This past weekend, my son Gabriel had invitations to two birthday parties. It didn’t fully dawn on me that I would be hosting a similar birthday soiree next weekend until I received an email from Gabriel’s friend’s mom. See Sadie’s mom wrote a blog post on WalletPop about rating her birthday party spending… and it itemized everything. It itemized all of those details that I have neglected to think about since the last time I threw one of these shin-digs.

I really should know better to plan in advance and to think through all of the plans with sufficient time. It is in my genes. My maternal grandmother was the ultimate planner (I have some of her platters to show for it) who loved to entertain. She passed on the party gene to my mom who ensured that I always had a birthday party. And each year since my daughter was a toddler, I have created a themed birthday party for her. In fact, my daughter usually makes fun of how I take themes too far… and try to organize the food, activities, music, decorations, and invitations around a concept. That’s usually where I go overboard and overspend too.

With my daughter, I held parties for her in any number of places from apartment party rooms to Discovery Zone (it was sort of like Chucky Cheese) to a bowling alley to the Prospect Park Zoo. Then, we had various sleepovers.  Next year, for her Sweet Sixteen, she and her friend have been pricing out party rooms in Manhattan. Each of these options was and is expensive. Party spots generally cost per person, have set limits on attendees, and other details are similarly restricted. For example, our neighbors are having their son’s 4th birthday at the Painted Pot (where kids can paint pottery) here in Brooklyn and they’ve lamented that the prices don’t include food and the party is limited to 1.5 hours.

Here are my thoughts then on our options:

LOCATION: So by holding the party in our community garden, we could circumvent the restrictions. Of course, for Gabriel’s first birthday, the weather was great. Last year, it rained and we had to move the party indoors. This year, it is a crap shoot: rain looks likely for this weekend. With outdoor parties, there always needs to be a foul weather alternative. Luckily, we live near the garden… and will just move furniture. If we do go to the garden, there is a suggested donation which we happily know will be used to improve the garden.

PEOPLE: If I thought things out completely and wanted to keep the costs down, I would have limited our guest list. Another set of neighbors had a wonderful party for their son and just invited my son and the other neighbor, and immediate family. It was fun and everyone had a good time. We took the opposite approach though and invited everyone. We generally do… and it looks like we’ll have at least 50 people.

INVITATIONS: This year, we used Evite to send free email invitations. We didn’t have email addresses for kids at Gabriel’s school though so we had to make and print a few. The cost here was negligible.

FOOD: My husband loves to cook. Bless him because cooking is certainly not my thing and he cooks amazingly well. Yet, he learned his lesson with parties: If the cook is busy in the kitchen, he cannot enjoy the party. So, we generally do a few things ahead of time, but make various hors d’oeuvres / appetizer sized portions that people seem to enjoy. For Gabriel’s party, we’ll likely serve healthy foods too - but will make it ourselves. And, my husband won’t have to do it himself. Healthy options: fruit, sandwiches, chips and homemade salsa, salads (bean or green), veggie plate, etc. I’m not a fan of soda, so we’ll serve water (free), juice, and similar beverages… Lastly, we’ll make our cake. It will give me a chance to be creative and I’ll know what is going into it. There are tons of great (free) recipe ideas online and in cookbooks!

SUPPLIES: Paper plates, plastic cups, and plastic “silverware” all get trashed. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough dishes and utensils for all of our guests. I do feel terribly guilty though when I see the mound of trash at the end of each party because I know that it will end up in a land-fill. We’ll have to use throwaway stuff though and it will cost. Generally party stores have discount sections, buying plain stuff in large quantities (ie, not the small cute patterns sets of 8), and keeping leftovers from previous parties cuts down on costs. Happily, we do have some stuff from prior parties and I do have those lovely platters…

ACTIVITIES: Our theme this year is ‘Rock & Roll’. My son loves the Deedle Deedle Dees - and in lieu of hiring them, we’ll be playing their music. I could make my own piñata, but I’ll likely buy one. We have a craft project too, but we’ll see how interested the three-year-olds are in participating. Generally, activities are great at later ages - and necessary to keep the kids focused for some points - but children are amazingly resourceful. Parents (like me) tend to overplan and overspend when kids would just prefer to do whatever it is that they want to do. When possible, I’ve found that taking random stuff from around the house makes great projects (I created a pin the lips on the supermodel out of an old piece of wrapping paper. My mom organized a balance an egg on a spoon in the mouth race. I’m sure some of you remember making forts out of sofa cushions, musical chairs, and freeze dance.) In fact, if you’re looking to save some extra ‘dough’, make a game out of not spending anything on activities…

DECORATIONS: My son is into balloons… so we ordered some. However, my daughter always preferred to decorate herself. We have created streamers and entire scenes with construction paper (one of our walls once became a beach and another time it was a fashion runway). The parents of the girl who had the party on Saturday said that their daughter was able to channel her excitement about her upcoming birthday by creating pictures.

TAKE-AWAY/GOODY BAG: This is a hard one… Kids look forward to leaving the party with a take-away. Personally, I think a craft project and a balloon are more than sufficient, but to reduce cost - one option is to put a few pieces of candy or a cookie in a plastic baggy and tie it up with some ribbon. I’m still unsure of what I want to do, but many well intentioned small toys in goody bags don’t even make it all the way home.

Hmmm, now that I am reading over this list, I realize that I do have a pretty good sense of what we’re going to do. I think my grandmother would have been proud - and my mother will be on hand to ensure that any bumps are smoothed out!

QUESTIONS FOR YOU:

• What are some of your party throwing tips?
• How do you save money? Reduce trash?
• What are some of the creative things you’ve done?