Would you send your 6/7 year old child to a woodland party in December?

[OhNoooooooooooooooo]

If your 6/7 year old (Year 2) was invited to a den building party in the woods in mid December.... Would you say yes?

DD is desperate for a birthday party in the woods where they can build dens, do s'mores, play on rope swings etc and have pass the parcel round the camp fire. That kind of thing. We'd have hotdogs for food.

However her birthday is 19 December. So would do party weekend before like the Saturday afternoon, 1-3 that kind of time..

Would be in our private woods behind the house, so no issues of access etc it's a contained area. It has a campfire circle already. Can easily get a gazebo through for rain....

Would you think adults would need to stay? I
Do you think I'm mad even contemplating this??

I’m a countryside girl but now live in the city and our school friends would be horrified by this 🤣
But it sounds great - my only thought however which hasn’t been flagged is very close to Christmas everyone seems to be busy or away so maybe a low turn out?

My DD would have loved that, she has been going to holiday club at the Outdoor pursuits centres since she was 5 and has always loved the winter bushcraft sessions building dens, fires, cooking cheese toasties on the cast iron griddle, roasting s’mores, using the charcoal to do ‘art’.

I think it sounds great.

The kids will love it.

The venue will tell you if the adults need to stay (maybe they have a coffee in the coffee shop and just the birthday boy/girl parents stay.

Have fun. X

Yeh sounds great!

We did this on a freezing day in April.
It was damp but fab.
Accidentally wrote "please wear willies" on the invite but luckily it was taken in the spirit intended.

Absolutely. Done it several times, they loved it!

Oh god I’d be horrified if people did that! It’s stressful enough running a party I don’t want to be responsible for 20 other kids!

DS would absolutely love this, so yes I'd happily bring him

Oh man. Let’s hope no one wets or hurts themselves then. The thought of dealing with that plus trying to sort out the cake etc!!

No! It’s brilliant when the parents go away, that was when I actually started somewhat enjoying hosting kids parties. Parents are rarely actually helpful at these things, they’re just another group of people to entertain and look after. Once they started to drop and run I was able to focus on just the 20 manic kids rather than 20 manic kids and 20-30 bumbling parents.

Yes. We did this in a woodland next to our house for our DS with a December birthday. We live in a rural area where the kids are very outdoorsy so there were no worries about them not being appropriately dressed.

Ehh, it's easy really.

Cheese toasties... Fab! I have a griddle thing I could use for this...

I think if there's 3 kids they'll have as much fun as 33.

My mum friends always help me set up and clear up . I much prefer when they are there. We also have a catch up which is nice! It’s usually quite social.

We had a party in a leisure centre hall once and the toilets were down a hall. If someone had dropped a child there I wasn’t going to be taking them all to the loo myself and leaving other kids to it. Or similar with soft play - In I’m not keeping track of other people’s kids. Or worst case a kid is sick. Mine was actually sick once before!

My eldest is older so it’s drop off and that’s fine but I remember when it started to become that way there was often one crying child!

My kids would love this. We go out in all weathers and have all the proper gear but

The date would worry be more. I’d send your invite very early - so that people lock in the date. It’s a very busy time. I find Sunday afternoons can be better than Saturday.

You mean I can abandon my kids in the woods and not get done for it? Absolutely!!

Kidding obviously. I would be fine with it but we have all the right clothes ect and generally take them out in all weather. Might be hard for kids who don’t have that though.

Definitely do this. You won't regret it if it's raining and miserable out.

I would have this back up in place even for a summer party as you can never predict if it's going to be OK for an outdoor party.

We had half year one in summer and a couple of friends round in December

Mine attended one at our local woods and loved it.

Are you nervous about the “dangerous” stuff like fire or the outdoors in December angle? How many supervising adults can you call on?

Yeah sounds great 😊
They can say no.

i cant imagine anyone being horrified by this

Activity is fine but it is very close to Christmas when people tend to be very busy and you might get quite a few pulling out. I would do it a a few weeks earlier.

We would be in the horrified camp 🙋‍♀️😂

Mine both have sen and being wet/muddy/sweaty is a massive trigger so we would politely decline. I do feel a pang of envy when I see outdoorsy children wading through rivers, jumping in puddles, and getting muddy. Dd went to laser tag party in January once and I was called to pick her up after an hour as she was frozen solid and miserable.

Yes