8-kid Superkids birthday party box, £70.
I have always gone totally over the top with Kitty’s birthday parties, because I thought I ought to. She did in fact enjoy them, so it was fine. But I didn’t. Not really. Even though we had a truly wonderful entertainer who I genuinely now consider to be a friend and nothing went wrong and all the kids seemed to enjoy it, I didn’t.
So the last birthday party, her sixth, was the last. Next year, she can have a film party or a pottery party or a horse riding party or something. Not an entertainer and games and a sit-down birthday tea. It’s just such a nightmare.
Sam had a small party when he was one and didn’t know any better – but it turns out that he doesn’t really like parties. He doesn’t like crowds or noise – he’d be a totally crap police horse – doesn’t want to go to a party or have his own.
So instead I organise for him a massive blow-out birthday breakfast with helium balloons, (you can buy a helium canister from Amazon or Argos and fill them yourself, it’s very satisfying), proper tablecloth, presents, cards and whatever he wants for breakfast; boiled eggs are usually his dream meal at any time of day.
Then I pack him off to nursery with a giant cake, everyone fusses over him there and they sing Happy Birthday to Sam and every gets a slice of choccy sponge and as far as he’s concerned, that’s the best birthday he could possibly ask for.
So that is a done deal and I do hope I will get away with that until he asks for an actual birthday party, by which time with any luck he can have a small party themed to one of his favourite things, like cricket or monster trucks or swimming or sitting on the sofa picking his nose watching CBeebies.
I have in the past decorated the sacred birthday breakfast table with stuff from Party Pieces – just everything in blue or blue and white.
But then a company called Blossom and Bow got in touch with me; they do extremely cute themed birthday party kits so I struggled briefly with my no freebies rule and grudgingly (willingly) let them send me an 8 person “Superkids” party kit for Sam, whose birthday it is on Saturday.
He has only just discovered Superman so he will be totally delighted with this.
Other themes available are “Over the Rainbow” “Ahoy there” “As Cold as Ice” “Once Upon a Time” and “Jurassic”. All tasteful as hell.
B&B are also planning a festival theme, a forest forage theme and a space theme, coming later this year, to cover all interest eventualities and strictly gender-neutral, which is fine by me.
£70 for EIGHT kids?!? Are they having a giraffe?!??? Nice though, will probs end up panic buying the lot one day
Actually I tried to do a similar shop on Amazon also thinking it was a bit steep and it came to more than £70 bc everything comes in different numbered packets – and then you also have loads of odd red plates/straws left over. If you add on a bit more for the convenience of the thing, it ends up being okay value. Not if you’re on a tight budget obviously, but neither is it a total rip-off x
I think I have whinged about this on here before, about my son’s birthday being Christmas Day, so no breakfast birthday table for me! I mean, him. Well, the 2nd baby’s birthday is 29th December, so not much better. I am always so jealous when I see people making a fuss of their kids on their birthday. Matthew has to share his special day with Jesus, Santa and all kids everywhere. So this year I’m celebrating him being 2 1/2 on 25th June. The poor wee guy absolutely LOVES a birthday. It was my birthday the other day and all day I got ‘mummy, happy birthday porridge’ ‘mummy happy birthday sammich’ ‘mummy happy birthday fish’ about everything I did and ate all day. So I don’t care if it’s hugely over indulgent, I’m doing it. Elaine x
Yeah Elaine fuck it, give him 2 birthdays – one on… I don’t know… the 15th of December and then the actual birthday on Christmas Day. Just make a deal with him that the 15th is his celebrate-y birthday and the 25th is his official birthday. Who cares about the details… x
I do think that there’s no such thing as a tasteful children’s party. If it ends up being tasteful, it is for the adults, not the kids.
Would it be awful to order this for my own birthday? I’m a little underwhelmed by the ‘candle in a piece of toast’ theme repeated every year…
My twins were so socially hopeless they had to go upstairs and lie down on their little beds at their third birthday party. The noise and fuss generally killed them. This was a hammer blow when you factored in how much the whole fandango had cost me and the fact that I had about twenty three year olds still in my kitchen.
