I would like some advice from those of you who do things like this a lot!

[Saltire]

Weekend before christmas we ahve decided to ahve some fo teh neighbours round. We've been round a few poples house and thought we'd return teh favour and that is the only time we can do it.

My thoughts were
Have a sort of "open house" and say to people that they can drop in between , say 2pm and 6pm. I will do nibbles and drinks.
but - it would need to be afternoon as some people won't can get babysitters.Would that work?

So- what do we do with the children? My 2 are aged 12 and 10. The eldest of the other children who will be coming is 7. The youngest is 6months old. They are al, without eception, girls. Now my DSes won't want girls, especially younger ones, upstairs playing on the PS2 with them (and I think this is fair enough).

So any suggestions as to what to do with them will be apprecaited.

DVD selection. Twister or other interactive games.
TBH, i think they'll all just get on with each other. That's what our DD does.

agree with Kreecher, DVD. Don't over-think it, they will get caught up in the party spirit and just go with the flow.

Thing is (knows she will get flamed) but 2 of the girls going, sisters, aged 7 and 6, are really rude, unruly (and thats not a word I am using lightly) children. in fact so rude that most people tend to have things in the evening so the parents can get a sitter.

Could you stick a suitable DVD on in another room and have the unruly kids watch it?

I did this recently - DVD was a clear winner!

wii in another room or dvds

Saltire, I once got invited to just such an open house situation as you describe in the lead up to Christmas. Trouble was, the hostess was the mother of my dd's best friend, and neither dh nor I have anything in common with her or her dh (that's putting it politely). It was clear from some things she said, she was inviting us simply so that our dd would provide company for her dd. The mother had no thought at all for our 3 boys, none of whom would have had anyone to talk/play with but who would have had to have gone if we had gone.

Needlesstosay, we did not go.

But, my thought is, if she had just invited dd to play with her dd, and had mentioned the circumstances, I would have been quite happy to let dd go. It was the horrible false bonhommie, inviting the whole family when we have nothing in common, that grated with me.

So, why not try inviting a couple of friends of your dses round for the afternoon, making it plain there will be another event going on at the same time and the boys would need to be considerate of other guests but not necessarily expected to join in? Or try inviting the families of your dses' friends too, but phrase it more politely than my dd's friend's mother did!

Sorry, only read OP. I suppose my post doesn't really deal with the unruly girls....except that you could ask your dses and friends to stay locked away in the bedroom and tell girls they are not to go upstairs?