I hate the evenings before my children's birthday parties

[emkana]

because I always feel ridiculously anxious.

Will the people turn up? will they be able to find the venue? Will the food be okay? Will the venue have forgotten our booking?

And so it goes on

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

aaah - now I hate it for another reason... DH potters off to bed leaving me to wrap all prezzies, ice cakes, finish everything til about 2am.

But I don't get anxious about the turning up thing - they will... after all it's free food!

This year ours was stressful. Couldn;t get in touch with thekey holders for the hall. Finally got in touch with them about 2 hour before the party was due to start! I was oing up the wall. Had already rung round other places to try and fnd a alternative venue if it came to it.

Not normally liek that though luckily.

My DH always seems to have to work late the night before our DD's parties ... which means that I'm as stressed out as can be trying to get everything ready so that the DC can have a fab day and the best party that we are able to muster up (bearing in mind that we do it at home without any outside help = knackering!) AND that I'm left blowing up all the bloody balloons by myself! NB. I have discovered over the years that those nice bottles of French lager help ... and that the balloons blown up with French-lager-breath, seem to stay up very much longer

Oh dear. Do I get a bad mother award? It's DD's birthday party tomorrow, and I've not given it a second thought beyond getting an M&S cake. I am planning on her and her seven little friends playing in the garden, eating cake, and going home again!!!

Me too. And I've got ds's birthday coming up next weekend so I'm already in a mild state of panic as 2 have said they are not coming so I've gone from thinkng that we'd invited too many to imagining ds sitting there all alone at his party.

Actually, perhaps you can advise me emkana. What do German kids expect at birthday parties in way of games, food etc? It's the first time I've held a proper party in Germany so that is making me panic too.

How old are the children?

In terms of food - difficult because it's been a long time since I went to a German Kindergeburtstag.

Definitely lots and lots of cake - Marmorkuchen, but also muffins very popular in Germany now.

Games -

Topfschlagen (hide toy/prize under saucepan, blindfold child, child has to find saucepan by bashing a wooden spoon around, other children give clues by saying "warm" "heiss" "kalt")

will think of more

I was afraid you'd say cake. German baking skills always make me feel very inadequate.

I've heard of Topfschlagen but never seen it played. I guess I could give that a go though.

The children will be aged 4 - 6

How good is your German? Could post a link to recipes

savoury: Nudelsalat
Kartoffelsalat
Wuerstchen

Games: Topfschlagen is a must really

but you could also to pass the parcel, just to introduce them a bit to English customs

Reise nach Jerusalem (= musical chairs)

Sackhüpfen: you need two or three cloth sacks

children step into them and have a race hopping along

egg and spoon race - Eierlaufen in German

Wurstessen: hang hot dog sausages along a washing line, just out of reach of children, children must jump up to eat their sausage, who gets theirs eaten first wins

My favourite when I was a child:

Schokoladenwettessen: wrap a large bar of chocolate tightly in newspaper and tie it up with Schnur (can't think of English word now)

children take it in turns to throw the dice. Who gets a six can put on a wooly hat, a scarf and gloves and starts trying to get to the chocolate with a knife and fork. In the meantime the others keep trying to get a six, when the next child gets a six then they can put on hat/scarf/gloves and try and so on.

We used to scream with laughter

Thanks emkana! Some great ideas there. I especially like the idea of sausages on a washing line

My German is pretty fluent although I don't know how I'll cope at the party. Dh (who is German) will be there but children's parties are not really his thing so it'll probably be me giving out all the instructions or yelling at them to behave

Taipo - that reminds me of the first couple of parties I did when we moved to Denmark... my danish was almost non-existent, and I had to rely on DH to keep things rolling along. A very strage sensation. I'm glad I can get the kids to understand me now (4 yrs on!)

Emkana - hope it goes well today & everyone turns up (assume it is today?)

I found it dreadfully hard the first time- went to bed exhausted at 5 o'clock!- but as the years have passed I've found a formula that works for us:

party at home (no worries about venue)

only limited number of children invited (10 max)

basic food (cake, sandwiches, crisps, biscuits)- they don't eat much anyway

party no longer than 2 hours

1 activity when they arrive (biscuit decoration in early days, then treasure hunt)

food after an hour

maximum of 3 games

party bags

I do all the organising, then on the day retire to the kitchen while dh hosts the party

It went really well, lovely weather, only one child didn't show, everybody enjoyed it.