How do you simplify birthdays in your house?

We love simple birthdays. I make a box cake with tub icing and let the birthday kid choose the flavors. They love this!

Instead of loot bags, we choose one 'thank-you' gift for each guest. This year I found Clydesdale Webkinz on sale for $6 so each guest is going home with a Clydesdale. Last year we did chapter books for each guest.

We often do a sleep-over which sounds like a lot of work but it isn't. The guests come for 6:30 (after dinner). They play a few games, eat cake and ice cream, watch a movie with some movie snacks (chips, popcorn), and go to bed by 10. In the morning we have another movie, and then we make home-made waffles with cool whip and fresh fruit. We don't usually keep treats in the house so letting them go out and choose chip flavors is really exciting to them.

All in all, I keep it simple, frugal, and fun.

How do you simplify birthdays in your house?

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At our house the birthday person gets to choose what to have for supper and what kind of cake we have. We open presents after supper and then have cake. Very low key!

They only have a birthday party every couple of years. Then it is small and simple. Last year for my son's 10th birthday he invited 2 friends over and they played video games and then I took them to Pizza Ranch.

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My boys have never had a birthday party. We have cake and open presents together as a family. (just the 4 of us)

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Our kids choose the dinner meal, too. One ds turned 4 in May and his dinner was cereal w/milk & strawberries for dessert. Talk about an easy dinner night

Another thing we do is the birthday kid gets to choose the blessing we say for each meal of the day. Normally, they take turns, but the kids love this part of being the birthday kid.

The night before the birthday, my hubby and I hang streamers in the birthday kid's doorway to his/her room and blow up latex balloons from the dollar store & put the number around the floor the same as the age they are turning (does that make sense?? so, when they turn 4, there are four balloons in the floor the morning of the actual birthday)

We do small birthday parties, etc. too, but this helps the actual "day" feel special.

I love birthdays!!!

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ncleslie4
mommy of 4 blessings :love: ages 8, 6, 4 & 2
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I really like the idea of small birthday parties. We always just had family get togethers for the most part when I was a child with homemade cake - my favorite was always angelfood with ice cream.

DS is only 5 but for the most part they have been small and I like them that way. The idea of spending hundreds of $$ to have a party at Chuck E Cheese or other such place just doesn't appeal to us. Maybe we will change our minds as he gets older but not at this age. For his 5th we had a BBQ in the backyard it was a blast. It was all family except for one friend which was really mommy's friend LOL and her children and DH. It was fun and low key and didn't cost a fortune - of course I bought too much food and will scale it down next year - food wise that is.

We've had one party outside the house at Chuck-e-Cheese last year because we were remodeling our home.

We have a special dinner, cake and present. The grandparents come over and that is it.

Unfortunately, my daughter has been invited to some crazy over budgeted preschool parties and does ask me about doing it. This year I was able to tell her she got a new kneeboard instead of moonbounce and clown.

We don't really try to do simple birthdays. It really just depends on what our kids want to do. Sometimes they don't want to do anything. Sometimes we have a big party - even more than one - a family one and then a 'friend' one. Sometimes we just have our immediate family over for cake. Sometimes we take all the kids to some sort of activity etc It really just depends, we let our kids choose what they'd like to do...they only have young birthdays for so long.

We do a family party and allow a few friends---usually people who are friends with dh and I and whose kids play with my dd. We do a theme but a simple one. The invitations are printed on my computer---I usually decide the theme based on what is on clearance and what she likes. All in all with BBQ and homemade cake and some balloons etc.. we prolly spend about 100---but it is budgeted for well in advance.

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