Mum 2 Mum: What Say You About Birthday Party Mayhem
With Immy now at 4 year old kindy we seem to be in the midst of birthday party mayhem. She has been at school for just two terms and we just got home from the tenth birthday party (the majority of but not all of which were parties for new kindy friends). On occasion there has even been a run of three or four weekends in a row that have involved four or five year old birthday parties. I don’t want to appear ungrateful but it really starts to eat into the weekend time you have to do things around the house and to spend time as a family (though I am sure to be feeling it more than usual with a newborn to juggle). I have also delayed starting Immy in any form of Saturday morning dance or sporting class because she would have missed half of the sessions anyway.
There is also the cost of supplying a constant stream of party gifts, something that was certainly not in our budget. To help combat the expense I have been shopping the recent department store sales and those of my favorite online toy stores. I can proudly say that for the first time ever we have a present box 🙂 Many of the gifts could be given to either a boy or a girl – things like art and craft supplies, kites, books and games (I personally love the Orchard Toys range of games for younger children). I have also purchased a collection of birthday cards from the discount store and added these to the box (I can’t tell you how organised I feel right now) and Immy and I have taken to decorating sheets of brown paper with crayons, paints or stamps if we don’t have any appropriate wrapping paper in the house.
I love that my big girl is making friends and being included but I was truly unprepared for the impact of quite so many celebrations. The thought of RSVP-ing that we are unavailable is tempting but I feel bad about Immy missing out, especially as the children are all so excited about their parties and talk about them incessantly in the lead up to the big day!
So tell me – does your child get invited to many birthday parties? For those with older children, does there come an age where it is less likely that the whole class will be invited? And do you have a kids present box? What’s in it?
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We combat the birthday party madness a) by having kids who take a while to get their act together making friends and b)having twins (think people are a tad daunted by having to invite them both, or not)…. but we did have two birthdays in one weekend which was a killer!
Now that my girls are bigger it seems to be smaller groups doing special events like bowling… but for us that means a long drive into the city too and the question of what to do with the other kids who aren’t invited….
But for kids who struggle to make friends birthday parties have been great for my lot… a chance to socialize outside of school, and a chance to get to know someone else’s house and mum and dad so a play date is less scary… So as always, gotta take the good with the bad.
You make a great point about getting to know the parents and homes of others, though none of the parties we have been to has actually been at a home – they have all been in parks or play centres. I find that a little odd for young children but maybe that is just me as I prefer organising simple at-home parties.
I think you go through phases. I remember a patch when my eldest was about the same age as Immy and it seemed like every weekend we were at the local playcafe with yet another birthday party. I always struggle a bit with the “bigness” of it all – so often now parties have a huge guest list, and a big venue, or a jumping castle, and lots of expensive presents etc etc. Seems like no one does fairy bread and treasure hunts at home anymore!!!!
Our present box is full of bits and pieces that I find on sale – especially good quality books. I keep meaning to have a “make it” day and do a heap of pencil rolls, aprons, marble bags, hair clips etc but we never seem to get there (although they are my stock standard whip-up-the-night before type gift)
I do fairy bread and pass the parcel! One year I did a treasure hunt but that took a bit more effort! I love having parties at home though and I think the kids like it.
We do parties at home too, Suzy. I actually think it is easier with little kids to keep it simple.
We do fairy bread and pass the parcel too 🙂 Interestingly, none of the parties Immy has been to since kindy started have been ‘at home,’ they have all been at play centres or parks. A few of the park parties have included some old fashioned games which has been great for the kids – treasure hunts, pass the parcel, pinatas and the like.
It can drive one nuts, non? We used to have this problem when we still lived in Sydney, which is where my mother’s group was formed. All the kids were born in November or December, and there seemed to be no letup at what is already a mad time of year. There were multiple parties on some weekends, and my birthday was in the middle of all this too! We ended up having to decide that some weekends were just going to have to be kept free for family wellbeing. Even though I really wanted to be there at all of them, it just wasn’t wise. The extravagant present thing is so tricky. We always try to make a nice personal card or paint some pictures, so they know there was some thought put in even if our present isn’t the flashest!
