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LET'S HAVE A BIRTHDAY PARTY - AT HOME!
by Jane Holtz

"What kind of a party is this?" I asked the excited kindergartners. "Great!" was the answer.

Although I had expected to hear that it was a cowboy party, the answer I got was even better. Eight little boys were obviously having a "great" time at my son’s six-year-old birthday party. No, we were not celebrating in a gym, at an arcade, at a restaurant or in some other exotic place. We were holding the party right at home.

Although many children enjoy parties elsewhere, parents should not be afraid to hold a birthday party at home. With a little planning and another adult to help, parties at home can be lots of fun, less expensive and more comfortable for everyone.

When planning a party, I found it helpful to choose a theme. Over the years, we held cowboy, Olympics, zoo, dinosaur and train parties. With a theme, all activities and decorations were centered around that idea.

As the guests arrived, I handed them paper lunch bags which they could then decorate with crayons and stickers and use during the party as their "goody bags." By having something for the children to do right away, there was less running around until everyone had arrived and the party could really begin.

We usually began the party with the birthday child opening his presents. Many children spend a good deal of time and thought choosing the gift they bring and they really enjoy watching the birthday child open it. Sometimes we’d have a special way to choose whose present we’d open next, such as spinning a bottle and opening the present of the child it pointed to or drawing names or even Polaroid pictures taken of each child at arrival.

It is important to have more games and activities planned than you think you’ll ever need, because often things move very quickly. It also helps to have a couple of games going on at the same time so that no one has to wait very long for a turn. Another solution to the "too much waiting" problem is to plan games which involve everyone at once. I always held some kind of a hunt. The children searched for stickers, pennies, cards, plastic figures of cowboys, animals or whatever goes along with the theme. These also go into the goody bags. Other games to consider include a bean bag toss, dropping clothespins into a bottle, blowing ping-pong balls across a floor, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey (or the "smokestack-on-the-train", etc.) and other old favorites adapted to the theme. At our parties, everyone won a prize just for playing, and all prizes went into the goody bags. I often planned an art activity, too. That way, children could take their masterpieces home after the party (and it was a good activity to suggest if the children needed to settle down at some point during the party.)

I usually served a meal with everyone sitting at the table together. Food was simple. Hot dogs, applesauce and chips were popular, as were sandwiches and other finger foods which I could prepare ahead of time. Cake and ice cream followed, of course. A little favor at each place was always popular. They could be played with at the table and later put into the goody bag.

An hour and a half is long enough for a young child’s birthday party. Also, you might want to keep in mind the old rule of thumb, to invite the number of children equal to the number of years that your child is old (for example, invite five friends for a five-year-old’s party, eight for an eight-year-old’s). You may find that it works fine to invite a few more than this number, but too few is usually better than too many.

You can’t have too much help at a party. Keep in mind all the tasks you’ll have to be doing simultaneously, from welcoming guests to serving the meal to running the games, plus all the unexpected ones like tending to a scraped knee, comforting a homesick child or being there for your own child (whose behavior may change dramatically during the party!). Enlist your husband, older children and/or a few friends. You might also hire your regular babysitter to help out.

Be sure to talk with your child ahead of time about what you’ve planned and let him help get everything ready. Anticipating the party is at least part of the fun!

Believe me, many happy memories can come from parties at home. As a matter of fact, when my older daughter turned 18, she fashioned her birthday party after those she remembered so fondly as a little girl. We had a houseful of eighteen-year-olds spending the evening playing memory games, candy hunts, relays, hidden word games and others that they had enjoyed as children. They had a wonderful time, and I happily went off to bed knowing that this was one teenage party that I didn’t have to worry about getting out of hand or even think about cleaning up in the morning.

Jane Holtz, the mother of four grown children, has taught at Willow Wood Preschool for 14 years. She has served on the Alliance board since its beginning in 1989.