Carla’s birthday is a little more than a month away and I have NOTHING planned. Usually by this point, I have fretted all over this little blog about theme and where to find theme-appropriate napkins and how difficult it was to pin down a venue and which cake I’m going to make. But this year, I have… nothing.
(Not even a cake request, which is very un-Carla! And perhaps… perhaps this is the year I outsource the cake baking????)
Part of the problem – maybe the MAIN part – is that Carla doesn’t have any sort of specific desire for a party this year. I mean, she wants A Party. But she hasn’t said “I want a tea party” or “let’s all play LEGOs” or “I want to paint pottery!” or whatever. I am not a creative person, when it comes to birthdays. All my creativity crumples into dust beneath the anxiety of planning an event and executing that event and then attending said event with multiple other humans, all of whom I am expected to interact with.
The only things at all that Carla has expressed interest in are a) a sleepover and b) a party at our house, featuring a treasure hunt.
Treasure Hunt: When Carla’s cousin was here recently, I made a treasure hunt for them. I’ve done one another time, when I hosted three other families and did a treasure hunt for the kids. I LIKE making treasure hunts. But the older the kids get, the more challenging it is to create clues that won’t stump them, but will take more than five seconds to solve.
Plus, while I am fine chasing my one niece and my one child around our very safe cul-de-sac while they look for clues, I don’t know a) how I would feel about chasing multiple nine-year-olds around the neighborhood or b) how other parents might feel about their kids being let loose into the wild.
It is almost more challenging to come up with prizes for this age group. Although I suppose if Carla lands on a theme, I could find something that works.
The biggest challenge of all with treasure hunts is making them long enough. You can make 20 clues and have the kids run up and down the stairs and around the cul-de-sac and it still ends up taking them under 15 minutes to finish. Which is quite deflating when it takes MUCH LONGER THAN THAT to create the clues and hide them.
Party at Our House: The main issue, though, is that I don’t want to have a party at my house. I find the idea of a bunch of kids invading my space SO stressful, even though it shouldn’t be.
All my birthday parties when I was growing up took place at my house. And they were wonderful! I remember, when I was really little, playing games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, or drop a pin in a bucket while blindfolded. My mother made treasure hunts, which is probably where I learned to love them.
My mom was fantastic about birthday parties, my whole life. She always did something fun and delightful. My favorite childhood birthday was the one where she bought a little Troll doll for each guest and we all sat around my kitchen table and decorated them. I seem to remember that it was a contest, but… I’m sure she found some way to make it so that everyone won.
(Is there a Troll-doll equivalent that today’s nine-year-olds would like?)
There’s also a bit of Keeping Up with the Joneses going on, I can admit. Carla’s classmates often have very impressive parties – think bouncy houses and country clubs and backyard pools. Most of Carla’s friends live in enormous homes with beautiful properties. When we’ve been invited over for parties, there are gorgeous decorations and catered food. Our backyard is (currently) a marsh, and gets so incredibly hot in the summer that it’s not really comfortable for guests. Our outdoor furniture is old and mismatched and we don’t have the ziplines or stone patios or pools that many people have. Our house itself is smallish and somewhat in disrepair – both facts that seem glaringly obvious when we have other people over. Plus, after hosting Carla’s first two or three birthday parties here, I find decorating SO stressful it’s just not even worth it. I want the Instagram/Pinterest-worthy party, but I am not great at executing that level of creativity/cuteness. I suppose I could pay someone else to do it, but that sounds pricey.
If I could be certain that all the parents would just roll up to our driveway and toss their kids out the door and leave… I might feel a little bit better. Kids in general aren’t super judgmental – I don’t remember noticing the décor or size or quality of furniture at any of my friends’ houses – and I think as long as they got to roam around and eat cake, they would be okay. Maybe this is the age where parents would feel okay dropping them off? Maybe this is the perfect time for me to get away with a banner and a couple of balloons and maybe a colorful tablecloth and not do anything else???
I don’t know. Even if it were just kids, I think I would find it very anxious-making. I much prefer going to a specific place that has employees who entertain the kids or supervise an activity and then going home to my quiet, clean, one-kid-only home.