At least you have about 3 years till it becomes an issue for bub 🙂
I think you were very wise to be selective about choosing which invitations to accept, May. I am mindful that Immy will most probably be classmates with most of these children for so many years to come and is still establishing which children she enjoys spending time with most so I try to let her go to as many as I can, plus I am getting to know the parents which is also important, I just really was not prepared for the invite the whole class scenario.
As homeschoolers, I must say that this is something that isn’t a huge issue for us. Our kids still get to go to parties but there are not as many as when they were at school. When they were at school I found that saying no to an RSVP meant we could still have some semblance of a weekend. Between other weekend commitments and invites, I just had to say no in order to self preserve. What it did allow us though was an opportunity for a dialogue with our kids about what happens when we can’t make an event and everyone is talking about it. We talked about being comfortable with no being invited to some parties or playdates and that there were more to friendships than invitations. We spoke about it being ok to feel disappointed that we couldn’t make all the parties for many reasons; sickness, it was too much for our family at that time or even just because we had other events on. It was good for our kids to learn that too.
As for the present box…um I have 3 lol. One for gifts for newborns, one for gifts for my friends (pretty Typo journals, bath salts, perfume, etc) and one for gifts for kids’ birthdays. I have a birthday card box and organizer split into months with pockets for cards to go in for the birthdays that fall in that month.
I’m not always on top of things but that’s one thing I try hard with.
All the best as you work out what’s right for your family 🙂
Lusi x
I love your tips for talking through declining an invitation, Lusi, thank you for sharing them. And how clever are you to have three present boxes! I would love to be that organised 🙂
Oh I hear you. When they are little it’s hard not to have a ‘class party’ I can’t bare to be the mother that says sorry you’re not invited. What can I say, I’m weak.
But my kids got a class party (at home) maybe I’m also brave, when they were in 3 yr old kinder and will do the same in their first year of school. Beyond that it will be a small group of friends I’m sure.
That sounds so sensible, Mandy. I am in many ways glad that Immy’s birthday was just before school started as I don’t think I would have managed a whole class party with all that we have had going on for the first half of this year!
I think it is completely over the top. When I was little, there was a simple rule: 3rd birthday 3 guests, 4th birthday 4 guests and so on. That kept is manageable for everyone. I LOVED my birthdays and I coped fine with the fact that I wasn’t invited to everyone else’s birthday party. This birthday hysteria really goes on my nerves. To me it feels as if currently many birthday parties is more about parents wants and needs than childrens’.
I have heard of that rule before, Yolande, and think it sounds like a great direction to head in. I think the difficult thing in a class situation is that once one party has included everyone, then maybe the pressure is on to do the same? I am just so glad that Immy’s birthday was right at the beginning of school and with renovating the kitchen we skipped a friend’s party all together this year. I like simple, at-home parties for littlies and don’t think I would have coped with inviting everyone.
I totally agree, Christie. Your child is invited, so you feel you have to invite that child back. The pressure is on. However, I think often it is too much for children to cope with, and I don’t invite everyone I know to my birthday parties, so why should my child? Here in London, if you invite the whole class, often parents come as well and sometimes even siblings and then you might need an entertainer and before you know it, you have spend hundreds of Pounds on the birthday of a 5 year old. I think that is insane.
I was feeling exactly what you are a few years ago. So many gifts to buy for the every growing weekend party lists. So I made a rule in this house that all gifts (there is always the exception though) were to be hand made. Either I would make it or the kids would make it. (eg, an apron and a few printed off recipes glued into a book, hand painted t-shirts, an ice cream palour gift box, some handmade soaps, heat packs, beaded neclaces etc……..) Gifts are about thought and being able to personalise each gift is what counts. And I have to say, we have had nothing but great responses about the gifts given. Hope this helps a little!
