The Next Big Thing: Joint Birthday Parties

Each boy got their own small cake and we had cupcakes for the guests.

I'm unabashedly a thrower of kid birthday extravaganzas.  I love to throw parties in general, though.  I love to bring people together at the perfect venue for an unforgettable good time.  I love going crazy with theme's, tirelessly handcrafting each and every detail, and giving the most unique birthday swag possible.  Sure, maybe it's because I'm crazy.  But realistically I do it to keep myself busy in the months and days leading to my little angels special day.  Because when that special day comes, my babies are one year older.  They are a little farther from being the tiny newborn that needed me so very much, and that much closer to the grown up that only calls me when they need something.  Not that I try to baby them(I honestly don't) and I do so look forward to when they move out on their own.  It's still hard so I bury myself in tasks.



Every year the birthday parties have gotten bigger, especially for my son.  He was the second born, the son my husband so dearly wanted, and a child with special needs.  We'd had a baby shower for my daughter who came first, but couldn't justify it with a second child when most of the items we'd gotten for my daughter were gender neutral.  It seemed like overkill.  A 1st birthday party at Brookfield Zoo did not, however.  This year we nearly had his birthday party at Legoland.  He's been working so hard and making such huge progress with speech and behaviorally.  He deserved it, honestly, and would've gotten it if trying to plan it and working with the party team at Legoland wasn't a complete nightmare.  After about of 2 weeks of back and forth just trying to put a deposit down, I was ready to start pulling my hair out.

Randomly one day, my friend Heidi(and nanny to one of my kids play date buddies) suggested we do a playdate at a new place called Chasers.  It's a laser tag place that opens up the black lit laser tag area during the day for littler kids to ride big wheels through, as well as all you can play video games, a play structure, dance floor all for $5 a kid.  Also we were welcome to bring our own food, so no overpriced concessions!  My best friend Stephanie and I had a great time and so did our kids.  At some point during our playdate at Chasers, we started lamenting over the cost and general pain in the ass it was to plan these parties.  Our boys, both turning 4 and best friends as well, have birthdays 5 days apart.  They also have a lot of the same friends, which meant 2 parties for all of our friends, a week or so apart.  Bright idea: why not just have a joint birthday party?

Birthday party trends change like any other trend.  The time of the big overblown birthday is ending.  It's much more common to have a small birthday, just a few kids or just family, at home, and very very low key.  I often do a separate smaller family party at home(as do many of the parents I know).  It's more intimate and relaxed.  I actually get a chance to talk and laugh and sit and enjoy.  Bigger isn't bad, but it's not always better.

It took about 3 whole seconds to convince our boys to have a joint birthday party.  You gotta love how easy kids are to please.  On the other hand, if your planning a joint party with a friend, the most important thing you'll need to ask yourself is "can I really plan this with my friend?"  Seriously, can your friendship make it through the stress of planning a birthday party?  I really believe that if you and your friend are friends because you're so alike, you might not want to consider this.  Steph and I however are not.  We both have big hearts and great imagination, but Steph is thankfully much more logical.  This saved me so many times during this whole process.

After we decided we'd make a great team, we agreed right away that monetarily everything would be split down the middle.  From the deposit, to the invitations, to the goody bags, we got real comfortable talking to each other about money.  I think it's best to agree on a budget for each item ahead of time.  For instance I bought one part of the goody bags and Steph bought another.  We went to buy some of the decorations together and each of us bought half.  We ordered the cakes together and again each paid for half.  Keep receipts and make time to compare them.

Next we had to figure out who to invite.  Since the boys both have so many of the same friends, that part was easy.  But there were classmates and family members to think about.  The price of our party included 40 kids.  So after the 1st 20 friends the boys had in common, each of us could invite 10 family or classmates.  Pharo's class is much smaller and he's only close to a few kids from it, so I was fine with giving up some spots.  After people RSVPed no and closer to the party, we were able to invite siblings to fill the spots we'd have to pay for anyway.  A quick note on this.  Please do not assume that if one of your children is invited to a party, that their siblings are as well.  Most of the time us parents are charged per kid, the party itself may be only appropriate for a certain age group, or just for girls or boys.  Etiquette-wise, if you need to bring a sibling who wasn't invited on the invitation, it's great to ask first and not just show up.  And offer to pay for the sibling.  It may be that there's an extra spot the sibling can fill, but please don't leave us scrambling to pay an extra $20 as well as to make another goody bag.  This didn't happen at our party, thankfully! But I've seen it happen way too often.

We found a great invitation on Etsy! 

As far as a theme, it's always good to agree.  I sort of failed at this part because at first I thought a theme was really no big deal.  Plus 4 year olds are pretty fickle and they're constantly switching form being into "Flying Shooting Rescue Laser Aliens" to being all about "Musical Danger Super Monsters." But as the day drew closer, we had another idea.  We were going to have at least 6 tables with snacks to seat the kids friends.  Why not have a theme for each table on a smaller scale? Oreo "Sewer Lids" for the TMNT table and Pirates Booty on the Pirate table.  This worked great for us since we'd already known we'd wanted to do a bunch of snacks, and the kids LOVED IT.  More importantly, it worked within our budget.

Angry Birds themed table with gummy worms

Toy Story themed table

Minion themed table

When it comes to the time it takes to put things together, honesty is very important here too.  I had the ridiculous idea that I'd like to get recyclable bags and personalize them with each kids name.  Forty bags is a lot of bags and it takes a lot of time.  I'm always working on some kind of craft or art project, so when I suggested it I made it clear that I'd be completely willing to put in the time to make this happen.  But when they were done we both stuffed the bags and put the tags on them.  We made a fun afternoon out of it.

Steph sorting out goodie bags

In the days before the party, I was so grateful that Steph is great at organizing.  She made lists and made sure we got all the stuff we needed and that we got things done in a timely manner.  The day of we had a lot of extra help from our moms and Steph's sister and our kids joint party went smoothly.  Forty-five  kids had a great time for 2 whole hours and no fights or fires broke out.  That's what I call a success story.  We saved present opening for when we got home, that way no one felt like they got more or less than anyone else.  Plus it just takes up precious time to party.

Lunch ladies: Amber(me), Jayne, and Steph

I think joint parties are a fantastic idea.  After all the wild ginormous parties I've thrown, this one just had a lot of heart.  I can totally see that it may not work for every kid at every age, but for my son and his best friend, they would't have wanted it any other way.

Birthday boys!