I have to give you credit for winning me over on this one! I have six kids, the three oldest are in school and I have become completely exhausted by birthday party culture. We constantly get invitations to elaborate parties and the result is that I groan at the idea of any child’s birthday party. I went into this article fully prepared to disagree with you and came out feeling much different about the whole process. I especially like the idea of homemade gifts mentioned on the invite because I and my children are enthusiastic gift-givers which can become an expensive personality trait. 🥳
I am with you here! I’ve got 4 and one is totally overwhelmed by crowds especially.
The homemade present thing is a brilliant one. I have made a rule to get a craft kit the kid could make rather than a junky toy, but making something for them is better.
I’m pretty sure I even got the homemade presents only idea from another mom in our toddler group, so I can’t take total credit, but I’m so glad it helps you!
I hadn’t realized it but you just lifted a weight off my shoulders I didn’t even know was there! I love the formulaic tea party idea. I am prone to decision fatigue so having a template to follow helps me immensely. I’m inspired! My toddler turns three next year, so I’m saving this essay!
I must be in the minority here. I grew up in a home where I had maybe 3 or 4 actual birthday parties ever. However, every birthday was a time to pick your favorite meal, receive gifts from immediate family, and have some cake. Grandparents have an open-invite, but otherwise there's no invitations, no preparations, no fuss. I really like it this way and now that we have 4 kids close in age, I'm continuing this.
My children have favorite restaurants, so we plan to go on their birthdays and grandparents are invited. My children are celebrated, get their favorite food, see loving family, and get a few gifts. I love the simplicity. My children love it, too.
Thank you for sharing this! I think simple family birthday parties like you describe are lovely and needed to build strong bonds, especially with extended family, but over time, I also think it's important to realize that our kids will have relationships beyond the family, and hosting non-family members is easier for them to do if they've been doing it all along. It's kind of the point I was trying to make in this article. But with four kids close in age, I do understand your situation. And seriously, I think that if you have to choose and your parental energy is limited, a family birthday party is better than no birthday at all by all means! And a rich family birthday full of meaningful moments is better than a performative and shallow friend one. And if your children are already heavily involved in socializing in other areas (sports, school activities, etc.) then having a private family birthday makes sense.
Another point I was making is that as a child ages, their birthday parties become less about celebrating them and more about them celebrating their friends, especially in adulthood. That can be difficult to transition to if the only birthdays they ever have are private with family. This can be compounded among Catholics who celebrate liturgical holidays with family. If Christmas and Easter are exclusively spent with family, then the birthday party becomes a natural chance for a child to celebrate beyond the family with friends. Hosting is such a necessary skill set to learn: we parents need to do what we can to keep it alive and teach it to our children.
In the end as parents, we have to pray and discern what's best for us and our children in the season we are in. God bless you!
I'm going to steal your wording on birthday gifts for our next birthday party invitation. Even with just 3 children... I have developed a bit of anxiety over all the gift giving holidays with where I'm going to store it and how I can not be overwhelmed with more "stuff". I love homemade gifts from little friends and would never begrudge those coming into the house.
I loved all the honest and helpful tips and tricks - the kind of tea, the cake you make... like you can tell so much love goes into these parties. Thank you for taking the time to include all this information. I've saved this post and plan to revisit it when I'm planning our next birthday party. :)
Thanks for this helpful post! I am currently planning a birthday party for my kids and am a bit anxious about how many kids we ended up inviting, but your post helped me reframe that as a good thing!
Yes, this is mostly what we do and the homemade gifts are sometimes so amazing they make me cry!! We have occasionally done ice skating for a ten year old’s winter birthday etc. pricier but it’s a bigger birthday and everyone has fun. The summer birthday gets a splash pad.
I appreciated this! It sounds like each child gets their own party even if you have a several birthdays close together. Are these children far enough apart in age that they're not inviting friends from the same families? I worry that having two parties maybe two weeks apart with one inviting a child (and siblings) and then a different child in the family (but the same siblings) will be too much for our friends and they'll pick one or the other. Have you delt with this? (These are all kids in the under 10 ages so more likely to involve siblings I think).
Actually, it is definitely true that my two youngest girls have friends in the same families, and those families do tend to come to both parties – or some years they pick one or the other. But generally speaking, we have a pretty large friend and acquaintance group, so it’s not always all the same families. That could definitely get a little monotonous and worse, cliquey which is why I encourage my kids to not limit their to only a handful of vetted children.
And Lent has never stopped us from having birthday parties. It doesn’t happen to us very often since most of us are born later in the year. But At least one year there was a birthday during Holy Week so we definitely moved the party to after Easter— but generally, we treat birthdays like Sundays of Lent: a release from penance, at least for the birthday person.
