring gifts. Just a lot of food (and she's still eating stuff from her fall Feast Party, which strangely hasn't spoiled yet!)

Anyway, my question is: how much empty space exactly do you need for a gift party? Checked BuyDebug hoping for a gift pile object I could check the footprint of, but no

I'm in the middle of the same party right now. I had a lot of room in my living room, but the gift pile popped up in the middle of my kitchen where there was very little room. However after the guests arrived, the gift pile disappeared. The party isn't over yet so I'm not sure what the turn out is going to be. Everyone walked in with food and whatnot as well but no one seems to have actually put it down? It's just gone. After this one is over I'm going to go to a different household and try it again.

My Sunset Valley couple had a Gift Giving party and the "rug" is 2x2. Perhaps it wants room for the sims to be able to walk around it? All my sims got for gifts were mistletoe. Four gifts each equals eight sprigs of mistletoe. Oh, and it shows up in your FAMILY inventory. Just like wedding gifts.

LOL. That's almost as bad as getting nothing but underwear!

I didn't know how the gift giving worked, but when I had a party the guests brought food and presents were placed in the dining room. They first complained about a chair, so I spread the chairs around and they placed presents in a pile and then sat down in the chairs. They each took turns going to the pile and opening then. The guest got to open more then one. He got a bike and some other nice stuff from buy mode. I really enjoyed the gift giving party. I hope you all get to experience it too.

I was reading at the forums about the gift pile, even though the rug is 2x2, it requires a 4x4 empty space with no ceiling lights or footprints from anything near it. Walls with windows, needs one space empty away from that wall. I am now trying to make sure my lot have all the space to have the gifts in the right spot. I hope.

I've had a 4x6 space & still wasn't enough room to have a gift giving party. I had to move, because that was how big my space was without the furniture. I read somewhere the space has to be 6x6, but I'm not sure of that either.

I had a gift giving party, and the size of the gift piled seemed to have been 4x4 I believe. The space I had wasn't that big. But people sat around or stood up and took turns getting presents. I had some people even ring my doorbell while this was happening and they joined in which was kinda weird since they weren't invited to it, and they didn't even share any gifts lol. When the party was over, my sim continously opened the gifts until they were all open and he got 12 chess tables

Just went through the gift-giving party with my niece, I cleared a 4x4 space in her kitchen/dining area because her house is quite tight and cozy. The gift pile showed up, as long as that space had nothing in it. No door footprint, no ceiling light footprint, nothing can be there. We were very happy, I didn't have to edit her lot for the space.

Now we are going crazy figuring out what went wrong with the lot marker. Spring time made her furniture disappear and I can't find the lot marker. UGH.

Okay. I threw my first gift-giving party without looking up how. I cleared space when it told me to - still no gift pile.
I tried to find the answer on Google - Google failed me, because EA made this so complicated that no one can figure it out.
I cleared a 4x4 space, with no footprints, not, even lights. TWO spaces away from any walls and windows, and one space away from all furniture - STILL didn't have enough room.I cleared a 6x6 space with the same specifications - still not enough room.

So I demolished the half walls that separated my kitchen, dining and living room (open floor plan ftw), got rid of ALL the furniture except a buffet table (which was still one square away from everything, on all sides) and removed all the lights. So what used to be a lovely kitchen, dining room and living room with furniture and a fireplace is now a big, empty, dark room. And wouldn't you know it - I still didn't have enough room for the gift pile.

What. The. Heck.

I have read that others have the same problem Punkface. I was very surprised when it worked in my niece's house because I only cleared a space that was 4x4, the gift pile showed right where I cleared space for it. Her house is not very roomy.

I am praying it works on my sim's house. I built it with that space being for the gift pile where I want it to show.

