DD's 7th Birthday Nightmare - what to do?

[Ceolas]

DD1 will be 7 at the end of Feb. She says she wants to go to the cinema with some of her friends for her birthday. Fine with me.

However, we're having a nightmare with who to invite.

Problem 1: She doesn't have a 'best friend' as such and there seem to be a few groups she is friendly with. In total there would be 5 from her class she would consider 'close' friends and plays with regularly. She also has another friend (not from school) whose mother is a friend of mine and she's always invited to this other girl's birthdays.

Problem 2: Dh has 4 nieces who will have to be included in some sort of celebration. It's the 'done thing' in his family.

So there's no way, short of hiring a minibus, that I can take 6 friends, 4 cousins and my own 3 children to the cinema. This is what she wants to do, though. Last year we had a crafty party in the house and invited them all.

Any suggestions? I'm brain dead thinking about it all!

When my ds has been to parties, including cinema ones, we have dropped off our own children and picked them up again afterwards.

Is this an option?

Message withdrawn

My DD is going to be 8 next week. I am going to hire a suitable chick flick from the dvd shop, dish out bowls of popcorn and beanbags to sit on and create my own cinema! Much less hassle and expense and they can at least play about and chat to each other which they can't do in the cinema.

Beforehand I am going to make homemade burgers and do curly fries and smoothies, sort of an American Diner thing.

Decorating the dining room with lots of balloons and streamers.

Our neighbours with twins had the same dilemma - and ended up doing the same as Kbear (2 years in a row). Children all seemed perfectly happy with the idea.

I had thought about doing a 'home cinema'. Do you think at 6/7 they'd sit in the living room?

Was hoping to do birthday tea and cake at home so the drop off/collect thing might not work.

We have 2 cars, one of which is a Zafira, so in theory we could drive 5 in addition to ourselves (not using front passenger seats). Don't know if I could rope in another driver and then meet the cousins at home for tea?

I think giving them loads of cushions,bean bags etc and turning the lights out and making it a bit different than sitting on the settee watching something. Also bought lots of glow sticks in the pound shop for a bit of extra fun.