How on earth do I manage birthday lunch bags/boxes?

[Sunnyday14558]

My eldest is having a woodland party over lunchtime and I'm veering towards doing packed lunches for kids as a buffet is going to take up loads of space under the cover if it drizzles/rains....BUT...how do you go about this? I'm hesitant to add lunch choices to the invite as it's already a bit busy. Do I wait until people rsvp and then ask them individually? Is there anything I can do to reduce the admin?

I did a similar party last summer and just made a few trays of different sandwiches, sausage rolls, plus a selection of crisps and handed them around. I have done premade lunch boxes but didn’t give people a choice but I think the trays worked better

Start a WhatsApp group with a poll with choices

It probably depends on how many are invited. I only had 10 in total recently and so just messaged the mums with a few options. I didn’t mind as wasn’t loads and at least they got what the wanted. For a class of 30… probably not! I did, sandwich, biscuit, fruit skewers and packet of crisps.

You could make up the rest of the lunch boxes and then do a tray of sandwiches or rolls and add one in as each kid collects their box. If there’s 10 kids I’d do 4 cheese, 4 ham and 4 tuna.

It depends a bit on the age of the DC and the number involved but I think when I did it I made up rounds of cheese, ham and jam sandwiches. Cut them into quarters and then put one of each in each lunchbox. Ask for any vegetarians/allergies beforehand and cater accordingly but three quarters of a sandwich was plenty in YR or Y1.

I put all of the non-perishables in boxes the night before and then just added the fridge items in the morning. If you put in enough of a variety of things most DC will at least eat something. And if it’s individually wrapped you can rescue anything that’s not eaten and re-use it for packed lunches etc.

From memory we did sandwiches, bag of crisps, box of raisins, a yogurt ‘frube’, a Babybel, mini packet of biscuits, small chocolate bar. I may have been virtuous and added some fruit but I suspect it wasn’t eaten!