Children's Parties

[Edward]

This reminded me of my own birthday parties as a young girl, except we always had roller skating birthday parties. Who here spent the weekends of their youth roller skating? I know I did. Roller skating birthday parties were the coolest - maybe I need to have one next year.

lol

I remember going to our village community centre (which many years before had been a cinema - beautiful acoustics in there!) every Saturday mid-morning to rollerskate for two hours for a few years, I think about 9 through 11. They still had the long slope down the side from the toilets.... great for gonig down on skates! I had a pair of the old-school style skates that strapped on over your shoes. Some of the kids had the full-shoe-type rollerboots I really wanted at the time. Funnily enough, a few years ago i looked at rollerblades, but didn't bother in the end..... just recently I saw the Drowsy Chaperone in its short London run and have the bug to buy some four wheeled roller skates again. Shame is, I want the old style, metal plate ones that tie over your shoes again but nobody seems to make those any more - rollerboots everywhere, but no simple skates, alas!

 

[$ally]

Oh, and I forgot the best party memory: Once, my little brother had the Ghost Party. We had recently moved into a new house, and had not yet gotten around to painting the brown walls in the living room white. So, my parents thought: "Since the walls are going to be painted white anyway, why not decorate them with ghosts for the party?" So, we painted huge ghosts on all the walls, and had the most impressive party decorations ever.
Only problem was, even five new coats of paint later, in a special evening light form the windows the ghosts suddenly became visible on the walls! We forgot to tell the new buyers of the house about that, I wonder how they reacted the first time they saw that phenomenon.....

lol Oh my gosh, that's so funny!
I make a ghost cake with flaming eyes. We'll all have to scan and post some recipes.
See what fond memories we have of our childhood parties. It's worth the effort to give these memories to our kids and their friends. I'd love to pix if you all have any to put up.

 

[nyx]

It's my little boy's first birthday in a month, and I admit I'm copping out with a manufactured theme of rubber duckies. The Oriental Trading company has some cute sets that aren't too expensive and require little to no activity on your part. Since a first birthday party is often for the parents and not the kids, the decorations are really for me. I just want to see him go face first into a big rubber ducky shaped cake

As he gets older, I expect I'll have to get more creative and involved, so that his friends won't get bored.

 

[Big Man]

... Since a first birthday party is often for the parents and not the kids ...

Until, 51 years later, you drag out the old 16mm home movies and "experience" that first birthday party all over again. At that point, it's priceless.

 

[Elaina]

Well, what do you do when your turning 8 year old says "Mommy, (and this is now only used for when he wants something, otherwise, I'm just plain old Mom), I want to have a Pokemon party and my dad is a..." well I'm not going to repeat it.

His 7th was ALL about Transformers. Find a cake last year, I'd of dared you. So they're not themed so much as "This is the cake with the ****py kid stuff he wanted, and oh yea, look! I found the plates and napkins and party favors in <child's choice of character>". Of course, I do confetti, streamers, order so many balloons (because what kid doesn't want to take some home?) they DELIVER them free, depends on if I have the time/inclination/lacj of character if I make and decorate the cake or not. I made the Transformer one, half sheet on dirt and had toys atop it, and then did the borders, et al because I had to. This year, I bought it. Of course, I had less then an hour to call, beg for it to get done, get it and drive it over, but that's a different story.

I've already been told next year is the year of Nine Tails, and if you understood it, then I'm sorry. As far a the pizza places and junk food, eh. I'm not one of these parents that is going to tell my son he can't have one, when it's the most important thing to them because everyone else seemingly got one the last year. Usually we have a BBQ that the parents bail on because I don't serve/allow alcohol to be served at it, but we always get the one he wants out and about. My mom did the whole McDonald's party (and I have my plate almost 20 years later) and I remember it fondly.

My mom did the at home parties, except for the one. I had everything I asked for. Mine was always so close to Easter, I remember my party favors being easter candy. One that sticks out the most was my Strawberry Shortcake party where my mom made the strawberry shaped cake, strawberry flavored, and I remember my mom working on making the icing red, red red, and had to drive to Tulsa to get the right color (bit of a chunk in 1981, we were in Sapulpa, I remember it being like 45 min to the store). She decorated it in in the star tip for HOURS, and even made my party dress to resemble the dolls. Had a strawberry pinata, red everything else, and it was the first time I got real invitations...Strawberry Shortcake of course.