What great ideas, Claudia, thank you for sharing.
Preschool and kinder/prep are the worst years as far as sheer numbers of parties and kids at parties go. They tend to lessen as kids get older and have their special group of friends but at the younger age they are either friends with everybody, or as a parent you don’t want to leave kids out or you may want to increase your own child’s social circle and hope for a few return invites if they need a bit of assistance with socialising. It is kind of good to get to meet the parents of the kids too. One way of getting around it is to just invite the same sex as your child – halves the class number without offence!
I hate giving “brand name” type presents and go out of my way to give presents that have good play value but not necessarily expensive. Less than $20 is my usual budget. Does depend on how organised I am though as buying last minute presents is never good! Usually have a few things put away from good quality toy shops or fundraising catalogues. If there are multitudes of guests often the gift seems to get lost and half the time I think no-one knows who gave what, so i try to stick to something simple.
PS. I have my daughter’s 6th birthday party tomorrow! Will be madness here in the morning with cake decorating, house decorating and making sure i have enough party favours, etc to go round!
Buying last minute gifts is so expensive! (I learnt that the hard way but being pregnant or busy with a newborn meant it took a while for me to get organised with gifts). Glad to hear it gets a little easier as they get older and good luck with the party!
We started doing things differently because we were starting to see a lot wrong with how carried-away people get with kids’ birthday parties, in terms of waste, expense, stress, and runaway materialist expectations. Instead of a massive gala in which every guest is expected to bring a storebought wrapped gift, and leave with a plastic bag or other container full of little plastic trinkets (which everyone gives out, but I don’t know a single parent who doesn’t wish we could all just stop doing it!), our new paradigm for birthdays runs thus:
The theme is Happy Birthday, and decor is balloons and paper streamers, plus anything my kids want to make, instead of an entire garbage-bag-full of one-use matching cartoon-franchise themeware.
Real dishes and cloth napkins and tablecloth in bright colors. We have a dishwasher and a washing machine, after all. In lieu of storebought toys exchanged for trinkets, we have a used book swap. We wrap our books in reusable cloth wraps called furoshiki (made from yards of pretty calico I never did anything else with) that can be tied to resemble a bow. Everyone gets to bring a book, and leave with a book new to them. The emphasis becomes what we do together, not a pile of glittering storebought stuff on a short stopover along its journey to a landfill.
Kid birthday parties can be simple, fun, and about shared memories and fun things done together, once they are no longer about everyone having to go spend money on things that will soon be discarded. Many parents I have spoken with, would be relieved if everyone else would agree to step off the consumerist blitz when it comes to parties, also, but don’t want to be the first ones to do it, for fear of looking parsimonious or being accused of not wanting kids to have fun. I try to reassure them, that kids don’t have a lot of fun sitting for an hour while the birthday child opens a mountain of gifts in front of a roomful of friends and relatives, painstakingly and one at a time with a photo of each gift being opened, being taken. Even the birthday child gets visibly tired of it before it’s done.
The habit of the entire family of each invited child, staying for what was supposed to be a simple cake-and-balloons kid party with pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, also makes for a difficult time hosting such an event, where inviting 5 kids, balloons into inviting 15 to 20 people, most of whom are adults, who have no place to sit and nothing to do. When I was a child, parents just dropped the invited children off, and picked them up again 2 hours later.
What a fabulous idea to recycle books. We are a big book loving family, and this idea would work fabulously for us.
I wrote a post about this same thing last year when my eldest started Kindy. I relate to everything you wrote! Hoping these parties become less frequent as years go on, although I dont want my boys to be unpopular 🙂
I have to admit that I have been a little shocked at how much parents are spending on birthday parties for their little ones! It seems like everyone is trying to out-do each other :-/ We do not plan to have large parties for our girls (and may not even have one every year *gasp*) but rather, we hope to recapture the true values of childhood with simple but fun parties with close friends… that’s the plan anyway!
