Birthday Parties

If I could be in charge, I would do away with the big birthday party. When I was a child, I was given one birthday party. In our family, most of us had it when we turned 8, but for some reason (and I really don't know why), my parents threw my party for my 7th birthday. It was a Cinderella party and I invited 7 of my friends. We played pin the shoe on Cinderella, decorated paper ballgown skirts (made out of butcher paper), danced around in those, and ate a cake that was the fancy gown of a Barbie doll, which I also got for a birthday present. Cabbage Patch kids were the popular toy that year, but they were expensive and hard to come by, so my mom made me a "Blossom Baby", a handmade doll that looked like a Cabbage Patch kid. That was back in the day when it was cheaper to sew and make new toys than to buy them. It was a great birthday. In later years, they still kept to that same rule, but when I turned 14, I asked for another party. I was granted my wish as long as I organized everything and only invited about 4-5 friends. We went ice skating and came back to the house for cake and ice cream. I had another party for myself when I turned 21, but nobody came because of the snowstorm that hit that day. That is the extent of my birthday party career (and for the first time, I realize that I had one every 7 years!).

Today we are expected to throw a huge shin-dig for every single child on every single birthday. The party has to have a theme and cake that matches the theme, all sorts of games. Many parents go all out and rent one of those bouncy things, or they treat the party gang to Chuck E. Cheese or some other place. There is usually pizza and everyone brings lots of presents.

I personally enjoyed having small, intimate family birthdays when I was a kid. Those years I had parties, those were fun, but most of my birthday memories consist of a fun cake (my mom always did fun cakes), blowing out the candles after singing around the table, and presents in Dad's chair. When I was 18, my parents treated me to lunch during the school day, not something they ordinarily did.

I have thrown 2 birthday parties so far with my four children. One was when my oldest turned 3 and then again when he turned 6. That year he turned 3, we had recently moved and I wanted to meet some people in the ward, so I invited anyone who had a boy in the nursery with my son, as well as some other close friends who had children that age. When he turned 4, he went with his Dad to a game place, like Dave and Buster's, but only because Dad had free passes through his work for that very night. When he turned 5, we had family in town, so it was a big affair even though we didn't have an actual party. He was in kindergarten when he turned 6, the first time that he actually had friends to invite, so when he asked for a Star Wars party a few weeks before his birthday, I said yes. It was a fun party, but cost a lot more than we really had to spend, plus was a lot of work. I decided at that time that I didn't want to do a party for every child every year. So this year, when he asked for a party, I told him no. We told him that he could plan games and activities but that it would only be our family for the birthday. He did plan games and activities, but two days before the birthday, starting throwing tantrums because he wasn't having a big party with friends.

So the question is, am I going to face this every year with every child? Should I say that we will have parties for only the big birthdays--8, 12, 16? And the other years it will be just family? Then, if we tell them now that is the plan, perhaps they won't be expecting some big party on the other years and therefore won't throw the tantrums?

What do you do to celebrate your child's birthday?