I love all of this! And thinking in terms of catechesis for hosting parties. We're growing the kingdom and learning to celebrate life together!
While not birthday parties specifically, my husband and I have hosted an open invite Friday dinner most weeks for eight years. It's grown from two or three friends dropping by after work and before Bible Study to solidly twenty or more people every time and someone new every week! We encourage our friends to bring friends and new people they meet. We do try to have cake at Friday dinner when it's someone's birthday (tonight's cake will have five names on it 😅). I mostly make simple things, like rice and beans, which are cheap and scale well. My house is small and messy and lived-in by kids and the walls are covered in stickers. We're not "entertaining", we're just having people over.
Our dinner tradition has been going on since before my daughter was born. I practice "attack friendship" and try to trade contact info and give an invite to Friday dinner to everyone I meet (families at the library, people walking dogs, new faces at church, etc, and sometimes they come!); we moved to a new state on our wedding day and know what it was like to have no friends for a long time. This is now such a natural part of my daughter's life, that she was chatting with the checkout clerk while grocery shopping with Dad, and she found out he was Catholic and invited him to dinner. And he came! And he brought his girlfriend who was looking for a Biblical Greek class, and some of my friends, who were sitting near her at dinner, host Greek class every week!
People have found jobs, housemates, friends, community, and three couples have met at our dinners and gotten married and several people have converted and found Catholic community. Some people have moved to live in the same neighborhood and raise our children together. It's all the Holy Spirit, all I do is cook and invite! It's been a blessed life full of more friends that I could have imagined. We can share celebration and sorrow together, and in these friendships, see a foretaste of heaven!
“Attack friendship!“ I love it! Our family took a cue from another family member and started doing something similar on first Fridays of the month to encourage people to honor our Lord’s Sacred Heart. So during the warm months, we have open invitation campfires at our property, roughly from May through November, where we welcome whoever wants to come over, we cook marshmallows and pray the rosary, and generally socialize. It was my husband‘s idea and people have grown to really love it. It’s the small stuff that really adds up, doesn’t it?
I have to give you credit for winning me over on this one! I have six kids, the three oldest are in school and I have become completely exhausted by birthday party culture. We constantly get invitations to elaborate parties and the result is that I groan at the idea of any child’s birthday party. I went into this article fully prepared to disagree with you and came out feeling much different about the whole process. I especially like the idea of homemade gifts mentioned on the invite because I and my children are enthusiastic gift-givers which can become an expensive personality trait. 🥳
I am with you here! I’ve got 4 and one is totally overwhelmed by crowds especially.
The homemade present thing is a brilliant one. I have made a rule to get a craft kit the kid could make rather than a junky toy, but making something for them is better.
I’m pretty sure I even got the homemade presents only idea from another mom in our toddler group, so I can’t take total credit, but I’m so glad it helps you!
I hadn’t realized it but you just lifted a weight off my shoulders I didn’t even know was there! I love the formulaic tea party idea. I am prone to decision fatigue so having a template to follow helps me immensely. I’m inspired! My toddler turns three next year, so I’m saving this essay!
This was really beautiful. Thank you for sharing...and for bearing such an inspiring witness.
I must be in the minority here. I grew up in a home where I had maybe 3 or 4 actual birthday parties ever. However, every birthday was a time to pick your favorite meal, receive gifts from immediate family, and have some cake. Grandparents have an open-invite, but otherwise there's no invitations, no preparations, no fuss. I really like it this way and now that we have 4 kids close in age, I'm continuing this.
My children have favorite restaurants, so we plan to go on their birthdays and grandparents are invited. My children are celebrated, get their favorite food, see loving family, and get a few gifts. I love the simplicity. My children love it, too.
Thank you for sharing this! I think simple family birthday parties like you describe are lovely and needed to build strong bonds, especially with extended family, but over time, I also think it's important to realize that our kids will have relationships beyond the family, and hosting non-family members is easier for them to do if they've been doing it all along. It's kind of the point I was trying to make in this article. But with four kids close in age, I do understand your situation. And seriously, I think that if you have to choose and your parental energy is limited, a family birthday party is better than no birthday at all by all means! And a rich family birthday full of meaningful moments is better than a performative and shallow friend one. And if your children are already heavily involved in socializing in other areas (sports, school activities, etc.) then having a private family birthday makes sense.
