From "simple" parties at home that take years off of parents' lives through stress, to "elaborate" parties at a venue where someone else does all the work, the birthday party scene can be a bit of a horror show. Sure, the kids love 'em, but what about us parents?
This week, the Parents YAP about their birthday party experiences, including what worked, what didn't, and what we'd like to do with all of that goodie bag loot.
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Lisa Paglierani
I?m sure I?m not alone when I say that I have a love-hate relationship with birthday parties.? Of course I want to mark each milestone in my children?s lives and make them feel showered with attention and affection.? I want to create joyful, memorable experiences, and for them to know that they are celebrated and cherished.? But that doesn?t make planning the parties any easier.
I remember when my oldest turned one, we invited our entire extended family, including aunts, uncles, and grandparents, to a party at our tiny Cape house.? There were 40-odd people there for a one-year-old who didn?t even know she was having a birthday.? Fast forward to our fourth baby, who had a much smaller affair with our close family.? It didn?t take us too long to realize that there are no shortage of opportunities to ?go big? for the birthday parties, and that we should pace ourselves with each child.
Enter the age of the ?Friend Party.?? Now the parties become more challenging.? Our kids are extremely lucky to have lots of cousins who are also their friends, as well as grandparents who are just as much at home at a circus as they are in our living room, so we?ve always been able to combine friend and family parties into a single event.? Still, today?s birthday parties are much bigger than the ones we had as kids.? Parties used to be some games, cake, and opening presents with a few friends and neighborhood kids.? These days 20-25 kids seems to be the norm, the standard for enjoyment higher, the cost much greater.? There seems to be a choice between a pricey packaged birthday party, or a labor-intensive, creative party at home involving lots of planning.
The easiest parties we?ve had have been at Jump On In.? Is there nothing better than one giant room filled with bouncy houses, where kids can run around, burn some energy, and have a blast? (Jerry Seinfeld called these portable insane asylums for children.) Weather is never an issue, no planned activities are required, and a couple of teenaged girls will serve the pizza and cake and then clean up.? True, these parties are expensive, but they are always a hit and easy to plan.? I am a firm believer in the outsourcing of fun.
My seven-year-old daughter?s birthday happens to be Halloween.? Rather than resenting that her birthday falls on a major kid-oriented holiday, she relishes this fact.? She is our only child who has always insisted on having her parties at our house.? Each year, she clamors for a Halloween-themed, at-home party.? These parties are inevitably more challenging, as we struggle to come up with activities to entertain the kids.? However, I?m blessed to have a mother-in-law who thrives on these sorts of challenges, and who is more than happy to take the lead on party games and crafts.? We believe that these at-home parties will be the most memorable ones.
One thing I?m unaccountably proud of is making my own birthday cakes.? I don?t know why I feel that my children?s cakes all have to be home made; I?m sure they would be just as happy eating cupcakes from the grocery store, and goodness knows how much time that would save me.? But I?ve made them all, with one notable exception involving a failed ?swimming pool? cake soaked in not-yet-solidified blue Jello (saved by a last-minute trip to Cold Stone creamery).? I?m certainly no professional decorator, but my kids are always impressed, and I hope that they will look back and appreciate the fact that their Mom baked their cakes.
Then of course, is my birthday party nemesis:? the dreaded Goody Bag.? I don?t know where children got the idea that after being shown a great time playing games, painting plaster, jumping on equipment, and stuffing themselves with pizza and cake, they are then entitled to a bag full of prizes, but I suspect that we parents have something to do with it.? On a couple of occasions I?ve heard disappointed youngsters asking, ?Isn?t there a goody bag?? shortly after wiping the last bit of frosting from their mouths.? I?ve talked to many parents, and we all agree:? no one wants the tiny plastic toys scattered about their houses, no one wants more junk food, and yet we all perpetuate this Goody Bag Entitlement Syndrome.? I certainly don?t want my kid to be the one whose birthday party didn?t come with goody bags.? So, I try to minimize the damage by putting in fruit snacks instead of Skittles (is this really better?) and trying to keep the bags small.? On a few occasions we?ve given out a single favor instead of goody bags (a puzzle, some sidewalk chalk), and this seems to have worked out well.? I know I appreciate it when other parents do this, too.? I would love to be able to hand each child a card that says, ?A donation has been made in your name to (insert charity here).?? So far I haven?t had the guts to do it, but what a wonderful lesson in giving it would be for our kids if parents banded together and started this tradition (a ?Giving Bag??).