To recap: it feels like having a party HERE would require a) outsourcing and spending a lot of money or b) doing things myself and becoming very stressed AND probably spending a lot of money. I want to avoid it… but I don’t have any alternate ideas. It feels like we’ve exhausted the typical birthday party venues… and I’ve tried looking for others with no success.
The new Jurassic World movie is coming out around her birthday, and Carla is desperate to see it. Our local movie theaters were allowing people to rent them out for birthdays… but I haven’t looked into whether they are still doing that. Plus, I don’t know how many of Carla’s friends’ parents would allow them to see a Jurassic World movie (nor how many of her friends would actually want to see it). That may be something the three of us do as a family.
Sleepover: Probably the best compromise would be hosting a sleepover. The reason this feels like a compromise is that I would limit Carla to one or two friends, so it would be less stressful. Presumably. But… then she would have to choose just one or two friends, and she’s a kid who has a LOT of friends, so I don’t know how she would choose. In this time of Covid, would anyone even be comfortable with that (not that they aren’t sharing the same air every day at school)? And my beloved child is a person whose energy level escalates in direct proportion to how tired she is, so I am imagining that NO ONE would sleep at all. Not that you are expected to sleep much at a sleepover, but… no sleep sounds pretty dreadful for all involved, including the poor parents who would be collecting their exhausted children the next day.
Plus… what do you DO for a nine-year-old sleepover? The only sleepovers I remember (and, bless my parents, sometimes I had MANY friends sleep over) involved activities like calling boys on my phone or watching scary movies or playing with my Ouija board… all of which seem a little mature for this age group.
A few of my friends-who-are-parents don’t do a party at all for their kids. For some, this is just the way it is. For others, maybe some years it works out and some years it doesn’t. I wish we could go this route! But I know Carla LOVES a party, so I’m not sure she would roll with it.
As usual, the VAST BULK of this stress is mine. I know Carla wouldn’t really care about any of the things that bother me. I know her friends wouldn’t really care, I know even the most judgmental of parents would only turn up their noses for a few seconds before forgetting about me entirely. And yet I cannot talk myself out of feeling the stress.
So here I am, doing nothing but fretting, as the weeks tick by.
Big hugs, Suzanne. I know this is stressful for you. I don’t have any good suggestions either, I’ll just commiserate. Good luck!
Movie theater parties are SUPER easy, and as the parent of an 11 year old and a 14 year old (NY, though, so maybe that matters?) I think vast majority of parents would be okay with Jurassic Park. Also, I think at this age most parents kind of prefer the drop off (you can say, this is a drop off party, but you are welcome to stay if you like!).
I am not a huge fan of putting on parties, so have pulled it off at various times, but sometimes also just bribe my children with a fun trip to an amusement park or something like that as an alternative.
For one of Elizabeth’s parties around then, I did an Adopt a Beanie Boo party. I had a table full of them and each kid picked one when they came in and then they decorated beds and made blankets and beaded collars and it was all very successful. I still remember how one of the guest’s little sisters came up to me with the beanie boo she had picked and said “excuse me, do I get to KEEP THIS?!?” And her brother decorated his stuffed animal bed to look like the Titanic. And then you don’t need to do favors because yes, they do get to keep that. This is what immediately came to my mind when you mentioned your Trolls party.
A camping themed party could be fun instead of a sleepover. It’s kind of a compromise of a sleepover but you don’t actually have to have everyone sleep over. You can set up tents and have s’mores and bag lunches and take a nature walk and make binoculars out of toilet paper rolls. Or do a daytime pajama party where they come in their pajamas and you do snacks and movie and serve pancakes for dinner but then everyone goes home before bedtime.
Our movie theater is still doing private party rentals and that is a very good birthday party too, even if you don’t do Jurassic Park. Elizabeth did that when Incredibles 2 came out and it was nice that it wasn’t at our house. It also was less expensive than I expected to rent a theater- we did it for Sing 2 and split it with another family and it was more expensive than buying tickets for the five of us but not much more expensive than buying tickets for the five of us.