Another point I was making is that as a child ages, their birthday parties become less about celebrating them and more about them celebrating their friends, especially in adulthood. That can be difficult to transition to if the only birthdays they ever have are private with family. This can be compounded among Catholics who celebrate liturgical holidays with family. If Christmas and Easter are exclusively spent with family, then the birthday party becomes a natural chance for a child to celebrate beyond the family with friends. Hosting is such a necessary skill set to learn: we parents need to do what we can to keep it alive and teach it to our children.
In the end as parents, we have to pray and discern what's best for us and our children in the season we are in. God bless you!
I loved reading this so, so much.
I'm going to steal your wording on birthday gifts for our next birthday party invitation. Even with just 3 children... I have developed a bit of anxiety over all the gift giving holidays with where I'm going to store it and how I can not be overwhelmed with more "stuff". I love homemade gifts from little friends and would never begrudge those coming into the house.
I loved all the honest and helpful tips and tricks - the kind of tea, the cake you make... like you can tell so much love goes into these parties. Thank you for taking the time to include all this information. I've saved this post and plan to revisit it when I'm planning our next birthday party. :)
Steal away! I am so honored that this post has been helpful already to other people!
Love this, especially the hiking party idea for teens!
Thank you for this!!
Thanks for this helpful post! I am currently planning a birthday party for my kids and am a bit anxious about how many kids we ended up inviting, but your post helped me reframe that as a good thing!
Yes, this is mostly what we do and the homemade gifts are sometimes so amazing they make me cry!! We have occasionally done ice skating for a ten year old’s winter birthday etc. pricier but it’s a bigger birthday and everyone has fun. The summer birthday gets a splash pad.
I appreciated this! It sounds like each child gets their own party even if you have a several birthdays close together. Are these children far enough apart in age that they're not inviting friends from the same families? I worry that having two parties maybe two weeks apart with one inviting a child (and siblings) and then a different child in the family (but the same siblings) will be too much for our friends and they'll pick one or the other. Have you delt with this? (These are all kids in the under 10 ages so more likely to involve siblings I think).
Also, do you still do friend parties during Lent?
Actually, it is definitely true that my two youngest girls have friends in the same families, and those families do tend to come to both parties – or some years they pick one or the other. But generally speaking, we have a pretty large friend and acquaintance group, so it’s not always all the same families. That could definitely get a little monotonous and worse, cliquey which is why I encourage my kids to not limit their to only a handful of vetted children.
And Lent has never stopped us from having birthday parties. It doesn’t happen to us very often since most of us are born later in the year. But At least one year there was a birthday during Holy Week so we definitely moved the party to after Easter— but generally, we treat birthdays like Sundays of Lent: a release from penance, at least for the birthday person.
I love all of this! And thinking in terms of catechesis for hosting parties. We're growing the kingdom and learning to celebrate life together!
While not birthday parties specifically, my husband and I have hosted an open invite Friday dinner most weeks for eight years. It's grown from two or three friends dropping by after work and before Bible Study to solidly twenty or more people every time and someone new every week! We encourage our friends to bring friends and new people they meet. We do try to have cake at Friday dinner when it's someone's birthday (tonight's cake will have five names on it 😅). I mostly make simple things, like rice and beans, which are cheap and scale well. My house is small and messy and lived-in by kids and the walls are covered in stickers. We're not "entertaining", we're just having people over.
Our dinner tradition has been going on since before my daughter was born. I practice "attack friendship" and try to trade contact info and give an invite to Friday dinner to everyone I meet (families at the library, people walking dogs, new faces at church, etc, and sometimes they come!); we moved to a new state on our wedding day and know what it was like to have no friends for a long time. This is now such a natural part of my daughter's life, that she was chatting with the checkout clerk while grocery shopping with Dad, and she found out he was Catholic and invited him to dinner. And he came! And he brought his girlfriend who was looking for a Biblical Greek class, and some of my friends, who were sitting near her at dinner, host Greek class every week!
People have found jobs, housemates, friends, community, and three couples have met at our dinners and gotten married and several people have converted and found Catholic community. Some people have moved to live in the same neighborhood and raise our children together. It's all the Holy Spirit, all I do is cook and invite! It's been a blessed life full of more friends that I could have imagined. We can share celebration and sorrow together, and in these friendships, see a foretaste of heaven!
“Attack friendship!“ I love it! Our family took a cue from another family member and started doing something similar on first Fridays of the month to encourage people to honor our Lord’s Sacred Heart. So during the warm months, we have open invitation campfires at our property, roughly from May through November, where we welcome whoever wants to come over, we cook marshmallows and pray the rosary, and generally socialize. It was my husband‘s idea and people have grown to really love it. It’s the small stuff that really adds up, doesn’t it?
What a whole lot of practical advice and inspiration :D
Great post!