I've Messed Up My Kids Party

[FixItUpChappie]

Last year we had very low turn out for our youngest son's party and I ended up padding it out with some of our elder sons friends. So this year I over-invited expecting similar attendance issues. Then to add to the problem I panicked when we got almost no response in the first few days after the cards were sent out, and invited some additional children.

With a flurry of late responses we now have 17 kids in total (including our 2) coming to the house on Saturday in our not huge bungalow and who knows how many parents. If anyone else RSVPs I might cry. These parties are a minefield - feast or famine apparently. It's extremely cold and snowy here so I can't open up the garden to disperse the crowd it do have basement toy room.

I think this many kids will overwhelm the activities and games planned. And 17 gifts!! Can you imagine? I'm going to be decried as a greedy glutton of a mother 😳 I ordered special plates and cups online for my sons "wizard" theme with extra just in case and I've exceeded the number. There is no way to get more now. Our dinning room table seats 8 at a push 11 if I add a card table.

Please tell me I can salvage this mess! My husband thinks I should text parents and request they drop off - but that seems very awkward to me...as I expressly stated parents were welcome to stay or drop off considering the kids are mainly 5yr olds.

What a dummy I am! Has anyone has this problem and pulled off a party their child and guests still enjoyed?

I don't know if this is a thing in the uk or an option with the snow, but out here we have these party bus companies you can hire. They drive over and the kids go nuts playing in the bus with games and whatever else is in there.

Dusty that’s exactly what I had! But it’s expensive so I didn’t mention it.

Ah is it. When I was looking at options it was actually one of the cheaper ones here. Laser tag cost me $600 the year before for a small group. Outrageous.

When is the party OP? Report back and let us know how it goes.

Reminds me of one the episodes of Motherland - hilarious!

Good luck OP 😅

A great party game is called 'Balloons in a Bucket'. You make two bats out of rolled up newspapers and place a bucket in the middle of the room. Two people start at either end of the room and hold their balloon to their chest. They must keep their other hand behind their back at all times. Then the aim is to get their balloon in the bucket first by tapping it into the bucket from above. They are allowed to hit the other persons balloon away! Much more fun than it sounds and great fun to watch!

It will be fine, it's only 2 hours.. most parents will drop off. Just don't get drunk (until after the party)!

I always do musical statues, and musical bumps, then maybe a freestyle disco.
Kids hardly eat anything at parties so not too much food.

More Bottles Than Children
It's the only rule you need to remember for these parties

I had similar, last year only three kids turned up for DS's b'day (it was planned to be on the small side, but still). This year we overinvited to make sure we had plenty of kids, every single one turned up. Think it was 8 or 9 very excited 10 year old boys - we live in a 2 bed flat on the second floor.

One of my main lessons from the previous year is that the children are largely happy just crashing around the house doing Hot Wheels or Lego or whatever. The adults feel the need to put some structure on it to differentiate from just having people round. But not a lot is required. DS party was over before we knew it and went surprisingly well. Nobody cried so we put it down as a win.

Ok, haven't read the whole thread, but here's my tips as a mum, a rainbow leader, teacher and someone who way over invited for my daughters 3rd birthday!

• Remove as much furniture as possible from the rooms, place chairs round the edges for parents who stay.
• picnic style food on the floor, equalise the party plate designs by buying more and doing half in half.
• finally, the best thing I ever saw (and subsequently stole as an idea!) was a party which was basically a big pile of packing boxes, masking tape and felt pens! Asked the to make castles, robots, mazes anything! It was amazing, took lots of time and lots of enthusiasm.

Good luck!

I was going to say similar to widgetebana....

If wizards vaguely mean Harry Potter then you could

Sort into the 4 ‘houses’
2 houses play balloon gridditch - need to make hoops and rolled up newspaper for bats in a round robin tournament so less are running round but all get too
When not playing wand making and potions

Make wizards castle with the boxes to have picnics in.

You could buy some plain white plates and let them decorate

It feels daunting and you will be exhausted but you definitely can do it

Enjoy. They are only little for so long

@FixItUpChappie

How'd it go?!

For those interested in an update......

It didn't go too bad actually. I want to thank everyone for their suggestions we implemented many of them.

-I was blessed that only 2 parents stayed so the fear they would all hang out didn't come to fruition

-coats were put out of the way on 2 borrowed coat stands in the spare room - perfect. Gloves and mitts firmly tucked in sleeves before being hung up.

-we went ahead with potion making and wand making. I dipped the end of some popsicle sticks in paint and had every child pick one - that broke the kids up into blue winter warlocks and golden dragons. The split up was the key to success.

-wand making - if you do this label them with the child's name because there was a lot of confusion about which was whose sat the end. Also they didn't dry so we're wrapped in tissue paper for kids as the left.

-the other key was 2 kind helpers - my mum and husband agreed to head the wand making and myself and a friendly parent spearheaded the potions (which was definitely a 2 man job).

-we removed all the chairs from the dinning room table so kids stood, the, had 2 IKEA Lack coffee table out and put a blanket under them - so some kids could kneel. The food was the worst part just because the kids not at the table were impatient grabbing things, "where's my punch?!" type of thing. I just needed more hands and probably little lunch boxes as suggested would have been better than the punch, chip bowls, sausage/cheese plates and and fruit trays on offer.

-sleeping lions game was a god send - thank you for that suggestion

-presents didn't go too bad - it was mostly small bits so not as gluttonous as I feared. We did family gifts when everyone left. I did forget one parent told us their present was in their sons backpack. We completely forgot about that so I'll text an apology today

-it was busy and short - we were still doing presents when parents started arriving. So we didn't even get through all the activities. I'll save some for next time. All in all I think it went well.

-it wasn't kind on my wallet because I over shopped everything. Not knowing the number of parents we might be hosting really threw me. So definitely an RSVP date next time and a suggestion to drop off.

Another party survived - thanks folks!

oh op that sounds brill.nothing to worry about hey ;D! well done.lucky lucky birthday dc

Well done. Glad it was ok.

Well done! Sounds brilliant!