Cultural differences in children's birthday parties.

[TheNameIsDickDarlington]

I was recently at a child's birthday party where one of the mums questioned the classic cheese and pineapple on a stick birthday snack. Apparently, she had never seen this before.

This led me to think about children's birthday parties and how much of what I would consider a traditional child's party is specifically cultural to England (which is where I have always lived). Do most countries have the typical Bouncy castle in a hall and buffet food type kids parties or does each country have its own version of that?

I’m in the U.K - lived here all my life- and so have my children. I have never seen a bouncy castle in a hall, with a buffet. I don’t think that a typical thing at all for a children’s party.

Lived in a UK nation, my kids had and went to parties in the 00's in halls with bouncy castles and a spread of food.

Of course it varies enormously according to culture.

I have never understood the cheese and pineapple on a cocktail stick.

I love a good pineapple and cheese on a stick, I see it more at place at an 70th birthday buffet, wouldn’t trust either of mine to eat something off a stick! Haven’t been to a kids party with buffet either, too many little hands, but chose what type of sandwich you want!

Really?! I've thrown two of these parties in the past year. They're extremely common for 3-7 year olds where I am, along with soft play.

Where I lived in London it was normal to provide some booze for the adults at kids’ parties (not shots or anything, but a glass or wine or a beer on a weekend afternoon) If I did that where I live now in Scotland everyone in the village would think I was an addict 🤣

This is every birthday party for my 6 year old!

As an adult I have never in my life seen cheese and pineapple on a sick in anything other than movies based in the 70's. I don't think there is a stereotypical party, it was always what and where your folks could afford

What I find really odd- and has been a bit of a learning curve with parties after moving to London- is that many of my sons non-white classmates don't want you to turn up at the time on the invitation. I spent some very odd half hours as the only guests while family set up around us and sometimes even before the birthday kid themselves arrived before I realised there seemed to be an unspoken rule to wait 20-30 minutes from the time on the invite.

Wow, I’m astonished by this. My DC are older teens now, and they attended and had lots of birthday parties, but never one in a hall, and never a bouncy castle. I think there were a couple in a soft play, though.

As someone who was born in 76 and who attended many birthday parties in the 80’s, my experience was that cheese and pineapple on sticks featured at pretty much all of them. My mum used to make them into hedgehogs using silver foil.

The last party I went to (30th, not kids!) had a silver foil hedgehog with cheese & pineapple 🦔🦔

My mum made the hedgehogs in foil too to put the cheese and pineapple in with two glacé cherries for the eyes

I've just organised my DS's 6th birthday party - it's a village hall with a bouncy castle! They went to one a few weeks ago too. But it does vary - I've held forest school parties, back garden parties, soft play parties, parties at local attractions, village hall parties.

We have 2 hedgehogs, one with cheese and pineapple on sticks and one with cheese and silver skin pickled onions on sticks. Then the plate of party rings, jammy dodgers and Cadbury fingers. Same things appear at every kids party, upto age 6 most parties are in a village hall/sports hall type place with bouncy castle, then it changes to laser quest/bowling.

Last party DD went to there was C&P on sticks - nearly all the kids gave it a swerve.

When they had finished, the parents got the nod to eat the leftovers, and there was quite an amusing scrum as everyone made a beeline for the cheese and pineapple! 😂

Love fruit and cheese, brilliant combo.

I have provided cheese and pineapple on sticks, and cocktail sausages on sticks at my kids' parties. The kids were mostly baffled 😅. We see a lot of bouncy castles in halls and parties at soft play. I'm surprised by how few people throw parties in their homes with games like pass the parcel, compared to when I was a kid.

France

no whole class parties. 10+ would be considered a big party.
Parents don’t stay, drop and run is normal from age 4/5 up.
No savoury snacks, just tons of Haribo and a cake. Oh and the cake is just a plain chocolate cake - no icing.
soft play parties are really popular, often with an animateur to organise it (lots of families live in apartments here).

I remember those things full of sweets that you hit with sticks featuring at birthday parties when my dc was small - in Spain, but friends from Argentinian families, so I don't know whether it was specific to them

A piñata!

Thank you! I was having a blank moment 😁

I'm in Scotland and here it would be cheese, pineapple and a pickled onion, or maybe a cocktail sausage, stuck in an orange covered in tinfoil.

I'm a 90s kid and I remember pass the parcel, ripping a layer off and passing it on, then when my kids started to have parties it was expected to put a packet of haribo in every layer so nobody felt left out. Snowflakes 🤣.

Opening of gifts is a cultural thing, in other countries they open gifts at the party whereas we would think it's quite rude to do that.

Edited as posted twice

Same, absolutely typical here, EVERYONE has the village hall, bouncy castle, buffet and kids entertainer party from age 2-6!