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How to give your child a great birthday party!

There’s nothing wrong with having a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese or a bouncy house venue, but with just a little planning and effort, you can throw a birthday party people will be talking about for a long time. My husband and I consider planning our 2 annual parties a hobby. We work on them throughout the year and we can take our time and spread the costs. If you pick your theme early enough, you can afford to wait for sales, clearances, and coupons to buy many of the supplies.

The most important thing to decide is the theme. Your son will most likely have 2 cents to invest in this, unless he is young enough to let you decide. With our oldest son, we decided as soon as he was born that each year we would choose a different continent as the theme. When he turned 8, he was finally able to choose his own. With our youngest son, we are looking at different periods of Americana, beginning with the California Gold Rush c.1850.

Once you have the theme, you can use a simple outline of what you’ll need and start filling it out.

INVITES:

The first thing you will need is an invitation to send. Most people are computer savvy enough to do simple desktop publishing from their own computers for this. All you need is some nice paper or blank note cards, and you can fill in the details inside. We always liked to stay away from the boring look of filling in the fields, and rather make it relevant to the topic. For our son’s Egyptian holiday, it was a telegram from 1920 announcing the discovery of a new tomb and asking other archaeologists to come help with the excavation. The invitation should set the stage for the actual party. For example, the telegrams were printed on tan parchment paper and an actual telegram font was used for printing. They were slipped into window envelopes like the old days. An Egyptian sticker sealed the envelope, and we printed CAIRO in faded red letters on the front as if it had been sealed. The seal itself is very important. Do not use any new postage stamp just because it has the correct postage. You can use any US stamp that has been issued as long as it has not been cancelled. eBay has tons of unused vintage stamps, and I bet you can find plenty to suit your theme. You may just have to use multiples or get different ones to equal the correct amount.

DECORATIONS:

Next, you’ll want to give some thought to the decorations. She wishes to transform her house into a location of her theme. Using the example of the Egyptian party again, we created an archaeological site by cordoning off the courtyard and setting up tents. The tomb was the largest store and inside was a cardboard sarcophagus, canopic jars, animal print blankets and anything we thought looked like it had been in a tomb. Try to keep this in mind when you go shopping, don’t opt ​​for printed “themed” items. Ask yourself what people would have actually seen and used. For example, Indiana Jones would not use plates, cups, and napkins with his face on them. Most likely, he uses some kind of metal set, bamboo plates, coconut shells, etc.

FOOD:

This is where my husband and I disagree. He thinks we should serve kid-friendly food no matter the theme. We invite the entire family of each child who receives an invitation, so the meal is not just for the children, and I want it to be an educational experience as well. (I definitely plan on having enough food for the adults too. I’ve been to parties before where the food is “just for the kids” and the adults leave hungry.) For the Egyptian party we had kebabs, hummus, baklava and yogurt drinks. . I just looked up Egyptian recipes online and opted for what sounded good. We made the cake to resemble 3 pyramids on a cake board sprinkled with crushed graham crackers and added little figurines and trees. Make sure you have plenty to drink, especially if the weather is hot. Allow 3-4 servings of punch, water, soda per person. Be sure to prepare as much as you can ahead of time so you won’t be in a rush on the day of the party.

MUSIC:

Nothing sets the mood for a party like music. For the Egyptian party they gave us a CD of the music they played on the King Tut tour (from 30 years ago, not the current tour). It sounded old and mysterious and a little creepy. For games, we liven things up with the Indiana Jones theme and The Bangles’ “Walk Like An Egyptian.” For the Indiana Jones party we had old 30’s jazz in the Obi Wan Club, and an Indiana Jones soundtrack in another part of the house.

SMELL:

This may sound strange, but there are a variety of scented oils, candles, and incenses you can get that also enhance the ambiance. Think how it would smell. Are you by the ocean, in the desert, in the forest? Match the smell of your house. Remember that you want to indulge all 5 senses to evoke the feeling that you have traveled through time and ended up right on your subject.

GAMES AND ACTIVITIES:

Have you ever been to a party where there is absolutely nothing to do or maybe just in a rented bouncy house? Kids get bored after a while or start to go crazy and get into trouble. I am right? Have you been there? You want to keep your structured party structured. I actually give a timeline of the event at the beginning so everyone knows what’s happening and when. I plan at least 3 games, and then also a craft or coloring activity. Some children will refuse to eat and need something to keep them occupied. For an Indiana Jones party we threw, we had kids crack a code, choose the correct Holy Grail from several options, find a diamond and vial of antidote in an ice-filled pool, paint necklaces, play steal the grail, and walk on steps in the correct order to spell YEHOVAH. It is better to have too many activities than not enough.

AWARDS:

You’ll probably want to invest in some special prizes for game winners. Once again, sometimes you can find really nice things at deep discounts.

BOXES OR BAGS OF CANDY:

Make them as unique as you can. For Indy we found mini wooden boxes on Craigslist. With a bit of stencilling, they resembled the box in which the ark of the covenant was placed. We put a museum tag, a mini sankara stone, a small Coronado cross, an antidote vial, a plastic diamond, a gold coin, a spider, a snake, a rat, an insect and an archeology club pin . We also gave each child a plastic cup (grail) to take home. Give one to each child. Adults do not need to receive one.

FAVORITES:

Yes, favors are different from goodie bags and you should have enough for all the guests. I usually make cookies and put them in those nice clear bags you can get at Michael’s. Again using the Indiana Jones theme, we purchased a replica headdress for Ra’s staff on eBay. My husband impressed at sculpey (as did Toht with his hand). I used this to make springerle cookies and even melted crushed orange lollipop in the center to make it look like a jewel. After baking I brushed them with edible gold petal powder and they looked pretty clean. Instead of using the silver ribbon that comes with the bags, we attached the museum tags to them with a rough string.

THANKS:

Lastly, you’ll need some nice thank you cards to send out after the party. It’s nice if you can find time to take photos of the party guests to include. For a Pirates of the Caribbean theme, we took headshots of everyone as they walked in and didn’t tell them that there’s a special feature on the DVD that allows you to turn the images into “cursed.” It was really creepy, but fun too. Our guests were surprised when they received them in the mail. You probably won’t need to have as many thank you cards as invitations because not everyone was able to attend. You can spend a little more time making them personal, especially if you have scrap booking skills. Use stickers and cutouts and make it a bit 3D if you can.

That is all! Phew! If you’ve made it to the end of this, you’re probably already feeling drained, but take your time and focus on one thing and you’ll get there.

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