Because we attend church on Saturday, we have agreed that Rebekah can go to parties held on Sundays (or days other than Saturday). This means she has missed a few but she has still attended enough that we don’t appear completely stand-offish!
As for gifts, I decided to go the handmade path this year which has been challenging but fun too 🙂 I do have a few books tucked away should I run out of time and/or patience!
Debbie, I feel the same way about parents seeming to want to ‘out-do’ each other in the party department. Don’t get me wrong, if that’s something your kid is into then cool. But it worries me that there are SO many themed parties with hundreds and hundreds of dollars being spent on party favours, matching-everything and structured activities when all the kids seem like they want to do is fang around the backyard making their own obstacle courses or maybe blowing bubbles and doing a little craft together. Just wonder if we’ve lost some of the simplicity since the introduction of pinterest and fb where parents are constantly wanting theirs to look like the ‘perfect’ party. Of course, this isn’t the case with every party but it is something we have spoken of a bit here lately as it seems to be a bit of a growing trend. Just my thoughts 😉
I must say that the parties we have been to have been quite simple if they have been themed at all which is nice. I too tend to stick to more traditional party games and activities 🙂
We’re quite sociable as a family so I must admit we do love a good party…ours or a friend’s. I love all the fun that goes into preparing them for our kids but we do try to keep it reasonable. With 3 kids it can be a lot to fit in and the cost can still end up being quite high. The last thing we want is to loath the organisation of our kid’s parties, so we decided to give the kids a party each year (small or otherwise) until prep then after that it would be every 2nd year. The girls are only 2 weeks apart so once we get to alternating years with them, I have to remember to make one an odd year the other an even year – just to make it easy on myself! My son is now 9 and this has worked perfectly for him. He still gets invites to friends parties even though he isn’t doing as much of the ‘inviting’ so thankfully it hasn’t hindered his social calendar. However the parties aren’t as frequent as when he was in prep and kinder – part of growing older and kids having fewer but closer friends and less ‘party-like’ events, I think. He does sometimes get a bit jealous of his sister’s constant invitations, but things will change for them too. In the meantime, we just do what we think is right for our family and seems to be working really well for us…and the kids!
We just recently held a birthday party for our 5 year old, and living out of town, we invited whole families so turned out to be a rather large affair. We got through it by keeping it simple, making a bike track with jumps and asking all the kids to bring along their pushbikes. Food was sausage sandwiches and corn on the cob with a few party snacks, easy.
We had a no present policy, which didn’t work at all. Majority bought presents Mr 5 couldn’t care less about, some of which have already ended up in the garbage.
I am in a state of conflict regarding present boxes. I have one, but feel I am just giving a present for the sake of giving a present. I have started giving ‘chickens’ through careAustralia, where we purchase a chicken to be donated to a family in a third world country. The recipients love it and it teaches them there are other kids less fortunate than them, and that there is more to the world than ‘plastic fantastic’ gifts.
I love the sound of your party, Erin, I am sure the children had a wonderful time 🙂
My sisters and I always had at home parties. Though at times the parties aren’t actually parties last year for my 17th I went to the movies with 3 school friends and then came back to my place to have a waffles (the waffle iron was a a birthday gift from my parents it is worth its weight in gold we use it so much!) it was small which I liked for my 16th 10 friends and I went to an indian restaurant then came back to my place for cake. I have ALWAYS liked to keep things on the small side as it means you can do more personal touches and budget friendly ideas. This year its my 18th and I honestly have no idea what to do! I am thinking of a dessert night with 20 friends and family members so will see what happens 🙂 When I was younger most parties were at home some were at McDonalds but that was it the bulk were at home or at the local park. We have a budget of $15 per party and we can eye out for jewellery sales as most of the parties we go to are girls who have their ears piecered and most of the time during the sales you can pick up nice silver earings for under $15!