Ugh. I feel you on this. We tend to have very simple parties (though, we also have a house that needs lots of repairs and it always makes me feel self-conscious when people drive up in their new vehicles and pressed trousers to a pile of paving stones and an old used-car in my driveway but, you know what – NO ONE REALLY SEEMS TO CARE?)…but they still stress me out.
I think a movie theatre party sounds great. We’ve done these at home, but it could also work at an actual theatre and I bet you could rent an arcade room?
Wishing you all the best <3
Maybe you should outsource the party, especially if you’re worried about covid, you would just have to follow the rules of the place and not make up your own. A trampoline park is always fun for her age group. Also, if she likes treasure hunts, you could do an escape room party. That one could be done at home, and they make games so you wouldn’t even have to come up with the clues! We just do family parties until they turn 16, then they get a nice big friend party. But our family is kind of a built-in huge big party anyway 🙂
My husband makes treasure hunts for our kids all the time. We’ve set them up at parks–go early, to a park that is not very busy in the morning, for example. It’s a public place, less intrusive to neighbors that way. Also, a big park–lots of space to run around. We usually put riddle clues in wooden treasure boxes (cheap at Michael’s or online), and in the prize boxes are certificates redeemable for prizes–that way if we can’t find one, or some weirdo picks it up, they haven’t gotten anything valuable.
And if the park has a nice shelter you can reserve, you can have the food and party there after the treasure hunt. It would also take the stress of hosting at home away–nobody expects a lot of decoration at a park shelter!
As for a sleepover, if Carla and her friends like the idea of camping, that would take away the covid concerns a little–I personally wouldn’t do a sleepover with cases rising where we are. But sleeping outside, in a nice airy tent on a warm night, would be doable. If you could find a park with camping sites, you could do the treasure hunt, party, and sleepover all in one place.
Good luck! This is one of my least favorite parenting things. I got suckered into doing a murder mystery party for my 11 YO a few months ago. I bought a kit but there was still a good bit of prep work. (I wouldn’t recommend it for 9 year olds. Too complicated) Anyway, if you do a sleepover, my kids are always excited about ‘staying up late’ to watch movies with their friends. We start early and ‘late’ isn’t too late. Throw in some popcorn and they’re happy. They also love doing Just Dance (or YouTube dance along videos) with friends.
Man, simple decorations and a sleepover with 3-5 kids would be an absolute riot for them. Sleepovers are drop off. Kids, even 8-9 year olds, tend to entertain and regulate themselves as a pack at that number too. Sleeping bags and a “decorate a pillowcase and stuffed animal” activity sounds doable. And staying up late? And being so so tired the next day? Those were some of the best times from being a kid!!! Couple movies for them to wind down to and you’re golden seems like to me…
And I am so horrified by Pinterest level decorations, I… sorry. I just am. Who even wants that? I went to a birthday for my 6 year olds friend, who’s mom was on my “potential friend for me” shortlist, and I was SO disappointed to see her flitting around, overly dressed up and uncomfortable, stressed and messing with Hawaiian themed plates and napkins and goddamn Hawaiian theme shaped glitter on the tables that blew EVERYWHERE… hissing at her husband to help her move a table that didn’t really need moving and… it wasn’t a good party. It wasn’t fun to attend.
Totally make it a drop-off party. Those are so much easier because, as you said, the kids just run around the house entertaining themselves and you don’t have to entertain adults or clean/decorate the house. You also don’t have to offer healthy or elevated food, because kids just want pizza, a bowl of chips, and juice boxes (maybe some fruit), and their parents won’t be there to judge. I started doing these when my daughter was 6, so obviously I think 8-9 is completely fine.
I have no advice, just total commiseration. I felt every word of this post, as it is how I approached birthday parties when mine were young!
I think my kids actually outgrew parties around this age – we just did something as a family. My favorite outsourced parties of theirs were at the local children’s museum.
Sending you inspirational vibes — and honestly, whatever you choose will be just right. You have good instincts!
When my kids were young, everyone was doing parties at McD’s or a pizza place; as a single mom of 4 young kids this was not an option for me. We had simple parties at home and I was always worried, but the kids always seemed to have a blast. My daughter’s current strategy is to take her child and one good friend to an game, movie & lunch or a special event. This always seems to go over well. Good luck!
