Birthdays are personal and birthday parties should be as well. If you don’t know your guest of honor, gather some information about him or her. What are their hobbies and interests? How do they spend their free time? Learning whether they enjoy football, cooking or traveling, will present numerous opportunities for you to personalise their party with creative details.
For example, use a favourite hobby as a theme for the birthday cake and decorations.
For the footballer set up a net in a corner of the venue, for guests to try their hand. Use green tablecloths with football candle holders. If your guest loves to travel, send out traditional tourist postcards in lieu of customised printed invitations and offer a varied international menu from some of the places they have visited.
If the birthday child is fond of pirates and adventure, hold a treasure hunt. For younger children, keep it simple and have them work in teams of three and keep the list of items short. Older children will enjoy the challenge of finding numerous items on their own. Children remember what they did at a party and whether they had fun playing games. Less important is whether the balloons matched the napkins and the overall colour scheme.
When children reach a certain age, they become well aware of when their birthday is, even though their concept of actual time may not be that accurate. It doesn’t take long before they associate a birthday with a party, cake, candles, decorations and….presents!!!
Fun and games for all can often leave the host frazzled and exhausted. To minimize the stress level when planning a children’s birthday party, follow these tips:
Limit the number of children: the rule of thumb is to match the number of guests with the age of the birthday child. For example, invite four children for a four-year-old’s birthday party. While that may not be reasonable in circumstances of a large family, in general, it is better to invite fewer children to a children’s birthday party. It doesn’t take long for a well-planned party to spiral out of control when too many children, excited for the party and fueled on sugary cake, take over.
Keep it short: While an hour and a half may seem like a short period of time to celebrate a three-year-old’s birthday, that 90 minutes can seem like 900 minutes when tired children in need of the afternoon nap begin their meltdowns. So keep the official party time to an hour and a half; many parents, when picking up their children, stay and socialise at the end of the party so the party will go for two hours anyway.
