Kids birthday parties…I don’t know about you, but these give me such anxiety. All of the ‘What if’s’ start running wild in my head. We’ve all seen the viral stories of the kids where no one showed up to their party – What if that happened to my kid?! What if everyone comes and I don’t have enough supplies? What if…Once I get past these I run into the whole next section of panic: Are the other parents going to judge me for {x} Fill in the blank of irrational fears. Regardless of all this anxiety, we throw a party for each of the kids every year. We invite everyone, family, friends with kids, and their whole class from school. This means we’ve had kid birthdays with 60+ guest before!
How the heck do you not only survive that level of chaos but have people rave about it?
Glad you asked. It’s easy! Keep it all very simple. No fancy complicated events, no impressive menu of chef prepared food, simple, simple simple!
A super important thing to remember is the party is for kids; if the kids are having fun, then the parents will enjoy themselves as well.
Our go-to menu for birthday parties is hamburgers and hot dogs, quick, simple and scalable. We always allow for extra people in our headcount because you’ll always have that last minute attendant or sibling you didn’t know about. We do cupcakes and don’t worry about having enough for every adult as most adults pass on the cupcakes. We also don’t want to be left with 30 extra cupcakes. We’ll put out some bags of chips, apple sauce pouches, mini oranges and store-bought chocolate chip cookies to round out the menu. Again, what would a kid like? Tip: if it is warmer out cooling the apple sauce and/or mini oranges will help encourage healthy snacking.
We give kids an hour to play and eat then we if we have a pinata we’ll do it followed immediately by cupcakes and presents. This means you can be done in 2-hours for your guest squeezing this into their hectic lives that is huge. We never end our parties at a particular time though. We send the kids back to playing after the events are done and let each family in attendance determine their own ending. Obviously, if we were to host at a location this is different.
Key takeaway – keep it simple, from the menu to the activities and everything in between! Think back to your own childhood, and your favorite birthday parties (your own or ones you attended); do you remember the decorations or the fun you had with your friends?
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