I loved at home parties when I was growing up and hope my girls do to. I think your $15 present limit is a good one too 🙂
At last I am not in the minority!!! Kinder has been hard for me in soo many ways – not least of all the birthdays! I find it hard to take my child to “the golden arches” when I have sheltered him from there before (he likes the park – doesn’t get what the big deal is about the food 🙂 ) And spend time with EVERYONE from kinder, when they share cakes at kinder for their birthday already. We are working on the rule of inviting the number of children to match our age at the moment. Luckily my kids like the old time party feel I create (treasure hunt, pass the parcel where not everyone wins a prize etc!!) Presents for the parties we go to are from online sales/specials seen when shopping/homemade (and sometimes even regifting…sssshhhhh) I am really surprised at how much parents are willing to spend on their child’s party and often wonder if they are trying to have THEIR own wished for party from their childhood – without remembering the age of their child….the best so far is a 3 year old sleep over (luckily 3yo can’t read so we only went to the lunch!!)
We had the same trouble earlier in the year with our oldest (4) who’s friends all seem to have birthdays in the beginning of the year. And now it is the same thing with our 3 year old whose friends birthdays are all within the next few months! So, we are very selective about whose invitation we accept. We only say yes if it doesn’t make our life crazy. We had to skip a few because my son was in dance and my daughter had softball games and practices on the same day already, and then what do you do with a toddler and and baby with all that running!? Also, because not all children and families are ‘fun’ to be around we just explained that just because they are in your class doesn’t mean we have go to things outside of school with them. (my kids know that they absolutley must be friendly to all kids especially while they are at school. However, because I work there they know that some kids are not positive to be around so we limit it to school.
Also, I have found that most of the kiddos I know have wayyy to many toys (including my own!) So, we like to get them gift cards for local activities that they might enjoy such as tickets to see the minor league baseball team we have near us or movie gift cards. Last year we bought two of our daughter’s friends gift cards to a paint your own pottery studio which they really loved!
Love the activity gift card idea, Rebekah, thank you for sharing 🙂
Books! I always give books. Kids today seem to have too much stuff. I let my 3 year old pick out his favorite and we purchase several at a time. For his last party we even had a book exchange in lieu of gifts.
I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s responses above. I am a fan of simple, smaller, at home parties too. I can imagine in the kindy/pre-school years how invites tend to go out to large numbers as children don’t have a special group of friends just yet, but it must be hard with parties taking up precious weekend family time. I love your idea of a present box, I will definitely be remembering that one! x
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I know it’s a bit late to add to this topic, but I was happy with something we gave a four-year-old recently for her birthday– a sculpture box! We made her a batch of play dough, put that in a baggie and put that in a sturdy clear plastic bin with handles. We added plastic cutlery and string and scotch tape and some wooden sticks. I made a sticky sign for the top of the box that had the child’s name. It was so fun to put together and probably cost about $7.
A bit late to add to this topic, I know. But, I just came across it today because I was thinking about birthday parties, especially since my daughter’s first birthday is coming up. For my 4 yr old, whe have always had small parties with one or two family friends as well as our small small family. But, for my daughters, it will be only 6 adults and 3 kids, including her. I feel a bit guilty. But, the truth is we don’t have that many friends. When my son was small, I tried to join a mothers group but you needed a car because all the events were being held so out of my way, so I couldn’t be included. Since, then we have moved and with my daughter, no mothers groups around here either but I do take her to the early years. We have not met anyone yet and most people have their network of friends already established so to let someone else in is not a possibility. It has been hard for me to make friends all my life but because I am an identical twin. So there was shyness and people afraid to get close to twins, they either liked me and not my sister or the other way around. Sometimes, my sister feels like a stranger to me as well, she is one of the most selfish people I have ever known but I love her.
In any case, my son has been to a few birthday parties, but not many. I wonder if it is because these families don’t have birthday parties for their kids and it is just family or what. I have a friend and she doesn’t do parties for her kids and another friend who came to my son’s birthday. For her son, she just invites all the cousins, just family so my son isn’t invited. Saves me money and time, I suppose.