I LOVE doing interesting, detailed and surprizing parties. My children – 9 and 10 have had a multitude of ‘over the top’ parties. I truly love doing these parties, and yes, they are for me as well as my children. BUT they are not for social status and, because of prior planning, they did not cost a lot.

Creativity, organization, planning and theatrics can pull off an amazing party. Every year the child picks their theme and I create an age appropriate adventure hunt, meal and then decorate around that theme. We have had spy training (and subsequent mystery to solve), pirate, bugs (insects), Tom and Jerry party, Warrior cats, zombie, blue clues, Halloween haunted house and a dog-napping party. I have family/friends act in the adventure hunts, and they *seem* to always love it.

The parties really should be relatively small (ie 3 or less guests, plus my two children) because of the adventure hunts, but I have done the huge, entire class parties as well. Whew, that is really intense with the adventure hunts!

I do entirely agree with previous comments. DO NOT LEAVE children out. It is heartbreaking to know you are the only boy/girl in your class who was not invited. Yes, it happened to me once. Either a small group or the whole group. And children need to be properly instructed on the potential impact of discussing the party at school etc.

I also resist the useless, clutter filled and junk food filled party bag at the end of the party. I try to have a simple item related to the theme, but am hoping to discontinue that now that the kids are 9/10.

Just this year we have started to request donations in place of a present at the children’s party. My daughter bought a mosquito net, an art set for a traumatized child, and a soccer ball for children in Africa.

While I am one of the ones who goes overboard pls understand this is one of my great joys of having children!! Some of MY best memories of their childhood is remembering their faces at the surprizes from their parties, and hearing “this is the BEST birthday party EVER mom.”

I try to keep my kids’ birthday parties simple. (Probably because I am not organized enough nor do I have the energy to plan something elaborate in advance!)

We just celebrated my second child’s (Ellie’s) 3rd birthday and I really wanted to keep it simple, yet fun and creative. We invited grandparents, and 3 children plus their siblings and parents (who are all close friends of ours). We decided to have a garden-themed party. We have a four-year-old daughter as well so we have enough toys and I really am trying to keep the toys under control in our house, so I asked the guests not to bring gifts, but to bring yellow flowers (Ellie’s favorite color) to plant in Ellie’s “yellow garden.” We had talked in advance with Ellie about creating her own garden so she was very excited by the flowers (her older sister already has a “purple garden” that we created last summer). I think most of the guests went to the farmers’ market the morning of the party to pick out a yellow perennial and Ellie received a beautiful assortment of plants. We did give her one gift from the family and the grandparents brought gifts (they just can’t help themselves!), so there was a brief present-opening time, but it wasn’t the focus of the party.

I was going to make cupcakes but my mom got into the theme and showed up the night before with an “Edible Garden”–she had baked sugar cookies in the shapes of flowers and butterflies, frosted them different colors, put them on tall lollipop sticks, stuck them into styrofoam in a yellow basket, and poured M&M’s all around them. It was so cute and went with the theme, so I scrapped the cupcakes. I did go overboard on the food, but I love to cook so that part was fun.

I’m not big on the goodie-bags–I really hate it when my kids go to parties and come home with small plastic useless crap. But I do like the idea when what the kids take home is a craft they’ve made. So, to go along with the theme, we had the kids make garden stepping stones–we got a big bag of cement, some baking pans, some glass beads and rocks, and got adventurous with toddlers and cement After the stones set for a few days, I delivered them to the parents of the children. When the party was over, my husband dug out a small garden patch for Ellie and helped her plant her flowers. Her stepping stone sits in the center of her little garden.

I should note that we are not big gardeners at all (nor am I very good at it)–but we like digging in the dirt and the kids really got into it. It was fun, relaxing, and the best part for me is that I didn’t have to find homes for a pile of new toys!!

One thing I wanted to mention — when my kids turned 12, I told them I’d only continue to throw parties for them if they asked for donations to a charity (of their choosing) instead of gifts. They did this without complaint and none of the other moms could believe it! How did I persuade my kids to do that? Honestly, it was easy!

My thoughts on children’s parties – spend some money, but use the day as an excuse to get together with friends. Make home-made ice cream, grill out, and invite over family and friends. Why waste an excuse for a good get-together? Instead of lavish gifts, give one gift they will enjoy (like a book, not just a toy) and sock the rest of the money away in a savings account.

On the subject at hand, my sister is all for big 1st birthday parties as a way for the PARENTS to celebrate having survived the first year, and thus more for the adults than for the little ones who won’t remember much…

We went to a birthday party for a one year old, and my goodness, was it ever regimented. There were certain things they were to play with at certain times. Then they were to sit down and do a sing a long. Then there was a pinata. And the mom seemed really offended if your kid did not follow the schedule. We’re talking under 5 crowd here. Actually, some of her family was there with older kids (probably up to age 10), and they were kind of horrible. They did not participate in anything that the little kids were expected to do, and when they did the pinata, they went crazy with greed. My little one and three year olds each got a handful of candy and I told them, “That’s enough for you, leave some for the other kids.” And they did. It was one of the few times someone said to my, “My, your kids are well behaved.” Apparently another cousin of mine had said she was coming and then didn’t show up. The hostess kept asking when they were coming and why weren’t they here. I finally said maybe something came up or the boys decided they didn’t want to come. In our family, little kid birthday parties aren’t really strict RSVP events — it’s more of a “we’ll try to make it” deal. And the kids in that family were 10 and 12 year old boys, so I can’t qutie see why the hostess was so surprised they didn’t come to the 1 year old girl party.

My least “simple living” birthday party was age 11 where I had an inflatable bouncy house. (My dad works at the fire department, and if you volunteer enough hours running it at the fair and such you can borrow it.) It was complicated (we had to borrow a truck to get it there) but AWESOME. We basically only stopped jumping to eat.

I’m sure others thought it was silly of me to spend the time and money celebrating the birthday of a baby who was no more aware of the milestone than she was of the pile of gifts in the corner, but it was a labor of love, and a celebration of the joy she has brought to our family.

At the end of my life, I want to remember the important milestones, and I want to help make them memorable for my family. Maybe that means a Dinosaur Train cake shared with mom and dad. Maybe that means taking a day to gather cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents–finding a reason to break away from the busy, to slow down, to be together, and to celebrate life. Maybe that means specially made orange-popsicle flavored ice cream. Maybe that means fifty cupcakes lovingly decorated by a dear aunt. Whatever it means for my family, I will continue to pursue constructing loving, memorable gatherings for those whom I love.

The advice of number of guests equal to child’s age or age plus one is OK. However, if that means leaving out 1 or 2 children from the class, I’d invite them all rather than hurting feelings. Sometimes it’s better to do same sex guests to keep numbers down. Children who aren’t invited may already feel outside of the group, and not being invited to a party or even makes them feel worse.

if needed, just invite the closest neighborhood kids.

Don’t give out invitations at school, especially if you decide to not invite everyone. Again, this avoids hurt feelings and a mailed invitation is much more likely to get home and read in a timely manner than one given to the child to take home.

Gifts should be eliminated. Both of my kids showed their feelings on their faces, no matter what they said. I’d much rather see small gifts be requested for a favorite local charity.

I hope that the attutude and spending adjustments we make during this economy also affect the size of and activities at children’s birthday parties. I hope this affects weddings, too. That would be a another post.