October 14, 2009
one
So, we have a birthday party coming up in another month-ish for a certain almost one year old. I have a few birthday party quandaries. Before we get to those, let’s review the basics:
- There will be no theme. I don’t do themes well and I don’t care to spend a bunch of money on things just for the sake of theme-iness. Don’t get me wrong, themes are cute – just not a strength of mine. I will probably buy cute disposable plates and napkins in whatever cuteness strikes my fancy and if I’m feeling ambitious, I might get a helium balloon to tie to Baby Swiss’ high chair. I rarely feel ambitious though.
- There will be no smash cake. Let me refer back to my lack of ambition on this one. Baby Swiss will get a piece of cake to do with what she pleases and I’m sure pictures will be taken of a chocolate covered chocolate baby. I kind of hate the idea of the cake smash (whether it’s a personal cake, a cupcake or a piece of cake). I feel like it has gotten to be this thing where everyone has these great expectations for this kid to be super cute with the smash and it just puts this pressure on the party that shouldn’t be there. I will play this part down as much as possible probably by serving everyone else their cake first.
- Since it will be a delicious fall party, the menu will be something of the chili/soup/chowder option variety with the appropriate garnishes and probably some pb&j for the kids. Send me your great soup recipes now.
Okay, those are the basics. Now onto the questions:
- How far-reaching do we get with the invite list? I never know how to handle this. I don’t like to leave people out, but I don’t want to make people feel like they have to come. Obviously, we will invite our parents, siblings and Baby Swiss’ birth parents. We will also invite a small handful of close friends. The question for me is about inviting Mr. Mouse’s extended family. He has a set of aunts on his dad’s side that all live within 2 hours of us and who we see fairly regularly. Do we invite them?
- Gifts. Do we buy Baby Swiss a gift? I don’t really feel the need to buy her one. We buy her everything she needs plus also MORE. At the same time, is it tacky to not buy your child a gift when you are essentially asking all of the people you invite to the party to bring a gift? (I don’t care if people bring a gift or not, but I know they will.) Perhaps the best solution to this is just to wrap up something that we’ve gotten for her recently? I do feel a little bit about the gift opening like I feel about the cake smash. There is a lot of pressure on a baby to be really interested in opening gifts, when I seriously doubt she’ll even care once she has one piece of tissue paper in her hands/mouth.
There you have it. Tell me what to do.
not imitation cheese 
HereWeGoAJen said,
October 14, 2009 at 10:18 am
We are pathetic and don’t have any friends, so we probably won’t have much of a party. Matt’s parents live nearby and we are going on vacation with my parents right afterwards, so there will probably be cake and presents on two occasions, but no official party.
I am much in favor of wrapping up stuff that you already have though.
Heather said,
October 14, 2009 at 12:12 pm
We gave our kids a single gift on their first birthdays, for the same reasons you mentioned. It was a “Who Loves [So-and-so]?” photo book that we made. Each page had pictures of a different extended family or birth family member with that child. They loved them, I felt like I was still doing something special without adding to toy jumble, and they helped them learn faces/names of family we don’t see as often.
Just one idea!
Kelly said,
October 14, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Sadly, we missed Mea’s first birthday, she was 13 months and 12 days when she came to home to us. We did have a large party for her second birthday, and I pretty much invited everyone, all family from both sides, and some friends, too. I really didn’t think everyone would show up, but I’m pretty sure that they all did. It was crazy.
By 2, Mea was pretty much into the whole present thing, but we always have the party on a different day then the actual birthday, and have a small dinner with cake with immediate family, nana, papa, etc. and presents from only those people on the actual birthday, that’s when we give our gift as well. It’s nice for them to actually remember who gave them what when it comes to family presents, not that Baby Swiss will probably remember at age 1, but going forward….?