Kids party “lunch” in the afternoon?

[northlondonnotislington]

Our soon to be 6yo is having a party in a few weeks and due to the entertainment (football coach) they allow 30 minutes for party food and the cake in the middle of the 2hr block. However the party is from 2-4pm, no not at lunchtime. Should we still do sandwiches / party food etc even though it’s in the afternoon?

We have never been to a kids party where there wasn’t party food so I’m perfectly happy to organise it but wondered about the time of day and if it’s weird!

My plan was to make party lunch boxes for each child to include sandwiches, snacks, fruit, drink and treat.

What would you do ?

its a bit strange that the food is in the middle? I had a similar party and the food was at the end so around half 3. I served pizzas and cake and every single bit of the pizza was eaten . I know what you mean cos that time is odd it’s neither lunch nor dinner time . I think if you do serve food to the kids it’ll probably be eaten though especially after the running around .

I’d say that sounds fine, I would give my child an early lunch presuming there would be food at the party, other parents will probably do the same so sure the kids will be peckish.

This isn’t unusual IME. Almost every party like this we have been to has done food halfway through, so they do play/activity, food, play/activity. I would always assume some sort of food will be served and my kids would hoover up party food at any time anyway.

Yeah you should always do party food! And they’ll have been running around for ages beforehand.

Make a few ham, cheese, tuna rolls and have crisps, quorn mini sausages, fruit? And a cake and maybe cookies? It needs to be things they can pick up and eat quite quickly.

Cool, thank you! I’m looking for the easiest thing to be honest. Does anyone recommend sandwich platters and fruit platters etc, or lunch boxes?

Id say lunch boxes then they can take anything home thats left over?

If the weather carries on like this, you have to worry about keeping the food nice. It's easier to keep a platter cool than numerous individual boxes. You can box-up just before eating-time.

I'd give a heads-up to parents to give the DC a light lunch beforehand (so they don't throw up when they start running around) and then you provide 'energy' food at the break. Again, you don't want anything too heavy. Effectively, you are spreading lunch over two eating-occasions.
Provide lots of drink! And suncream.

Love the Morrisons sandwich platters. Really simple and easy to stack up in the fridge with lids.
People often just get big punnets of strawberries- works well. Mini sausage rolls, bags of crisps and party rings.

Water bottles- get a lot of sports cap ones, and make a bunch of labels with each child’s name on, and label a bottle per child - then they don’t lose them and can get them for drinks breaks. Have some squash or spare water at the side for refills.

We used to make extra labels per child and stick one on each child’s back for whole class parties so you knew what name to holler if they were running away or causing havoc…

I think there’s often a lot of wastage in those lunchboxes and no one wants to take them home afterwards. Personally I would get a pizza delivery allowing for 2 slices per kid then a juice carton and a cupcake each.