Family view - Party season follow up
Kindly contributed by Fiona B, mother.
So now the pressure was really on. It was my turn to do the ‘birthday’ thing.
I had laid a couple of ground rules already.
1. Keep it small. We had managed to engineer a third birthday before starting nursery school. Once that starts the whole birthday arrangements start to snowball! So we would only have 6 children. This meant it could be -
2 at home.
After that there were just the usual stresses:
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How to keep six three-year olds and assorted siblings and parents happy for 2 hours
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What to give everyone to eat
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What cake to have – the bake or buy dilemma!
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Party bags or not and what to put in them
So, based on extensive previous research, here is what we did and whether it worked!
Everyone arrived about 3pm and the adults were plied with drink (alcoholic where appropriate/necessary!) Children helped to make popcorn (in a saucepan so we could all hear the pops – more exciting than a microwave…. Also, we seem to be the only family that I know with a child, but no microwave, but that’s another story). General wonder and amazement at the transformation once the lid was lifted.
After eating the popcorn (I am still finding bits two months later!) we played party games that included musical bumps, musical statues and pass the parcel (standard issue pressie in the middle only) etc. These all worked well with no ‘you’re out’ enforced. They were just happy to dance about a lot. We also got them to do a balloon race (of sorts) where they had to run/walk across the room with a balloon between their legs. This was hysterical – I can thoroughly recommend it.
Then it was time for tea. I had just done sort of picnic and finger food so the adults and children could eat it but I think next time I would do picnic boxes for the children like a happy meal. It would have been a lot easier. I also did jelly and ice cream which I will not be doing again for a while. Tremendous mess and not all that popular. Shame as I have fond memories but there we go – perhaps my daughter will have fond memories of squeezy yoghurt tubes!?
I bought little purses as party bags and just put a chocolate coin, a balloon and some cake in each.
I think everyone left happy.
Was it worth it? Well, I think everyone had a good time. Do I remember my third birthday party?... um, no. No disrespect to my parents but it doesn’t stick in my mind. So I guess this event won’t rate as a formative memory for my daughter. Ah well, it was fun on the day and quite low stress so I guess that counts as being worth it!