Combining Friends and Family at Birthdays

If you only do one--do the family. Unlike Gamma G., I never tire of family events, but I get irritated when certain friends assume that they are family and should come to family events.

Call me the birthday queen. I love my birthday. When I was little, my mom would bring b-day cupcakes for me to school, to girl scouts, to the orchestra, etc. No kiddie b-day outing as such, but lots of cupcakes at different activities, with different bunches of kids in attendance. In addition, we'd have a family b-day. Usually a sunday dinner followed by b-day cake and paper hats.

I say the more the merrier. Hubs teases that I am convinced that my b-day celebration should start in August, one day afer his is over, and end in October, one day before DS's b-day. He's not too far off.

LSHA

Seriously, family get tired of having to come to every single thing....lol. I know I did when the kids were little. It seemed like every weekend we had another family thing.

I think that as the kids get older they naturally gravitate towards only friends. That's when we just had friend parties. I think that if other family want to do something for a birthday while they are still sort of young it's okay to only invite a couple of close friends but not casual friends from pre-school or some other class like activity. They have plenty of years ahead to do that.

not only do we combine friends/family, but enjoy that it makes for One Big Happy....soooo jam-packed full of fun moments! Memories we all cherish.

my parents & grandparents taught me this....& I'm happy my sons also embrace it. To carry lifetime friends as part of your family can be an absolute blessing!

We do separate parties. It's more work (but not as much as you would think), but entertaining a group of preschoolers (and their parents) is a separate event.

We do a "kid party" and then have a family BBQ on another weekend. The "kid party" is usually where the "work" is involved. The BBQ is pretty straightforward, just add a cake and some "party paper goods" (same ones for both parties) and you're done.

At that age, I did a friend one at Chuck E Cheese with his pre-school kids friends - they do everything and then the family one in the afternoon at our house.

We always combined the two groups into one party -- it was family and then our family friends w/ kids. There's absolutely no way I was going to put on two birthday parties a year. Our daughter is turning 8 now, though, so the party landscape is changing and she's wanting more parties that are just her little friends from school. Then we'll have a low-key family dinner to celebrate w/ the family. That usually involves getting take-out or going out to dinner and hanging out together, or my MIL likes making tacos at her house.

I just do the one big party for everyone, he turned 4 the first week of April. It IS too much work to have two :)

DS has a 12/25 birthday. We go to family for this (we have for 25 years, way longer than we have had DS - 7). We do a half birthday pool party in June for friends.

I would think it would be hard to watch several four year olds and mingle with family. Sounds like disaster waiting to happen. We only had big family birthday parties for 1st birthday. . Gets too crazy.

We do separate parties, but my mom usually hosts the family party,

We did family parties until the kids were in pre-school and had friends, then they just had friends parties. As a family we still get together for a BBQ, and we acknowledge all the kids birthdays. I just don't think that the family and friends mix well because it is difficult to entertain a bunch of four year olds and a bunch of adults/teens at the same time.

We do the exact same as SB. Family is invited for the actual birthday dinner, whether we eat in or go out.

Family AND friends are invited to the party. Normally everyone comes and it's no big deal.

We have a family dinner on the actual birthday and invite our family to join us. It's nothing over the top. A favorite meal of the birthday kid's choosing and some cake afterwards. Most family members give their gifts then, so it's not so overwhelming at the party.

We invite family and friends to the party as well. Some family comes to the party (grandparents, same age cousins, etc.), but much of the family skips out of the party since they already celebrated at dinner.

We like keeping it easy. My mom and mother-in-law each celebrate the birthdays for the month at a regular Sunday dinner with cake and ice cream. It's nothing big, and low-stress for everyone. Then with our little family, we let the kids have a bigger friend party on their even years, and the odd years we celebrate with our immediate family doing something special. So we just end up doing one party every other year per child.

We do two parties- one for her friends and a BBQ for the family. My daughter will be 8 next month. I wish my family would come to her friend party but they're not super involved with her so we do two.

only family parties for kids this young. save the big parties for when he's older. like, several years older.
khairete
S.