Yes, birthday parties do cause me considerable stress and/or expense, and after our fourth stint at Jump On In this past winter, my husband and I acknowledged that these parties are starting to blur together.? But there?s nothing quite like the happy, exhausted feeling sitting in our family room, surrounded by overtired and sugared-up kids and a pile of newly acquired toys, and knowing that we survived another one.? Yes, the parties can blend together for us, but the hope is that our children will remember each one as special, and know that they were celebrated.
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Tasha Schlake Festel
My kids are two years and five days apart. In December. Yes, poor planning, indeed. December is both a pricey and busy month. With a season of spending from fall through winter that kicks off in mid-October with my niece's birthday, slides into Halloween, skips along to my nephew's November birthday, tumbles into Thanksgiving, shimmies to my daughter's birthday, sneaks to my son's, and ultimately crashes headlong into Christmas, I have neither the time nor the money to throw two friend birthday parties at any time near my kids' actual birthdays.
So, I wait until March for their parties when it's far more convenient for me. Some may call it selfish and lazy, but I call it ingenious. And I've even convinced my kids it's best for them to wait too. It's less chaotic! It spreads out the presents! More friends will be available! I'll have more time to make a really freakin' awesome cake! You see, I have a marketing degree, and I have used all of its power on my children to sell them on this idea. (I guess all those student loans really were worth it!)
Unfortunately, this year got a little away from me. It's now the end of April and we're in the planning stages of two birthday parties. At age seven (and a quarter), this will be my son's last "invite the whole class" kind of party. He's going to have a bash at his dojo, Defensive Edge in Wakefield, where the kids can run around like crazy people for an hour or more in a padded room, run by a pair of fun and fabulous senseis. And when it's all over, my boy can cut his 7(and a quarter)-year zombie birthday cake with a real samurai sword. Super cool.
My daughter's birthday party will be delayed until late May, when she will be almost half-way to ten. Whoops! I told her we could do something to celebrate with a handful of her girlfriends. She's chosen a slumber party. With 5 guests. Yes, that means six nine-year-olds giggling until 3AM. But I'm (almost) looking forward to it. We'll order pizzas. They'll watch movies. They'll play truth-or-dare. They'll paint their toenails. They'll have a pillow fight. They'll do all kinds of cheap stuff. And they'll do it all largely without me. Now that's what I call a party!
In 1st grade, I don't know that kids - at least my kids - have a close group of friends. They're still kind of figuring it out, deciding who they are and with whom they click. Come 2nd grade, stronger bonds are being formed, so it seems like a good point to cut off the big bashes. My daughter had a smaller party last year, 12 kids, at Kidcasso. It was a great event, and a very easy party. This year, it's even smaller as her circle gets tighter. I'll expect to follow the same pattern for my son. As the kids get older, I hope that their parties will be less expensive but more meaningful.
Speaking of less expensive and more meaningful, I'm a big fan of minimalist goodie bags. I refuse - refuse - to spend money on plastic crap that will be lost between couch cushions and ultimately thrown away. I have made it my mission to absolutely skimp on the goodie bags for all birthday parties. I won't keep up with the Joneses on this. I use brown paper lunch bags from Market Basket (which I may or may not tie up with a ribbon or seal with a sticker) and put a few Hershey's miniatures in each of 'em. Hell, that candy might even be leftover from Halloween or Christmas. (You know that stuff has a shelf-life of 26 years, give or take.) I just make sure I don't use the seasonally branded stuff. Despite what you might have heard, I'm no idiot!
Oh, and just so you don't think I'm a neglectful monster, we do have a party for the kids in December. They have a lovely joint family party early in the month, where they each have their own cake and we come up with menus with some of their favorite foods. I like to think they get the best of both worlds - family and presents at birthday time, and friends and fun a few months later, extending the celebration.
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Regina Martine
Birthday parties were so much fun when my kids were babies. Our (grown up) friends would come over for brunch and we would sit around drinking bloody marys and noshing and chatting, and I felt like life with kids was really not that different from life without kids. Awesome! Then they got a little older and the parties got a little more complicated.
I am kind of old school about kid birthdays and more often than not I have gone the games/crafts/cupcakes at home route. The kids and I would come up with elaborate party themes which have included a Chinese New Year birthday party, a cupcake decorating party, and a party where kids designed their own stuffed animals. However, once the kids reached the ?drop and run? age when parents stopped sticking around for parties, it got a lot harder. Turns out, not every kid is interested in make-your-own stuffed animals, egg-and-spoon relay races, or photo scavenger hunts. The stuffed animal party was particularly challenging, as it quickly turned into the basement sweatshop party as I tried frantically to sew everyone?s fleece and felt creations together in time for the kids to take them home. Fun. Anyway, sometimes it?s just easier to let someone else do the work.