Children’s birthday parties are RIDICULOUS in my opinion, and I can say that as someone who has willingly spent £350 on Sharky and George for two hours. They’re a bit like weddings, in that the whole world has gone mad with Pinterest competitiveness and angst. We need a step back, or a handy apocalypse to trim us of all fripperies for a bit. They don’t remember the matching cups or straws or themed plates. It all ends up in a black bin bag, along with squashed remnants of the cake that you iced at 3am that morning.
The grand news is that it calms the fuck down as children get older. Or maybe I have?
‘He doesn’t want to go to a party or have his own.’ Sam sounds like my kind of man.
I have been there. My boy is now 13 so thankfully this kind of party is over. Good luck!
Boiled eggs are pretty much MY dream meal at any time of day too,esp. with very buttery soldiers.
A birthday breakfast sounds like a splendid plan.
I remember a variety of awful birthday parties of my own, particularly the one where my mother spent ages making a multiple-layer different-coloured cake which all children rejected as being ‘weird’ (more fool them – it tasted fine) and I think that the one where a snotty little girl announced she ‘only ate Walls’ ice cream’ to my mother’s ill-concealed exasperation (“Well, sorry, Julia, then there’s no ice-cream for you. More cake?”). The one where all the girls lined up on one side of the village hall and all the boys on the other, and we refused to interact with one another all afternoon. The one where children cried because the garden was too scary to play hide-and-seek in (it was large and overgrown, to be fair). Someone else’s, where I cried and refused to let my mother leave, and she had to take me home after 15 minutes – God, poor Mummy, she’d spent days making me an excellent Little-Bo-Peep costume but I was excruciatingly shy and didn’t know any of the children there.
My husband sensibly sticks to him, me and Bollinger (oh, and the dog). Perfect party for any occasion.
parties are all basically awful
I feel so guilty for not wanting to do parties. I’m such an introvert that I need to stare at a magnolia wall for a good half hour afterwards to reset myself after all the social effort. This year for my son’s 6th we asked if he wanted to go to Legoland in a few weeks instead of a party and he was delighted as was I. We did a breakfast table on his birthday before school and he got to choose where to go out for dinner. Much more civilised. But he too would make a crap police horse (guffaw) so maybe we are more alike than I realise.
My daughter’s birthday is a couple of days after Christmas and we still do birthday decorations etc in the kitchen and pink up the place and she likes having the Christmas stuff still up. She very proudly tells everyone her birthday is at Christmastime so we’re not killing her buzz.
These look lovely, they are expensive but I can understand the market for them.
I used to hate doing Birthday parties for my boys. I remember spending hours one year making a Nigella Lawson chocolate cake and at the party one of their friends aged 6 told me it was too rich and he felt sick. Nearly throttled him..
kids are so fucking rude
I guess it’s not quite in the Blue Ivy league of hiring Miami Zoo for her birthday, but still a little excessive? I’ve just taken delivery of an eBay £8 Postman Pat party pack (also for 8 people) for my son’s birthday on Sunday. I expect he’ll be so high on e-numbers and excitement that he won’t notice what his cake is served on. They do look pretty though!
that’s the spirit luce
I did a forest school party for my daughter’s 5th. It was amazing. We just sat by the campfire in the middle, poking the fire with a stick and didn’t see a child for about 2 hours (except when they came up to roast some marshmallows). Was in November, so I guess we were lucky with the weather because it might have been awful (for the parents-children would have been oblivious) in the rain.
Birthday breakfast craziness here this morning, thanks for the ideas Esther, will tweet you a photo as can’t seem to attach here…..
£70?!? I got about twice as much from party pieces for about half the price, must be tough for this company to be going up against the might of the Middletons 😉
Yes I’m sure it is – and it’s good to support small businesses x