Is it mean to give a child a “frugal” birthday party?

I do not live in a bubble. I know that there are places, special places, where a child’s birthday party is EXCEPTIONAL. Bounce houses, water parks, private roller rinks, amusement parks. Places where kids are entertained, engaged, enthralled and enchanted. Excited and elated. Energized. Ecstatic and entranced.
Et cetera.

Have such parties been requested by my kids? Indeed.
Have their requests been denied? Roger that.

It behooves me to mention that I do not disapprove of such parties, in fact, I love sending my kids to them – they always come back, well, see all of the “e”s above. Furthermore, my parents were happy to have me invite all 11 girls in my class to participate in parties on a similar scale. (My Putt-Putt party was one of my all-time favorites – my name was ON THE SIGN!!)

But now that we are living in a more frugal era, I have had to come up with ways to make my girls feel special without a massive outlay of cash. Many of my creative friends have also come up with ways to build a birthday without breaking the bank.

Some ideas:
Many people use Evites instead of paper invitations, which is both eco-friendly and economical. We tend to send out invitations, not only because the girls like to create/design their own invites, but also because we all know how fun it is for a kid to get mail.

That said, I do not like to buy a pack of cards and then spend a chunk of change sending them out. The solution? Postcards. Sometimes we design the whole thing (make sure it is the correct dimensions) and put a stamp on it. Sometimes we design just the back and glue it onto a pre-paid postcard (about $3.00 for a pack of 10, including postage). Some examples:

Great. So now you have a bunch of kids ready to par-tay with yours. What are you going to do with them? We’ve basically gone two different ways with this: a party in the park (granted I have May and August “babies” and live in a generally temperate climate) or a standard at-home fete.

Here’s the general course of events.
-Homemade craft project (our most frugal activities have included homemade puppets with construction paper and popsicle sticks, thumbprint art, and crown-making)
-Pin the “XX” on the “YY” – (that makes it kind of sound x-rated) depending on the theme, there are oodles of variations. See if you can guess which ones we’ve done:
A. pin the bee on the flower
B. pin the raindrop on the rainbow
C. pin the antennae on the butterfly
D. pin the blame on your parents

After so much fun and excitement, we serve lunch or a snack. Then there’s usually a piñata (and I am ashamed to admit that my frugality has not extended so far that I have been compelled to make my own piñata). Finally, cake. Get ‘em hepped up on sugar and send ‘em home.

BUT WAIT! Heaven forbid you send home a child empty handed (though I actually like doing the favors most of all). Some candy, in a theme-appropriate guise, and you’re all set.

Filled with good stuff

M&M's in bags, taped to a pencil with lollipop antennae. The wings are cut from colored sheets of foam (sorry, Mother Earth). The pencils are stuck in a piece of foam (upcycled from packaging) and painted green. Fly away, little butterflies!

Frugal? Sure. Mean? I don’t think so. But what do my kids think? I don’t care You’ll have to ask them when they’re older. Much older. Like when they have kids of their own and have to throw parties for them.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

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