I just give my villagers a fruit wrapped in gift paper. It doesn't change the furniture they have set up, and I hear it helps boost friendship by a high percentage, which helps if you're photo hunting like I am.
I had a tendancy to leave gifts for villagers outside their house as a reminder to myself, but the first 2 birthdays I think I directly gave the villagers things from their own gardens.
Worst was walking into Kiki's birthday having completly forgotten about it, and then not being sure if I could leave and return so I just gave her the clothes I was wearing. She loved it, cats love still warm clothes?
I haven't done this specifically, but I'm also not someone who has ever planned ahead for a villagers birthday either. I just choose something from Nooks for the day and that's that
My villagers receive pumpkins everyday. Now on their birthdays they are gifted with a wonderful stack of 10 pumpkins. Pango loved them so much she sent me her photo.
I usually don't remove outside furniture for it but I do give them back stuff they sent apparently since you get that thoughts dialogue from them if you do lol.
I think I may have done that once... I didn’t have anything for Bea and I was frantically looking around for something Simple. I’m pretty sure I just took something from the town square or one of the houses which I felt really bad about.
i think i’ve only done it once; for bam’s birthday, i had decided to gift him a white treadmill as it correlated with his preferences + i thought that it would look nice with his interior! i originally was just going to order him one but shortly after coming to the decision that i would be letting go of kid cat eventually, i noticed that i had placed a white treadmill in his yard and so i just,, gave that one to bam