After one particularly crazy all-boy birthday party at home, I discovered the awesome and relatively cheap parties that are available through the YMCA. So far, we have had a rock climbing party and a basketball party. Both times, the instructors were great, they ran the kids ragged and I didn?t have to do anything except bring the cupcakes and goodie bags. I highly recommend it.
A word about goodie bags ? when I was a kid we usually got a small party favor? a plastic necklace or one of those itty bitty little puzzles where you slide the squares around a plastic frame. Now everyone (including me) makes up bags full of candy and prizes for every guest. Why do we do it? No one wants more candy and little crappy plastic tchotchkes in their house. I have skipped the goodie bags for parties that included a craft to take home, but many times I have stuffed little bags with candy and junky prizes anyway. One year, my daughter had an Earth Day birthday party and I sent the kids home with tiny flowerpots and packets of seeds. I even included a note with ideas on how to save the earth. Why didn?t I think of that sooner?
Now that my kids are getting older, birthdays are easier. They usually want to go out to dinner and have a few friends sleep over. All I have to do is feed them and remind them that eventually they have to go to sleep. As much as I loved planning those little-kid parties, I am relieved that they are almost over. The big kid-parties are much easier.
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Melissa Schools
This week, I need some help, readers! I need ideas. You see, in a week, our oldest son is turning ten years old. It?s a milestone birthday. I?d like to have a really great celebration. We generally do at-home birthday parties, mostly because I fool myself into thinking they are more economical and more personal. I?m not sure we actually spend less than we would if we had the party at some out-of-home venue, but I guess what we do get is more bang for our buck. More people, more and better food and, well, the parents who hang around for it can drink if they are so inclined.
The problem unfolds like so: We won?t be having Mr. Ten?s birthday the weekend of his birthday because Mr. Eight is making his First Holy Communion that weekend. Oh, there will be a party, alright?just not for the Birthday Boy. (Note to self: invite relatives to Communion party, plan and execute said party.)
But, before we have Mr. Ten?s party, he?ll have to take a place in line behind Mr. Eight and Mr. Six, who are both still awaiting their birthday parties. From March and, *ahem* January. It?s all do-able, but time seems to be racing faster and faster so that it seems impossible. This scene from The Princess Bride comes to mind as the to-do?s start swirling around my head. It?s a shame I haven?t Guilder to frame for any of this belated birthday blitz.
Mr. Ten wants to go see Ironman 3 for his birthday and-- violence and age-limits be darned?I?m tempted to just go with it, bring along a friend whose parents have equally-lax judgment, throw in food and call it good. Mr. Eight must have sensed my weakness, because at the mere mention of the possibility of there being any celebration of his brother?s birthday before his own ?birthday debt? was paid, he came to me wailing about how unfair it would all be, even though no actual plans are in place!
He has made it clear that he will not support any merry making on behalf of anyone else until he, himself, is feted. He wants a sleepover. Maybe this is part of the reason why I?m unconsciously dragging my proverbial feet about celebrating his birthday. Why do I fear sleepovers so much? Oh, right- because they probably will be all crazy and not sleep. I should just do it. The things I dread are never as bad as the dreading. Right? Right?! Someone please tell me it will be alright!
Mr. Six is more patient. So long as we don?t forget his party altogether, he?ll be happy. Last year, we did race car relay races, made decorative license plates and had a five-shaped, road race cake that I forgot to grace with the Matchbox cars I bought as toppers. This year, I don?t know what he wants. Maybe, I should just ask him. Maybe, I should just give up my own hopes and expectations and just give them what they want. It has been suggested in the past that I get too wrapped up in the artistic creation and presentation of the birthday cake. This is likely true.
My husband and I are tempted to rent out the Americal Civic Center for a couple of hours and do one giant Birthdaypalooza for all three boys. Heck, we might as well throw Mr. Three in there for a repeat birthday celebration, since his birthday was four days after our baby was born. Luckily, my husband made a cake and our parents and my sister with her six kids trekked down to celebrate. Still, at three, he says, wistfully, ?At mine next birthday, I?m going to have mine?s friends over, right?? We have been to a couple awesome birthday parties there and have heard other parents highly recommend the Americal as a perfect venue for a boy?s birthday party. It is a DIY party venue, but the sheer space for boys to run around and get their crazy out would be worth every penny to rent it!
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