I'm having a problem with the gift-giving parties too. My gift pile rug was placed just fine (though they put it in the kitchen because the empty space in my living room was underneath my mistletoe, so I just moved that in order to put my gift pile in the living room), and everyone came over. I was waiting for the last one or two people to show up and my guests sat around the gift pile by themselves and started opening their presents. I clicked on the pile and the "Call everyone to open presents" option was greyed out, and when I hovered over it it said that I "waited too long" and the guests were helping themselves. But none of my sims got to open any gifts! Only the guests got presents, none of my active family. I was really irritated. I'm still not sure if it's a glitch or if it's because I didn't make them open gifts and they did it themselves.

Couldn't a modder just make the darn rug buyable so we can place it ourselves? Whenever "the game"has to "figure out" how to do stuff for itself it ends up make a whole lot of very questionable choices.

@harlequinzombie: the problem with TS3 parties is that unlike TS2 there's no timer and the sims are still bound to their daily schedule. A sim may show up to then leave immediately after or they can arrive very late. It's a real pain in the as-you-can-imagine to coordinate when and how long to do certain activities and which sims to engage. If we had a timer and if sims actually stayed long enough for the entire thing instead of sticking to a silly schedule that has no useful purpose to game-play in this case, we'd be able to coordinate when to do what.

The same thing happened to me, only my sims actually did get their presents. It was stilly pretty annoying though because I was trying to get the sims to sit down and eat to then open the presents but by the time most of them grabbed a plate and found a chair, another sim already initiated the opening of the presents so starts another headache of sims leaving their plates trying to get to the pile of presents.

Sounds like Christmas morning at my house! LOL We now just do a brunch so the kids and grandkids can just take what they want to eat without disrupting the gift opening.

I knocked down walls and made a ten by ten space... and I still can't throw the party??? I"m so puzzled.

Apparently this space is not big enough for a gift giving party

You definitely need more than 4x4 space. The gift pile appeared in the foyer. But I had already bought one with a mod since I hadn't known the game would automatically send you one. I think that is really unnecessary; they should have just made it so you could buy it and place where you like. But anyway, I had about 5x6 space in the living room. Everyone was able to open gifts.


As you can see if I had a 6x6 space, this sim opening her present wouldn't have to move over there, but just step forward. So a 6x6 area is optimal, 2 tiles in between the seating and the gift pile, especially if you are planning to have a lot of sims over. You don't want routing problems.

Eh I tried this last night and the game plopped the gift giving pile very close to the front door so as the guests arrived they started doing
the seasons spin and colliding with each other and complaining the party was lame. 8 hours later I still had sims hung in the doorway carrying
their spoiled food and spinning into each other.

I absolutely love the bacon and eggs wrapping paper.

It appears-at least from the couple I've tried that you need at least a 4X4 space and it must be clear-no other footmarks or even cieling lights- before the party starts. If you try to make room after the party starts and get the no room message that it wont generate the gift pile no matter how much room you make after getting the message. Seems to be a one time shot for each party.

The gifts seem pretty random. I've been reading of other's sims getting bikes and stuff but my sim got a toilet paper holder and a coal lump and they went into the family inventory. She only got 2 gifts and the plie disapeared after everyone got 2 gifts. I'm reading here that others party goers got 4-6 gifts each so don't know why the differance in gift numbers. Most of the guests brought food but I didn't see any place gifts into the pile as others have reported-the pile just popped up at the party.

Actually I started the party and got the "no room, make some" message. So I cleared some room, and about a game-hour later the gift pile spawned. So yeah, I dunno. :/

Hi. May I ask what mod you used? I tried doing a gift giving party twice and apparently, I did not make enough room. It's frustrating.

I got to the point where I built on the garden and left a ridiculously big room of 16 x 16, selecting its door as front door, will only wall lights and absolutely nothing in it, and the message still came that I didn´t have enogh room. I relaunched the game after removing the few mods I have, all from NRAAS, and it was the same.

I never had an issue with it. What I do is adding enough seating (according to the number of party attendants) in a circle around the spot where I expect the gift pile rug to be. Maybe that's what helps?

I am having the same problem with this gift giving party i even extended my house to give more room and put all furniture against wall and i also got room not big enough i have tried this 3/4 times to no avail can anyone help please