Birthday Party Organization…Oh My!

Every year, or at least for the past 3 years I say that we are going to do a low key birthday celebration for Hunter because…well…he’s so young!  He won’t remember any of these birthdays until he’s at least 6 or even older.  I quietly go about not planning anything in my head beyond doing a little celebration with immediate family and calling it a day.  But then the husband comes around and starts talking about the birthday party and I suggest that maybe we just do something small as we don’t really know people with kids his age so it basically means we are hauling a bunch of adults out of the city, to our place to sit around, eat, drink and watch a child open his gifts.  I know there are a few people in our core group who are all over that shit and can’t wait to come and celebrate the little man, but for some reason I feel like we are imposing on the child-less friends by asking them to come and celebrate a 3 year old’s birthday.  If you could only have seen the look of horror on my husband’s face when I finish with my explanation and suggestion.  His response is basically “fuck that!  We’re having a party!”  He is of the belief that those who want to come, will come, and those who don’t, won’t.  He clearly doesn’t over-think it like I do.  Which isn’t totally uncommon in our relationship.

So then I’m left to start piecing together some ideas of how to throw this birthday party that I wasn’t planning to throw.  I get him to pick a date and make a bit of a game plan and then usually I delegate certain tasks on to him so it’s not all falling on me to do.  I then start to do mental checklists of what I will need to do in advance vs. what can be done closer to the date.  I recently saw someone make a post about whatever happened to simple kid’s birthday parties at home and why have they become big elaborate events located elsewhere.  But I think the older generation who is talking about the good ‘ol days forgets that even when hosting a party in your own home, there is a lot of organizing still involved.  And back in those days, a lot of people didn’t outsource other people to help take care of a few things.  There was still food to be bought and prepared by scratch, cakes to be made, decorations to be bought and set up, activities for the kids to organize (once kids are older), goodie bags to be put together (if you are into that), then getting everything served and then the clean up after.  The only kind of party that doesn’t involve any work is no party.  Even with the simple ones there is still a lot to be done.  In some ways, it is easier for people to not host it in their home as when it’s in a public park, for example, all the dishes and food can be contained to one small area and people are more likely to help with the cleanup than they are in a home.

So as I truck along with starting to plan the party, I continuously have to remind myself to not go too crazy and to keep it simple.  All people want is food, a tasty cake and some good drink options.  When Hunter turned 1 we went a little above and beyond.  Eddie made his fancy gourmet burgers and giant pitchers of sangria.  We spent some solid money on a fancy cake.  We bought decorations for our little event in the park.  I made goodie buckets for the kids.  It was a lot of work, but our baby was turning 1!  For his second birthday we hosted it at our house.  This time we skipped the homemade gourmet burgers and instead did snack platters of veggies and fruit that we cut ourselves and then Costco appetizer packs of deep fried goodness and meatballs and then some bowls of chips.  We had people outside on the patio, in the yard and in the house.  There were a couple other kids there so I set up the kiddy pool and put some toys out and called it a day.  Now, it’s not to say it didn’t take a LOT of work to keep it that “simple”.  I was rushing around town all morning buying groceries, alcohol and non-alcohol drinks, ice for coolers to keep the drinks in and then coming home and setting everything up and eventually racing through the shower to wash off the sweat from all the busy work.  Eddie is obsessed with having the best cake ever for his little boy.  So the rule is that if it’s being made by someone who doesn’t live in our town, he is in charge of traveling to pick it up.  And he has to take Hunter with him so I can do the rest of the prep being kid-free.  He organized last year’s cake with the woman who made our wedding cake.  The previous year he organized one through another woman in the city.  And this year it seems to have landed in my lap to handle after his initial attempts at finding someone have flopped.  So he has new duties now but will still be picking up the cake.

Because our life is already crazy enough with renovations inside the house and now outside the house, I have reached out to my good ol’ friend Amazon Prime for taking care of napkins, plates, cups and a few little fun decoration things.  In 2-3 business days I will have all of my shopping, besides food, completed and I just had to click on a mouse to make it happen.  I’m feeling all kinds of levels of environmental guilt for buying paper plates and cups, but I don’t even think we have enough real plates to serve even the few people who have RSVP’d as “yes” so far, so if even more come, they will be eating out of their hands!  So it is what it is at the moment.  By the time the party arrives we probably will barely have our kitchen stuff out of boxes anyway!  I’m going to delegate my mom to pick up some things from Costco, since we don’t have one in our town and then I abso-freakin-lutely will not be saving the remaining items grocery shop for the day of the party like I have done in the past.  I’m not going to bother with anything that requires someone to stand in front of the BBQ cooking up food.  I chose a time of day where people will have likely already eaten lunch and will be satisfied with snacks.  It’s still over a month until the actual party, but with how our August is looking, I need to be prepared ahead of time.

The biggest stressor about hosting this party at our house is first off, not knowing how far along our renovations are going to be.  Our contractor has assured us that the kitchen will be functional so I’m really hoping he can stick to that.  Then there’s the deck that Eddie has suddenly decided to build that goes around the back side of our house and encompasses the hot tub.  He’s got one part of it built so far, but he’s quickly losing weekends where he can build it.  Something tells me that he will be taking a day or two off of work to get it finished before the party.  He’s totally chill about it, but in the back of my over reactive mind I’m feeling panicked.  But the deck is out of my control.  It all falls on him.  I’m focusing on controlling the things I can control.  I know my husband very well and I know that he will have the backyard in tip top shape by the time the party date rolls around.

All in all, I know it will be a fine party and a fun day for everyone.  I still would love to be just doing something small and more intimate, but what we have organized so far is a compromise between what I want and what Eddie wants for our little boy.  Hunter would be happy with four people and with 15 people, so long as he has his pool outside to entertain himself with.

So here we go again.  Third year on the earth and third birthday party to organize.  Here’s hoping that we can continue to keep the parties as simple at home parties that don’t take a lot of creativity!