Last year for my daughter's 6th birthday, we paid $300 to rent out a swim facility for 2 hours for her and her friends. That included pizza; we brought in a cake and ice cream. We invited the whole class, but only about 5 classmates showed up. Sure the kids had fun, but the experience was rushed and cost an awful lot of money for about an hour and a half of swim time. Based on over-the-top birthday parties we'd experienced when she was in preschool, I thought more kids would show. Boy was I wrong. Apparently the days of the entire class attending a birthday party were behind us.
This year, I resolved that we weren't going to have a party like that again. At the last minute, we decided to have a party at home, the old fashioned way. My daughter kept insisting that she wanted a "puppy cake", so I built a theme around that. We invited her girl scout troop, and about 15 kids from her class. All told, seven kids showed up, a decent amount. We converted the garage into the party space, decorated with a party pack I got on Amazon. For snacks, I got frozen food that was easily heated (corn dogs, mini-pizzas), ordered a cake from a local grocery store, and got drinks and chips and put them in large dog bowls I got from Dollar Tree. The only food item I labored on were the cookies--paw prints and dog bones to fit with her 'puppy' theme.
For games, we did Pin the Tail on the Puppy--my husband drew a giant pug and cut out curly tails for the pinning--and we had a blue dog pinata. For play activities, we already had a trampoline and an electric jeep. The girls made their own fun, trashing my daughter's room trying on play clothes, and then ran from trampoline to car and back again.
My daughter had a great time. It was a novelty just having friends over to her house, and playing with all of her toys. They had a blast jumping on the trampoline together. The adults at the party got a kick out of watching the blindfolded kids try to smash the pinata.
Granted, we had to put in a lot of good old fashioned effort in order to get everything ready for this party. But my daughter helped, and we ultimately had fun doing it, and had a huge feeling of accomplishment (and a vodka tonic for me) when it was done.
I don't know why people have fallen away from having birthday parties at home. Maybe because it's a sign of personal wealth if you invite people to an elaborate event party held elsewhere. Maybe people have those kinds of parties to keep up with others. Or maybe people just don't have the time or energy to put on a party anymore. I'm not sure of the reason. I'm not saying an at-home party is sustainable every year; I can see a point where my daughter will have a set of friends that she will want to invite, and at that point, doing an excursion party might make more sense. But in this brief period before exclusive friendships form, an at-home party is a good way to invite just a few kids and get to meet some of their parents in the process.
Also interesting we are at the age now where parents can leave their kids at the party. Almost every parent left their child for a couple of hours, even though some were hesitant to do so at first.
Next year we'll attempt a sleep over party...this year was too soon!
