Birthday Parties 101--Five Things I Wish I'd Known Earlier

When Energy turned four years old, I decided to throw him a huge birthday bash. I was feeling guilty for not throwing him a party the previous year when he turned three, and decided his fourth birthday would be a party to remember. I settled on a carnival theme and began planning how to turn our cozy townhouse into a fairgrounds for a bunch of four-year-olds... in the middle of winter and without the benefit of a backyard, garage, or basement.

Despite the challenges, I was determined to make it work. I borrowed a huge plastic slide. I bought some large crawl-through toys and an exercise trampoline. I found a huge under bed storage tub at Wal-Mart and filled it with several giant bags of rice and tons of tiny new toys to search for. I set up a bowling ally in the hallway. I cleaned out our local Michaels arts and crafts store of their foam sticky shapes and set up a table with butcher paper, crayons, and other art supplies for puppet making. I went wild with streamers in an effort to transform our home. Needless to say, my perfect party was already racking up a hefty bill. And I hadn't even done the party bags yet.

Then I invited close to twenty kids, not wanting to leave out any of my sons friends from church, preschool, or the neighborhood. And since four-year-olds don't exactly have hopping social calendars, all of them were able to make it. Oh, and did I mention I also had a two-year old and was five months pregnant at the time?

Since I am a crazy, detail-oriented hyper-planner, the party went well and everyone had a blast. Everyone except for me. Sure, I was glad everything went smoothly and, although it was noisy and only semi-under control, no-one got hurt. But by the time the games, crafts, and cake-eating were done I was a sweaty, frazzled, pregnant mess. Gift opening sent me over the edge as children clamored over me to give Energy their presents, and Energy tore them all open in the middle of a huge mass of tiny bodies before I could make note of which toy came from which friend. When the parents finally came to take their tots home (some of them stayed to help out, but since it was a small space, the extra bodies only added to the melee), I was so glad it was finally over.

At the end of the day when it was all cleaned up and the kids were in bed,  I realized I had spent a small fortune and almost two months of my life planning the perfect party. (I didn't yet know about the additional two months I would spend cleaning rice from various nooks and crannies of my kitchen where I had set up the rice bin). And though Energy had fun, my husband and I did not. I didn't understand until several years later that Energy would have been just as happy with something simple. The desire to plan an amazing, over-the-top birthday party came only from my own obsessive need for perfection.

Well, party planning season has arrived again and I'm currently in the throes of birthday plans for Plucky. Spring sees the bulk of our family's birthdays and, though there are several close together, I have learned a few things over the years that have made the concentrated party planning more manageable. I share them with you now in the hopes that they will be of some benefit to you, whether in planning your own kids' parties, or perhaps just so you can laugh at my expense.


Number One: Kids don't care about the details. You know those super-cute parties on Pinterest that make you feel supremely unworthy when you consider your own parties? Well, you are in luck because your kids won't notice the decorations no matter how cute they are. I'm really glad Pinterest was not around to make me feel inferior while I was planning parties for Energy, Mellow and Bright. I stand in awe at the many creative and talented people who plan beautiful parties, but I'm not that great at it and frankly, I don't have the time. So, even if you have the talent to create a Pinterest-worthy party, be aware that your kids won't notice or care. (But, if you want to do it as a creative outlet for yourself or to impress your kids' friends' parents, go for it!)

To illustrate my point, please see this amazing kitty adoption party I found after planning the one I'll be throwing for Plucky this weekend. Seriously? I bow to the creator of that party, but I do not have time for that. Now here are pictures from the party I just finished setting up for: 

Visit to the vet after adopting their kitty--Mellow helped set this up

 Decorating their kitty carriers

 Outside relay race, mouse hunt game and face painting to be set up in the morning

Now, I'm happy with what we've planned for tomorrow, but I have to admit it's pretty lame compared to the party I found online. So I will repeat this mantra to myself: I refuse to feel inferior because of my sub-par party decorations. Plucky and her friends will still have fun and that's all that matters.


Number Two: Create a budget and stick to it. I've found that once I have a theme in mind and start hammering out the details, it is very difficult for me to stop buying stuff that will turn the party in my head into reality. I learned after that first party to plan wisely where I want to spend my (okay, my husband's) money. Again, kids don't care about the details. Even if you find the perfect centerpiece or paper ware to go along with your theme, the kids won't be any wiser if you forgo it in favor of a pinata. (I do have to say here that pinatas are super easy and always worth the money because kids love them! If you make your own pinata, I don't want to know about it.)

Putting together party bags can also be quite pricey, even if they are filled with junk from the dollar store. But here's the thing about party bags: my kids play with the stuff inside them for about ten minutes. Then the party bag sits on their dresser for a few weeks until the baby comes and spills it all over the place, destroying whatever was inside. Then I secretly throw it away and no-one ever notices. So spend wisely (or don't spend) on goody bags.

Number Three: Kids don't need a party every year. I wish I had realized this sooner. Energy got an elaborately planned birthday party every year from the time he turned one until his eighth birthday (with the exception of year three, probably due to the arrival of his first sibling). As the years turned and our kids multiplied, it became apparent that having lots of kids means nearly year-round party planning. In favor of keeping my sanity and paying our mortgage, we decided to cut back on birthday parties.

We dubbed years five through eight as reasonable years for planned parties. After year eight, we would go somewhere fun as a family (think Coldstone or Chuck E. Cheese) instead of throwing a party, and they could bring a friend or two along. But there would be no invitations, no games, no party bags, and no theme. Last year we learned that sleepovers are way easier to plan than regular birthday parties. All it takes is lots of junk food, a new movie or two and a few rented video games. (For boys, that is--I suspect it may be an entirely different story with a girlie sleepover, which we have yet to attempt).

Number Four: Have a detailed party plan that includes time to open gifts. It may be considered tacky to open gifts at a party, but I've learned I need to include it anyway. Kids don't understand tacky. They just want to see their friend open the gift they've picked out. And if you don't have a plan, you will end up with a chaotic mess of kids presenting their gifts to the birthday child and insisting they open it right as their parents are arriving to pick them up. A good old-fashioned game of Duck, Duck, Goose works well for this, with each child holding their gift and giving it to the birthday kid when they are picked to be Goose.

I also plan out my parties in fifteen-minute increments. Very Type A, I know. But it works. I like to have a new activity start every fifteen minutes, since attention spans are short when there are lots of hyper kids crowded together. Sometimes we don't get to all of my planned diversions, so I always make a prioritized list of which ones I'll cut if needed. In my experience, it's better to be over-prepared than to have a cake-filled bunch of kids bouncing around with a half hour till their parents show up and nothing to do in the meantime.

Number Five: When all else fails, put on a silly hat and adopt an Australian accent (or make your husband do it) The absolute best party we ever threw was a jungle safari party for Mellow's sixth birthday. I had a jungle obstacle course set up in the yard (party planning became much easier once we got a house!), which the kids were led through by their personal safari tour guide (my husband wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a crazy hat). They filled jungle safari journals with stickers to make note of animal sightings along the way. The safari ended with an alligator pinata, resting in the mud underneath my kids' favorite climbing tree.

But the best part of that party was witnessing the kids faces as my awesome husband filled his role as crazy tour guide. An accountant by day, his naturally creative side tends to get stifled at work. So he let it all out and put on quite a show that day. He was so funny that Mellow's friends talked about his cool dad for the rest of the year. Making a fool of yourself is always a big hit with kids.


So, there you have it. Five party planning tips I wish I had known twelve years ago. May they bring you joy (or at least release you from unnecessarily high expectations), in your own party planning endeavors!