How to prepare for your kid’s birthday party

Halloween

As fun as kids’ birthday parties usually are for the kids, the planning and responsibilities of the parents… not so much. Here’s what you need to know when preparing for your kids birthday party. Don’t be overwhelmed by it all, but take it step by step and leave yourself enough time to make the necessary preparations

At the end of the day, your kids will love it anyway.

Make a list of friends

Start by creating a list of your child’s friends and organising their parents’ contact details. If you’re planning an “away” birthday, you may want to speak to the other parents beforehand. By just sending out an invitation, they may be inclined to decline the invite for lack of information.

If you’re planning a birthday at home, sending out an invite should be sufficient. Be sure to include your contact details so people can RSVP and ask any questions. If your child doesn’t have the most friends, make sure you still invite enough kids to keep the party energy going. If your child is still young enough to be friends with pretty much everybody, the easiest route would be to take a class list and invite the whole class.

When you have an estimate of how many children you’ll have to deal with, you’ll know how much back-up to call in for κουφέτα.

Choose a theme

Every kids party needs a theme. It makes it more interesting, even if there’s less happening in the actual party. It stimulates the children’s imaginations and they can fantasy-play for hours without anything else (except maybe some cake, but we’re getting there). If you struggle to find a theme, just look to the latest and most popular kids series and movies. Not only will everyone love it, but it will be so easy to find related décor.

Having a theme also makes it easier to decorate in general. You’ll be able to find invites, cake tins, cake décor, party packets and balloons, most likely. And you won’t really need more than that to excite the little ones.

Organise a supervised gift basket

It’s always an awkward moment when gifts are given and there’s no place to put them. Make sure you organise a gift basket to put the birthday presents in. But, and this is important, don’t leave the gift basket unattended or within reach of children.

One consequential scenario would be your child unofficially opening their gifts, in which case you miss “who gave what gift”, sending your “thank you” note idea right out the window. Another scenario would be that other children see the gifts and decide to open them, sending your child into a tantrum of epic proportions.

Moral of the story: supervised gift basket. Also, reassure your child that there will be a time for opening gifts. You promise.

Provide games and entertainment

A kids party isn’t complete without some entertainment. And it doesn’t have to be bouncy castles and water slides (although they’re super easy and the kids love them). You can also Google “easy kids party games” and take ideas from the internet. The benefit of providing your own games is it will likely cost you less than if you had to hire entertainment.

With all the adrenaline and sugar rushing through their veins, you’ll need to channel that energy into something. And preferably something that can keep them busy for a good while. You can’t get around it, there needs to be something for the kids to do.

And something for the parents

Something for the kids and something for the parents who stay behind with their kids. What? You expected them to just fade into the background while you fuss about with all the kids? It’s not that easy.

Whether it’s a combined parents and kids game, the sports channel for the sports fans or a tea/wine corner. You need to think about the parents. They’ll need to be entertained and fed, just like the kids. Speaking of food…

Cake and sweets and more cake

You cannot forget the birthday cake. Your child will never forgive you. It doesn’t need to be a Charly’s Bakery masterpiece, but it does need to be there for your child to blow candles off of. And be smart about it. Bake one big cake for both children and parents to enjoy. You can’t go wrong with a Bar One cake. Find an easy Bar One cake recipe and even throw in some easy-bake Bar One cupcakes if your cake tin isn’t big enough for everyone.

Sweets and other goodies can go into the party packets for kids to eat at their leisure and take home with them. Just be mentally prepared for the sugar-high madness every kid will be experiencing.

But savoury stuff too

As easy as it is to feed everyone sweets, they will need some proper savoury food too. Especially when you’re thinking about the parents. Hot-dog rolls, mini pizzas and chicken nuggets are super easy to do and distribute to hungry crowds of children. You don’t need to worry about gourmet meals or anything, cake and sweets will be the heroes of the day. You just need to make sure they get something relatively nutritious in them as well.

Be strict about your end-time, so you don’t end up running a daycare centre and prepare yourself for “the big clean” that comes afterwards.