Birthday Parties: An Easy Tea Party

Sweet!

Birthday season is upon us and, this year, we opted out of the big party thing. Jasper and Magnolia‘s birthdays are eight days apart, and we usually wind up doing a joint affair with lots of guests. But they’re getting to an age where they want something separate and the idea of doing TWO something separates in the span of one week was just too much.

Instead, we decided to think small. Fun, but small.

Jasper gets an outing into the city (Victorian Gardens) with one friend. And Magnolia had a little tea party at our house. It was easy and, I have to say, I think she was pretty thrilled with it.

Here’s how things went down.

Guest list:

Only two kids plus our own, for a cozy party of four. The parents dropped off, so that left only us, our dear friends Alfred and Toby, and the grandparents. Remember: small.

Decor:

Girlie princess plates and napkins picked out by the birthday princess herself. Plus, cut flowers from our garden. Lots of color, but no streamers, hats, or — hate ‘em! — goody bags. Super-simple.

Food & drink:

Homemade birthday cake, chocolate as per request; dainty petits fours from local patisserie, Sweet Melissa; strawberries. To drink? Pink lemonade in bright cups.

Happy Birthday, Magnolia!

The agenda:

Food, presents, play time, and then bye-bye kids. Perfect.

A note on gender:

While it’s true this party was for a little girl, it should be noted that the boys in attendance had absolutely no issue with it — the presence of cake times two trumped all else. If you did want to make it feel more traditionally suitable for boys, you could skip the petits fours and do dress-up-your-own hot dogs or mini-pizzas followed by cake. Basic idea would still be the same: something small and food-centric.

How do you handle the birthday thing? Go big? Keep it small? Family only, or full-on friends, family, classmates, and assorted others?