Since I’ve become a mom, I’ve always taken birthday parties for my kids very seriously. Both sides of our family come over for dinner, present-opening, and cake and ice cream. I always went all-out coming up with a theme {that the kid would love, of course}, finding/making decorations to go along with it, matching cookies of various characters, having a matching birthday shirt for the birthday boy/girl to wear and all that jazz. It is probably the time of year that I utilize Pinterest the most and a time that I spend more $$ on ridiculous things than I normally would.
The Kids. They Don’t Care
I’ve been a stepmom now for about seven years and a mom for almost five, and I am beginning to take notice of a few things. First, yes, my kids always love a room decorated with their favorite characters EVERYWHERE but I am almost certain that they would love a Toy Story balloon, just as much. They have no idea that I took three hours making heads of Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Elmo, and Oscar out of tissue paper the night before the party, nor would they care! They have no idea that a birthday banner that I ordered from Land of Nod cost $20 or if I reused a regular old $3 Target one. Yet again, they wouldn’t care. They wouldn’t know the difference between an expensive bakery cake, the amazing Costco cakes, or a boxed cake that I can make myself. One more time….and they wouldn’t care, which is the beauty of it!
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
I feel like I have always tried to keep up with Joneses or Kardashians, or whomever you are trying to keep up with when it comes to birthday parties. It’s so difficult not to when we are surrounded by social media posts of other kids’ birthday parties and on Pinterest, where, let’s be honest, nothing is even real life. I also felt that I NEEDED to do that for my kids because that is what a birthday party should be!
Over the top, extravagant, and celebratory is what I wanted for them, but they mostly turned out to be stressful, expensive, and useless, which is not what I had planned. I literally made puppy ears for everyone to wear for my son’s first birthday party, and maybe, three people wore them.
Birthdays of the Past
For the most part, my birthday parties growing up were normal parties. A decorated cake or DQ ice cream cake, family, friends, and probably some balloons. And you know what? I’m pretty sure that I loved every single minute of those birthday parties. And I’m pretty sure that my kids would be happy with a couple of balloons, a homemade cake, and having their cousins and friends over to play for the day just like I did.
Now, I can’t say for sure that I won’t go all out anymore for birthday parties, {only for the fact that I kind of feel like my daughter is getting ripped off because I have done so much for both my stepson and son}, but I do know that I will be making some cutbacks in the birthday party department.
How does your family celebrate birthdays? Do you go all out? Or do you have special family traditions?
I was nodding my head the whole way through and laughing at myself because- yep, been there.??? family definitely puts the pressure on us to go big.
It took me a long time to realize it just was no fun. I can’t tell you the stress over the guest list was! #bigfamilyprobs Plus the expectations it’ll put on us and our kids I’m not so into anymore. Now we keep it super simple and private because that’s where we’re at right now. It may change it may not. I say do what works for ya?
Cheers to all the mamas, however they choose to celebrate???