Having nightmares over party tea: straightforward ideas needed

[Hamandcheese]

Here's the situation:
30 kids ages 1 - 5
plus various hanging-on parents (unavoidably party is at lunchtime, so feel obliged to feed parents).

options? have previously found sandwiches etc a hassle.
is cold so easy hot food option welcome...

any ideas ... argh ....

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You mad, mad woman!

I take it the childrens food is all taken care of? Why don't you just make a big pot of mild chilli and throw some spuds in the oven? Provide grated cheese and coleslaw maybe, then people can either have chilli, cheese or both.

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how much oven space needed for 30 kids pizza / chick nugs etc or can I get away with offering them cold? do I need to butter french bread?

really not feed parents? thank goodness. previous lunch parties have fed parents (grrr for setting expectations ...). cups of tea bad enough, but not really a wine culture round here (shame, I could always do with wine at kids parties, just end up whine)

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NO - children's food NOT taken care of - adult food now taken care of by cod saying NO (that's definitely easy).

Parents don't expect to be fed. Hot food is easy as long as you don't have a power cut in the middle, I still break out into a sweat thinking about DD's birthday when this happened !

For DS's birthday this year I bought some of those boxes you can get and pre-filled them with a drink, crisps, raisins, little punnet of party rings & some grapes. Then put out a tray of sandwiches, but pizza would be even easier. Pudding was ice cream .

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Stick out cups by the kettle with tea, coffee, sugar etc and tell the parents to help themselves to a drink.

can i do all that in 1 oven?

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She won't have a power cut, it's only me that happened to, complete nightmare that was ! Agree that hot is easier. If you have a timer on the oven you can chuck it all on trays before the party with it set to finish when you want them to eat.

drink for kids - carton of juice ok?
chocteapot - fancy boxes or just the ones with handles at the top?
feeling a bit more confident ....
pizza sounds good ...

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I agree DON'T feed the parents, they'll probably hoover up the leftovers, which is useful if you hate throwing things out. I wouldn't butter the bread (my DDs hate butter anyway). Put out some cubes of cheese, grapes, pineapple chunks, crisps (pom bears are usually a favourite). I wouldn't stress too much about pizza. Two normal sized chesse and tomato cut into small slices will probably be ok and if it proves popular, just have another couple in the fridge ready to put in oven if needed, can be frozen if not needed. Bread sticks etc are normally popular. Some home made crispy cakes and/ or fairy cakes. I'm not sure kids of that age really care about the food at a party anyway.

I did juice cartons, got two types but most just had what they were given without a fuss.

Boxes came from here but was because I had to get some other boxes from the site anyway. The sites where you buy children's party stuff has them I think. They all sat on blankets and had it as a picnic instead of sitting at the table (weather was good so were outside). Bin bag then got handed round at end and everything got chucked in there, so tidying up took about 2 mins.

Agree, parents will eat the leftovers. If you really wanted to offer the parents something, maybe some dips and tortilla chips and a plate of biscuits?