Kids' birthday parties

   

Has your nestling had their first party? If not, brace yourself! Children's parties are totally different to the ones I remember from my childhood.

For a start almost all of our parties were at home. We didn't have one every year, nor did we expect to, and although I went to a co-ed school I don't think I ever invited a boy. In my defense neither did any of the other girls in my class - and I probably wasn't ever invited to a boy's birthday party.

I'm sure my mother got great pleasure out of choosing what clothes I would wear to a party, but I usually didn't enjoy wearing them. I remember the humiliation of having my photo taken standing out the front of our house (yes, where everyone driving down the street could see me), holding a present and wearing a lemon coloured crocheted poncho over a brown paisley shirt and yellow, well, I can only describe them as "slacks". In case you haven't guessed I was a child in the 70s. I know retro is cool but there are some things that will never be in fashion and I am pretty sure canary yellow slacks and lemon crocheted ponchos fit into the latter category!

We always played games and if you were lucky you might win a prize, but you certainly didn't expect to, and it would have been unusual for the birthday child to win at Pass the Parcel. One of my favourite games involved rolling a dice to get doubles. If you managed to roll doubles you had to quickly (because the rest of the partygoers kept rolling) put on a hat, scarf and gloves then pick up a knife and fork and try to cut bite sized pieces off of a family block of chocolate. As you can imagine, or maybe remember if you've played it too, there was a lot of putting on hats and scarves then taking them off because someone else had rolled double. Fun!

Party food was very much a 'one size fits all' approach and usually the same offerings of: little boys (frankfurters); fairy bread; chips; sausage rolls; biscuits and cake, all washed down with green, red or orange water cordial. I don't remember there being any party bags either. But you always got a piece of birthday cake (wrapped up in a paper napkin) to take home with you. Mind you the birthday cake would have been a normal, fairly plain, homemade cake, possibly with candles but none of this decorating in the shape of your favourite TV character - not that there were very many of those to choose from at the time...

I remember someone having a party once where they took us all to the pictures, amid much muttering about such decadence from all the other parents! When I got to high school there was the occasional roller skating party, and that was really stepping up a notch.

Ah, simpler times. But those days are gone. The world of party planning for the under 10s can be a rather scary place. However I think you will just have to work it out for yourself as there are too many minefields for me to guide you through - cost, venue, numbers (and more importantly who gets invited and who doesn't), duration, food (especially the cake), what to wear (you and your child), when to open presents, the list goes on and on.

So, good luck and enjoy the party!!

The team at nestling.