Goodie Gum Drops

We’ve all had to make the same decision while holding another drawing that our three-year-old just produced in four seconds’ time:  do we keep it, or do we throw it out?  We feel guilty tossing it, but honestly, how much stuff can we possibly keep, when each day we’re inundated with photos, art projects, and drawings?  Of course, we would love to keep everything.  But, we just can’t.  Unless, of course, you decide to rent a storage unit.  Otherwise, you’re right there with the rest of us, knowing that it’s just not sensible to keep every Snow White coloring and Spiderman dot-to-dot.  And don’t worry...your kid won’t want that cheerio necklace in ten years, so don’t go have it vacuum sealed.  Think of it this way: when your son or daughter gets his or her first apartment, he or she won’t want to have to store all that crap...I mean, stuff, any more than you will when you eventually downsize.  

Since we can’t possibly hold on to everything, using your child’s birthday and birthday party as a time to create keepsakes, and will help you feel less guilty the rest of the year when you decide to toss Suzie’s finger painting.  Birthday keepsakes mark a milestone of another year and highlight such things as: who are his best friends at this age, what are his interests this particular year, and even what his temperament is during the big celebration.  There are lots of different things you can do to mark this occasion:  a height chart, hand print painting, and of course a scrapbook, keeping your memories nicely contained in just approximately 12 pages.  There are some other creative things to help remember this special occasion.

The first one involves a fun activity the kids can do during the party.  Instead of putting a regular table cloth on one of the tables for the party, put a large rolling sheet of paper on one table and put out a bunch of crayons and markers.  Ask the parents to label the kids’ artwork on the paper if the children are still too young to mark their own.  Make sure your own son or daughter does a drawing on it as well.  You may want to have him do it early, before the kids even arrive and he becomes totally distracted.  When the food is about to be served, you have two options:  you can remove the sheet of paper and replace it with a plastic table cloth so the artwork doesn’t get covered in food.  Or, you can keep the paper there and let the remnants of pizza sauce and frosting smears be part of the creation.  After the party, there are tons of things you can do with the paper.  You can:  cut the sheet into foldover cards and use them as thank you notes.  Cut the sheet up, laminate some of the pieces (your son or daughter’s drawing included, of course) and use them as kids’ placemats for your kitchen table.  Or, laminate some pieces, put holes in them, and keep them in a three-ring binder as a keepsake from the birthday party.  

Another thing you can do is to create a poster of “quotes” from everyone at the party.  At school, teachers oftentimes do this to celebrate a student whose birthday it is.  Each child says one sentence about the birthday child, and the teacher writes it all in big writing using different color crayons.  I’ve always thought this to be a really special thing for each child to receive.  Considering there’s not a child in the world who doesn’t toss his birthday card aside to rip open the attached present, this poster is short enough in length to hold a child’s attention, and he can even hang it in his room to look at and read over and over again.  Creating your own version of this will give each kid the chance to say something nice about the birthday boy or girl instead of his mom or dad just making something up in a card.  So, either buy a big posterboard (something you can roll up afterwards will most likely be best), and put it somewhere visible at the birthday party so the parents can bring their children over and tell them what to write on the board, or, if the kids are old enough, they can even write it themselves (with some help and supervision so the poster doesn’t turn into a big mess).  You can even ask a grandparent or aunt or uncle to be in charge and write down what each kid says.  It will definitely be a cute activity that will ignite some good laughs and cute statements.  Certainly, the other parents will get a kick out of hearing what their kids have to say something short and sweet about the birthday boy or girl.  Even though you might end up with a paper full of silly quotes like “I like Mikey because he gives me his granola bar at lunch,” or something profound like, “I love James because he is my friend”, no matter what, it will be a true indication of the age group and personalities of your child’s friends at that moment.  After opening presents, he can look forward to reading all the nice things his friends said about him, and you can then decide whether you’ll laminate it and put it away for safe keeping, or hang it up in his room for awhile.  

Lastly, there are a bunch of things you can do with pictures other than just having a bunch of prints to shove into a photo album.  Picture taking...ok, an insane amount of picture taking...is standard for any birthday party.  But, there are some really fun things you can do involving picture taking and the actual photos that are unique and create fabulous keepsakes.  The first one involves making sure you get a group shot of all the kids at the party.  Of course, this involves more logistics than planning a parade in times square on New Year’s Eve.  But, once you get over the thought that everyone should be smiling and looking “proper”, you can really get some great shots.  Instead of taking the picture with everyone sitting at the table saying “cheese”, think about a place where all the kids will purposely not pay attention and instead be immersed in what their doing.  For instance, if you’re having a party at a play gym, put all the kids in the ball pit at the same time. If it’s at a bounce place, put all the kids in one bouncer...at least for a couple of minutes.  The shots you get won’t be “perfect”, but they will be fun.  And, what a perfect picture to turn into thank you notes (so many websites now turn a photo into thank you notes for a reasonable price), or just to include in the thank you cards.  Just as you keep a class photo of your kids each year, you can also create a “party photo portfolio”.

Another thing you can if the party is at your house is to have a “picture-taking-station” where the kids can come and have some fun photos taken of them.  Set up a little nook with some dress-up clothes, silly hats, scarves, jewelry, or whatever else you have available.  If it’s a pirate party, make a station where the kids can dress up like a pirate.  Same goes for a princess, superhero, or rockstar.  You’ll only need one or two dress up outfits because the kids won’t all be putting them on at the same time.  Each child (or two at a time), can come over, dress up, and have a little photo session for a minute or two.  You can again ask a grandparent or aunt to be in charge, or just ask each parent to take the picture of his or her child.  If you have a polaroid camera, this is the perfect time to use it.  If not, then again you can include the prints in your thank you cards or make a collage with your son or daughter of all the silly pictures and laminate it or even put it in a frame.  

A birthday party, as we all know, goes by in a flash.  If you plan beforehand, there are so many creative activities to include that will allow your child to really enjoy the experience even after the balloons have come down and the kids have gone home.    Additionally, you’ll create priceless, unique keepsakes that will stir up laughter and keep you smiling for years to come.