Bonfire party for DS(7) - a bad or bad idea?

[chicaguapa]

DS's birthday is on 5th November and he's asking for a bonfire party. We have a small garden and a fire pit so I'm happy to do one. How many children do you think would be the maximum? I've told DS that he won't be able to have very many friends there for safety reasons, which he is okay with.

The other problem is that I can't think of anything to do! I don't want fireworks, but will have sparklers under very strict supervision. I can think of cooking dampers and marshmallows over the fire. But that's it!

Assuming that you don't think it's an awful idea, do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks.

What about taking him and a few of his friends to an organised firework event?

Most have stalls and things selling hot dogs, sparklers and cheap tat the like.

Around me, quite a few schools hold them as fund raisers. Which we find better as there tends not to be a massive amount of people, but the fireworks are still great.

Top tip though is don't turn up too early as these things tend to say bonfire lit at 6pm fireworks at 8pm 2 hours of watching the bonfire burning is not that great a time

Thanks. DC's school usually does fireworks so would be planning to end party in time for parents to pick up and walk up to the school. DS likes having parties at home and of course it keeps the cost down.

Have talked this over with DS and made much planning progress. We now have a make-a-guy activity, who'll then be an extra guest at the party and be expected to eat a sausage or two.

Food will be (pre-cooked) sausages that they can 'cook' themselves over the fire on a stick, with finger rolls, chips/ jacket potatoes and baked beans. Followed by s'mores made with chocolate hobnobs and a melted marshmallow sandwiched in the middle, thus hopefully avoiding burnt mouths on hot marshmallows.

We'll finish with a few sparklers. I'll also get some flashing wands that they can take home, and straight to the firework display. I'm going to get some cake sparklers and fireworks to decorate his cake with, which will make a big entrance. Plus we can play a firework game where they have to pretend to be a firework, such as a rocket or Catherine wheel.

Hopefully that will fill a couple of hours, and they'll always have the flashing wands to batter each other play with if we run out of things to do. We can cordon off the firepit so they have space to play in the rest of the garden.

How does all that sound??

Sounds great, especially if they are then going onto a display.

you could always get a few indoor fireworks for inside the garage, they are obviously tamer than normal fireworks but still a bit of fun

What about a game similar to pin the tail on the donkey, pin the firework on the fence or whatever, or pin the guy on the bonfire. Ds can help you draw and colour the picture and the cutout the firework picture before hand.

how are your cake decorating skills (these are not as hard as you think)

My Son's birthday is on the 16th of November, so I've done something similar myself. Last year we did a bonfire/Halloween party at home and organised a monster hunt around the neighbourhood. We bought a monster hunt and a pin the tail on the monster online here Monster Hunt Party Game and it went down really well. You could also try guess the monster's body parts game I think there are suggestions for this and other monster party games on the website.
At least nobody expects good weather in November, so they're more likely to dress appropriately and have a good time!

You could make a firework cake - my little brother has an early November birthday and my mum did him a great one, with liquorice "Catherine" wheels, a crumbled flake bonfire with haribo flames and a guy made largely out of the plain black liquorice allsorts.

Thanks Wendy I've ordered the monster treasure hunt game and we can look for them with torches. I saw in the About Us bit that they are doing a Torchlite Halloween Hunt in September so might have been a bit hasty.

The cake sounds good *inmysparetime". Do you have any photos?

He's now 20! If there are any photos they'll be actual prints at my parents house. IIRC the structure of the bonfire was matchmaker chocolate sticks. My mum just made these cakes up as she went along. I now make crazy party cakes for my own kids (from shop cakes, I can't bake). Over the years we have had a "bob the builder fairy castle", mary mary's garden, a monkey, a treasure island, spiderman leaping out of a cake, a rugby pitch etc. TBH, half the battle is finding what you can buy that is the right shape or colour to look right on the cake.