My friend and birthday parties!!!

[froggy3]

My friend has 3 dcs between the ages of 8 and 4.

They all have their birthdays in December and January.

My dcs also go to the same school and we have mutual friends.

Anyway my friend is always super organised with her dcs birthdays seen as they are all so close to Christmas which I do understand. She's already hired the venues out for all 3 parties this year and next and booked the entertainers

However she also has sent out texts to the parents of all children invited to the parties to ask for if they can make it. She does this every year and it's just because she worries that with the time of year, a lot of kids with be able to attend if they are doing Christmassy things.

This morning I had 2 separate parents come up to me and basically ask me why she does it so early and how they really don't know if their child will be available or not. One parent said she thought my friend was very strange and she had never known anything like it. These parties aren't for another 10/11 months

I also saw my friend this morning who told me she was stressed as barely anyone had replied to her messages.

Is she being unreasonable? Or just extra organised?

The classes will change in September and our school quite often has to split year groups due to numbers.

I meet her for breakfast once a month and I know full well tomorrow when we go the main subject will be these birthday parties as it was last month and talking about how it all went.

She is a lovely lovely lady. She's not on any social media and never ever uses the internet for anything. So maybe that has something to do with it....I don't know.

I have told her before that she doesn't need to stress about it so much but she just says how hard it is having dcs bdays in December.

I suppose she just stresses over things that wouldn't even be considered 'things' to most. If that makes sense

Does she do it to you as her adult friends too?

One of my friends invited our What's App group to her mum's 70th 13 months in advance. I know some people take offence at the idea of waiting for a better offer, but there was no way in hell I was going to commit that far ahead to the 70th birthday of an unrelated stranger. I didn't even have my calendar for that year ready!

Fortunately she made a 'mysterious' post two months later about sadly having to cancel their plans, which you got the sense we were supposed to be really sad about.

Oh and as a December birthday child - I always resented hearing that it was 'such a rush' to sort out my birthday in the run up to Christmas.

I mean, thanks for making it sound a fucking chore, mother dear.

Best option I find is book people in during October, make sure you remind in late Nov, and live with who can/can't make it on the day.

Ds's birthday is Easter Saturday this year, so i thought i'd send out invites a bit earlier but I still won't send them until probably mid March. I wouldn't commit to a party for ds 10 months from now.

If it was a wedding then fine but for a kids party? Far too early.I got an invite for ds 2 months before and I was like

Anyway my friend is always super organised
If she is that super organised why did she end up having three children born so close to Christmas?

@5foot5 I don't know.

It’s just odd and a little off putting .
Ok, a lot off putting !
What happens if a parent agrees and then life happens and her kid can’t go? Will she have a melt down?
Why are birthday parties so important to her ?

@Pk37 I really don't know why. I know her very well and like I said further down in my post, she does stress about the small things of parenting. She will tell me all the tantrums the dcs have etc but the way she tells them is very funny and she is lovely. She's not stuck up in the slightest.

Every time we meet up we just have a laugh but thinking about it, it's always about the kids and always the small things. Like she would talk for 10 minutes about one of the kids refusing their dinner or play fighting etc

Does she work?

Next time you meet steer the conversation away from kids. Talk about anything else - work, weather, soap operas you might watch etc. If she mentions the kids butt in with a different subject. It would melt my head to have to listen about other peoples kids, and I definitely don't waffle on about my own. Encourage her to get a few hobbies.