Birthday Planning

[ste_noni]

Ellie's birthday will be here in just over a month.  Since we are also leaving a few weeks after that, I'm thinking it would be nice to have a sort of goodbye to her friends party as well.  When she was 2, we had a small party at our house with her one non-daycare friend and it was perfect.  Last year, we had cupcakes at her daycare and then had a small party in New Mexico with the kids from my parents' town in the city park on her actual birthday. 

This year, I would like to have maybe 3 of her friends over to our house and let them swim/play/eat cake.  The daycare has been kind of a downer on birthday parties recently - they want all the June birthdays to be on the last day of the month, for example, and no balloons, cake, etc.  Well, I can live with that at the school, but in that case, I want her to have more of a party. But all her little friends go to her school.  So if I invite 3, that leaves the other 17 kids in the room not invited.  But having 17 kids and their parents at my house to swim in our pool sounds insane (and maybe even potentially dangerous, you know?)  I assume only maybe 10 would actually show, but that's still a lot.  There's a really cool waterpark on Ft. Buchanan, and I know that would also be a fun party idea, but it's very crowded in the summer and I'm not sure how much fun that would be.  But it's not cool to invite just 3 kids from her class to our house, is it? 

Comments

[sowilo.livejournal.com]

I think it's fine as long as you are subtle about it. Also, inviting 3 out of 17 is more like inviting Ellie's good friends. It would be different if you were inviting 8 or 10 kids, but just 3 makes sense.

[faerieflings.livejournal.com]

I officially HATE birthday parties for children, because there's all these things you 'have' to do. Screw that! Invite who you want to invite, and do what you think Ellie wants to do!

[lili-beth.livejournal.com]

I think that you'd be fine just inviting the three children. The rule I remember from my mother's time as an elementary school teacher was that she would tell parents "invite less than half, or all".

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

I also think inviting just 3 is fine. IME they are too young at 3-4 to talk about not being invited - it's not until they get to 5-6 that everyone starts to know who was invited and who was not (and care). Do the invitations outside the channels of school and it should be fine. If anyone makes a fuss say your family rule is to invite as many kids as the child is old (I know several people who actually do this).