Birthday parties…how often?
We don’t work on a set schedule as to which year the kids can have a birthday party with their friends. If we don’t plan one where their friends will be invited, we always do an afternoon tea with the family, or offer a “drop in” invitation for icecream and birthday cake.
We do of course have birthday parties for the milestone birthdays. But this year will be a little different. DD12 insisted she wanted to have a birthday party last year for her 12th birthday so we said that if that happened she won’t be having one for her 13th birthday. She was fine with that so she got her Hawaiian Luau party. (I’m sure I blogged about it…go back and have a look if you like 
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This year DD7 is having a party for her 8th birthday only because when we were discussing different themes, she said she would like a pirate party. So after this party, her next one with friends will probably be her 10th birthday because we’ll be celebrating her reaching “double numbers”.
DS16 didn’t want a birthday party for his 16th so we got the family together and went out to lunch to celebrate his birthday. DD15 wasn’t meant to have a party this year but she persuaded DH to let her have some friends stay over and then, funnily enough, some more friends turned up and it ended up being a bit of a party anyway *insert rolling eyes here*
So, to get to the main purpose of this post, it comes down to how often should the baby have parties in her first 5 years. When the 4 older babes were between the ages of 1 - 5, we planned parties for them as our finances allowed but I would like to have a party for her each year with family and close friends. Of course, when it comes to birthday parties, DH’s opinion is different to mine and he says that we don’t need to do that.
So, my question to you all……..how do you decide which year to have a full-blown birthday party? Do you just do it for milestone birthdays or is there a different method you use? I’d love to hear your thoughts
On Mar 28th, 2008 at 11:23 am mama2 Said:
Hi, we have 7 children. 3 boys 4 girls. They take it in turns to have there parties. eg. All the girls have them 1 year and all the boys have theres the next year. On the “special” (eg1, 5, 10, 13,16.)birthdays it is family only. And they get to choose if they want to go to a restaurant or have a BBQ at home.
On Mar 28th, 2008 at 11:58 am Karen Said:
You could have a party for DD1 each year but not a full blown theme party. Maybe something along the lines of immediate family and a couple very close friends with just cupcakes, fairy bread and a couple of other “girly” party things. If you made it just for afternoon tea it need not be a huge affair. Make her next theme party at 5 then she will have school friends to invite so you would want that one to be a big one.
On Mar 28th, 2008 at 2:10 pm Tina Said:
@ Karen, I think we might just do that. Cupcakes is the way to go I think because of the different times that everyone drops in on non-milestone birthdays so no-one will miss out on the “blowing out candles/cutting of cake”.
On Mar 28th, 2008 at 2:11 pm Tina Said:
On Mar 28th, 2008 at 9:11 pm Karen Said:
Where do you find cupcake “stuff” online - I have searched EBay and cannot find much at all - just some coasters and placemats and I dont thnk that is the type of thing the person wants that I am buying for. I have found caketins at Peters of Kensington but so far that is my limit :((((
On Mar 28th, 2008 at 9:36 pm Tina Said:
I’ll have to have a look and see what I can find.