I say go elsewhere. A trampoline park as mentioned above, a pottery-painting place, a skating rink, a movie theater – let someone else handle the stressful details and you just show up with a cake. Worth every penny.
I SO feel you on feeling house-self-conscious.
If you start with the treasure hunt idea it lends itself to a lot of different themes. My son had a pirate party when he was 8, a detective party when he was 9, and a murder mystery party (homemade, no kit) when he was 11 and they all culminated in a treasure hunt of sorts. But I could see a dinosaur-themed party where the kids look for an egg, a magical creatures party in which they look for leprechaun or dragon gold. As for where to have it, if your yard is too marshy, maybe a local park, rather than roaming the whole neighborhood. That makes it more contained.
Or if you go the slumber party direction, North had their first one at eight and I think the elementary school ones were the best. Plan a few activities (a treasure hunt, a craft, and a movie, maybe a piñata) and they’ll fill the rest of the time themselves.
I really miss those days sometimes.
Oh and if it’s at your house, I used to try to start and end with an outside activity so you can meet parents outside and don’t even let them inside. Takes off the cleaning pressure. I think 8 or fewer is a good number of guests for a non-sleepover party, and 4 or fewer for a sleepover.
All of our parties except one were at the house, so that’s why I’ve only offered at home advice. Nothing against outsourcing.
Going elsewhere seems like the least stressful. My kids got the choice of inviting more friends for a regular party with cake and gift opening or a sleepover with only a few friends.
I’m getting stressed out just reading this and I don’t have children or a party to plan. Good luck in whatever you choose to do – Carla will appreciate anything!
I have to be honest and say that I don’t miss planning birthday parties, but I do remember them. I hope that you and Carla can find a solution that works for both of you. Have you considered a nearby park? Even so, I know that can get boring for kids and that you have to depend on the weather.
Sending hugs. XOXO
Eeeek, I have second-hand reminiscent stress reading this – I’ve been really missing having littler kids lately, and this reminds me of the parts I don’t miss at all. I HATED trying to figure this shit out. Eve’s birthday is early February, and I would just get over the Christmas craziness and then look up and realize that her birthday was coming at me like a freight train.
We usually outsourced because I was too anxious to have all the kids here, and if we did we spent just as much money. Then at a certain point we had also exhausted all the outsourced places and we did stuff here – one year we had them decorate kid-sized aprons and make monkey bread, one year they painted t-shirts – I was always stressed about everyone having a good time. Nothing ever went horribly wrong, and I’m sure whatever you come up with will work out fine, but I completely, completely empathize with something that shouldn’t be stressful being HELLACIOUSLY stressful.
I am with Dominique, I am getting stressed reading this and I don’t even have kids or a party to plan. I don’t envy you, Suzanne (I would totally overthink this, too!)… but I really like Karen’s idea of having the party (and maybe treasure hunt) at a park! That avoids having to host at home, decorations can be simple and you don’t have to clean up your space!
What about a trampoline park? Or, maybe have her pick a couple of close friends and have a “spa day” getting their nails and/or toes done with lunch thrown in? The movie theater party also has merit.
One more data point. I would have been one of the strict parents saying no to a PG-13 movie for a nine year old. I was always in a small minority, though.
Same here! Especially a new movie I haven’t watched first.
I have yet to have a party for our kids, besides a small first birthday party with family. Our oldest is 4 and we’ve been invited to a handful of parties, so we are not the outliers it seems. But some of his good friends have had parties so we have bucked the trend a bit. I have always said I would wait until he was 5 to have friends at a party. But our kids have winter birthdays and the thought of kids in our house sounds so awful – mostly because of how much energy kids do and how much damage can be done with that kind of energy! So I might embrace celebrating half birthdays for them, and then people might actually follow through on the ‘no presents’ rule (another thing I feel strongly about which probably makes me not fun but I do not want more junk coming in my house!). I’m not sure what I would do if I were you, but if you have a party at your house, it 100% can be drop-off and other parents will probably be thrilled about that! If it’s a sleepover, I’d cap it at like 3. Outsourcing is a good option, too. I would just try to take some pressure off yourself by thinking back to the parties you attended as a kid and how little it took to entertain you! At least that is what I remember most about birthday parties as a kid. It was fun to play at someone else’s house (outsourcing wasn’t very feasible since we lived in a town of 500!).
