Continuing on the birthday party series – “Four things I forgot to do when I organized my son’s birthday” (https://lavendermistwithglitter.home.blog/2019/02/07/the-four-things-i-forgot-to-do-when-i-organized-my-sons-home-birthday/) which was based on my learnings from LAST YEAR, I was careful not to repeat THOSE mistakes. But as is human, I made a few new ones. Here are some things I did better this time and some I need to keep in mind for next year!
I made sure we had plenty of games to keep the children engaged, which was an issue last time. Relied on a lot of cute printable games (check out
https://www.artsyfartsymama.com/) like Bingo and Word Search, which were a hit. You can choose the Bingo or Word Search as per your theme too, there are options aplenty. This time we also had something called “poster making” where we gave the kids a theme (“save trees, save life” was what came to mind instantly), some crayons, a large sheet of paper, and that’s it, just them and their imagination. (Advantage: we had complete peace and quiet for half an hour, a rarity in a birthday party!) Later they put up their “exhibits” and I hit upon the brilliant idea of allowing everybody to “vote” (on chits) – only, they could not vote for themselves (though I suspect some of them did)! It was all exciting, fair and square, and they enjoyed.
We also listed the games we would play on an A3 paper and put it up where everyone could see it. The structure served us well, and we allowed for flexibility, taking in their opinion on which game should be played next (some tricks I have picked up learning about “community engagement” on my projects!) Pssst…we started with Monopoly however, and I am not sure this was the best decision, because it was not really an icebreaker game. Perhaps have that after something like musical statues or pass the parcel, which allows the party to warm up a bit, and do intersperse “sitting” games with the more energetic ones!
Last time I realized that prizes for games should be wrapped, hidden, and each something different. This time I followed this, wrapped them all up (in newspaper, to be “green”), but we again made the mistake of choosing different types of chocolate (sigh, not everyone shares my craze for them it seems). I guess you just have to make the effort and keep a variety of things, not just candy, because the boys soon discovered that the prize would be chocolate, and the “prize” is a big thing to keep them all engaged in the games. Some of them even gave it back! Well…you learn….:(
On the return gifts or party favors, we mainly gave books and flower/veggie seed packets this time. I wanted to give small plants but then settled for this. Now I realize what may be a “good” gift in the eyes of parents may not be as good (read “exciting”) in youngsters’ eyes. So next time I’ll go all out and get them more fun stuff. I always say, you can judge a party by the return gifts!
I made sure to cut the cake before serving the food this time, although food time is always a bit of a chaos. This time we added icecream, and the fastest selling items were maggi noodles and cake/icecream, with a focus on the icecream. Everything else I toiled (and stressed) over was again practically untouched. We messed up the fries and instead made cutlets, which were NOT welcome. I also realized that the likelihood of something getting eaten is inversely proportional to the size, and next time I will definitely cut those cheese toasts into bite sized pieces.
One last word….if your start time is 11 am, expect all kids to arrive only by 12. Some may come earlier, but the party can’t really start till they all arrive, especially in a home party where there are only a few kids. I would advance the invitation time by 30 minutes to an hour, depending on when you would like the party to begin.
That’s about all for now. I do hope you enjoyed reading!