Between Meagan and Sarah we’ve celebrated our kids’ birthdays 95 times. NINETY-FIVE birthdays, guys. We share the lessons we’ve learned in scaling back while still keeping up some special traditions, make a case for opting out of birthday madness when it isn’t your jam, and confess some of our birthday party fails from over the years. Join us!
LINKS MENTIONED:
- Earlier shows on birthday parties, episodes 68 and 69: Kid Birthdays, Part 1 (The Kids In Your Family)and Kid Birthdays, Part 2 (Other People’s Kids)
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Wanted to pass along a birthday idea that I’ve never heard. My fourth-grade daughter has been having shared parties with a classmate whose birthday is around the same time for several years. It is GREAT. Two other groups of kids in her class with birthdays around the same time also have done this. My daughter loves planning with her birthday twin. The other mom and I divide out the chores and expense. As in, hey you buy the pizza and drinks and send out the invites. I’ll book the location and pay for that. Then there are twice as many adults to supervise. They even got to have a play date to write thank you notes. More fun. Less trouble and expense. There’s so much to love about it.
I don’t know if it’s just me or not or my kids have just had over the top birthday parties in the past but now they don’t want to even have a party. They are turning 7 and 10 this year and they want to go places like the beach for their birthday. Am I the only one with these mature requests???
I do my best to throw “birthday themed” birthday parties, but yes, I will “theme” it by buying some invitations and $10 worth of decorations from the party store. This year was Pokemon – I do tend to do one “thing” per kid, and this kid got a homemade Pokeball pinata. In my defense, I had time and my kids learned the joy of a balloon and paper mache. Pro tip: if you do a pinata, put in equal baggies of candy. If you let the free-for-all happen, you deserve the tears.
Thanks for this great episode! I’ve never been an “over the top” party planner, but of course, I like my kids to have fun, like everyone else. I especially enjoyed the part of the podcast when you said not having a friend birthday party EVERY year is OK. We have fallen into the every-other year pattern for our kids, and for a while, it wasn’t even that–maybe every three years. I felt like we were the only ones doing this, so I’m glad hear of others feeling the same way. In our area, it seems that all parties have to be at expensive venues, too, which is now finally fading out as they are getting older. Keep up the good work!