Off topic, but thank you for the comment about weekend plans. It is nice to hear from people further down the line of parenting who can say ‘it gets easier!’ I need to hear that from time to time as I find these little kid years really really hard at times! Wonderful, of course, but hard.
When I was 10 I had a photo treasure hunt birthday party. We made teams of 4 and had a list of 25 or so silly pictures (pose in a store window, everyone wearing a hats). Then we were turned loose in the small local mall to see who could get the list of photos first. It was fun and memorable. I think we watched a movie or ate pizza while my mom had the photos printed for everyone. Many of these girls I’m still friends with which makes the silly photos special today as an adult.
I believe there was an adult following each team but don’t really remember. My ten year old self thought it was cool.
You could do it at a park with a combination of riddles and activities (build a shelter and take a picture in your shelter) then give the photos out later.
I just hosted a birthday sleepover for 9 year olds. I had parents drop off and we immediately went snow tubing at a place close to us, then husband and I brought the kids home in two cars which was a nice way to limit the party size (6 girls) Then all then ate pizza at my house, watched a movie and slept in my basement. No decorations at all. I will say at 9 years old not everyone came with sleeping bags but I made it work. I asked for 10am pickup and had bracelet making supplies on the table at breakfast (French toast casserole). No favors just the bracelet they made in the morning. My kids best friend pretty much had the exact same party but trampoline place, a craft, and donuts for breakfast. It was very very easy and they all had fun.
I don’t know if this theme is too young for a 9yo, but my 6yo loved it: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0892R3JPG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
There are also matching centerpieces and mylar balloons you can buy, and stamps and pencils if you feel like doing favors. I outsourced the cake and it turned out adorable.
The party was at our local aquarium because hosting is way too stressful for me. I have held her party at a park in the past, but the weather is a crapshoot in early May. One year I rented a bouncy house to set up at the park, and that was fun.
Good luck! I am sure she and her friends will love whatever you do, and the parents can suck it if they want to judge.
Oh, I also got a big banner for her and her front to stand in front of for pictures. You could do some simple photo booth props for that.
My kids at that age really liked going to Sky Zone or one of those trampoline places for parties. We tended to never have “huge” parties (as in, we never invited the whole class) and we actually never paid the places to host the party in the party room and all of that. We usually would tell them to invite 3-5 kids (so with our own 2, would be around 5-7 kids max). A few times we just took them all ourselves to the trampoline park place, paid for 2 hours of play time, and then we drove over to Rocky Rococo’s (in our 2 cars) and had pizza there. They liked picking their own drinks from the fountain drink machine. lol. I think we ended up back at our house just for cake and about another hour or hanging out/ opening presents, and then the parents just picked up there. Or, even better, you could just offer to drive them all home at the end when you’re done! Then no parents even need to go to your house. I’ve done that, too, when I wanted to avoid having to have the house all just so. The parents seemed to like not having to go out and about anyway. Definitely do NOT have all the parents over!!! I would hate hosting a big party like that. We also do not have the “right” set up at our house compared to many people we know. Makes me self conscious sometimes, too. Like elisabeth said, I cringe sometimes even having certain people drop off/ pick up my kids….from our old neighborhood, 1970’s ranch home…. oh well! Not interested in a mammoth mortgage.
Kids’ birthday parties seem to stressful! I think that’s why my SIL always does them at some sort of event venue (like a trampoline park) where the kids can be entertained and the food is catered and even the decorations are handled, ha. I don’t know how I would handle this sort of event planning if I had a kid! I hope you’re able to figure out what will make Carla happy that will also make YOU not pull your hair out!
I feel your fret and understand it. We used to have large house parties in December for my husband’s staff and coworkers. 60-70 people traipsing through my space, at my invitation, but still… it wore me out worrying about it beforehand, unwinding from it afterward. I know you’ll do great with whatever you decide to do, but have no suggestions.