My three kids all have birthdays within days of each other.
Because they are all 8 and under, we can still get away with throwing a joint birthday party before they each start requesting their own activity based on their interests.
This year, we threw a party that the whole family will surely remember for years to come. Between the kids’ friends, our friends, and neighbors, we ended up inviting over 180 people to our house in Maine in the dead of winter.
While it might sound like a logistical nightmare for many, I have no regrets. It was epic.
It was cheaper to host
While the idea of hundreds of people at my house at first gave me pause, we realized this was the only way to go. We decided to invite all three classrooms, since our kids seem to change their best friends every week.
That alone put us at 36 guests, and when I started looking into places that would host a group of kids that large, with a wide range of ages, I realized it would be very expensive. For example, hosting 30 kids for 75 minutes at a local science lab would’ve cost us $750. On top of that, we would need to provide snacks and drinks.
But we wanted to invite other kids beyond their classrooms. My kids all have extracurricular activities, such as swim and dance lessons. We are also still very close with their preschool friends, and my husband and I have friends with kids. We wanted to include everyone.
Also, as a mom of twins, I wanted to invite siblings. I’ve been that parent in the past who has to ask if it’s OK if siblings can also attend a party because I’m either parenting solo or the schedule leaves me with at least two kids at the time of the party. I figured inviting the whole family would mean more people could come.
We had no organized activities
In the past, when we’ve had birthday parties at home, we’ve hired an entertainer. For many years, we had face painters for a couple of hours (because what kid doesn’t love to get their face painted?). We’ve also had balloon artists, rented bouncy houses, and had a magician.
This year, we decided to go old school and have nothing but snacks and a backyard. Because we live next to a pond, we told parents they were welcome to bring their skates in case they wanted to go ice skating.
The day before the party, we went to BJs and spent a little over $800 on snacks, drinks, and candy for the piñatas. We served kids cookies, brownies, apple sauce pouches, ring pops, ice cream pops, juice boxes, and an assortment of potato chips. For the parents, we had coffee, beer, rosé wine, different cheeses, and crackers.
We could’ve gotten away with buying half as much stuff as we did, but I wanted to make sure we had extras in case we ran out of something and the kids wanted more. We invited everyone at 1 p.m. to avoid having to serve full meals.
142 people RSVPed ‘yes’
I don’t know the exact number of people who showed up, but our Paperless Post had 142 guests coming — and it felt like that many were scattered throughout our yard at times. A friend told me that when she went to park, the line of cars went past four houses on one side and five on the other, essentially taking over the equivalent of four or five city blocks.
Wherever you looked in our backyard, there were kids playing and running. The pond was filled with kids ice skating and curling (with frozen water jugs), and everyone was having a blast.
Throughout the party, which ended around 6 p.m. when our neighbors left, parents kept stopping me to let me know what a great time they were having and how hard it was going to be to take their kids home.
I would do 1 thing differently
The theme my kids picked for their birthday was the Winter Olympics. All three helped us decorate the backyard with signs that said things like “Cortina Ice Skating Center,” and they all drew Olympic rings that we hung in different places. We also bought flags from all the countries and marked areas for kids to play. We had a plastic snowboard, some sleds, and inflatable balls for the kids to play with.
When it came to goodie bags, I bought a ton of plastic gold medals and put them in a bucket at the end of the driveway so people could grab theirs as they left.
We had two piñatas, one for the little kids and another for the big kids. Last year, we only had one, and even though we had fewer guests, the little kids got trampled by the big kids. Parents really congratulated us on the idea of separate-aged piñatas, and no tears were shed.
The one thing I would do differently is get a fancier cake. We opted for a sheet cake that was large enough to feed everyone, and also big enough that we could do half vanilla and half chocolate, so everyone had a choice. I have to admit, it wasn’t the best cake, and the kids were more excited about fruit roll-ups and Nerds than eating cake.
I asked my kids if their friends had said anything about their birthday at school on Monday. My son said very proudly, “Everyone thought it was epic.” Clearly, my job was done.
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