Birthday Party Host: Fill & Download for Free

A few decades late!My mother is now age 91 and going strong for 92! She was one of ten children all born at home in rural Maine, USA. They were poor and life was tough. The focus was food, clothing and warmth. Maine is freezing ass cold in the winter! There was no money for birthday parties especially for ten kids.Flashback to a year and a half ago. My mother has been retired in Florida for decades. My dad passed years ago and she could no longer make it alone. I retired a little early and moved in to take care of her in her final years. I was the relative willing to step up.As she was approaching her 90th birthday she confided to me that she had never had a birthday party. Never! I’m crying as I type this.Well I could God damn fix this! We live in a condominium community of about 100 units. I reserved the Community Center. Relatives made plans to fly in. Food was ordered. Decorations were purchased and of course the date was set.Word spread in the community. Here was this tiny little old lady that was going to be 90 and never had a b-day party. Not for long!So the big day arrives and the place was packed. The entire community showed up and they were spilling out the Community Center doors. There was food everywhere. Gifts and cards stacked high. My mother was sitting at the table of honor with this look that was one-half delight and the other half shock.When this group began to sing Happy Birthday I thought the roof was going to come off! There wasn't a dry eye in the house.Problem fixed!!

When I was 12 I had a birthday party and invited all my “friends” at school. By “friends” I mean the kids that let me work with them in school projects.Nobody showed up to the party, and they never talked to me again.What did my parents do?They invited THEIR friends. Lots of teachers, and my uncle who was passing by at that moment came. The party was only the adults, who just stayed for an hour and half, and their kids. I didn't even know most of them, except for my cousins.Just so I didn't feel aloneAt the end a lot of food was thrown away, because almost no one came, but at least I got presents: three sets of jewerly and the equivalent to 25 dollars, exactly what a twelve-year-old is interested about. (No,it's not)Same happened two months ago, in my Quinceanera, one of the most important events in the life of the typical mexican woman.I tried to invite some people to it, but everyone said to me “Nah, Jenny’s quinceanera will be better, she has a pool and a lights floor!” Well…I had lights and a decoration pool also, but I guess Jenny was just better than me.I knew they wouldn't come to the party since then.All the party planners told my parents to get this and that because “"that's what teens like”“There will be no teens” I told them. My parents were surprised, they told me to “at least try” and invite them. Again.“What for? They didn't come when I was 12. They're 15 now, they don't care”My mother was angry, and forced me to invite 15 people from school.By the day of the party, as expected, no teens were present, except for five cousins, my brother and my mom’s friend’s son. Later, Mary, an old friend of mine (and the daughter of my dad’s boss) came to the party.My mom was really angry. No friends were there, and she didn't liked Mary.The party planner was also angry at me and told me later “How could you NOT thank your friends for coming?”“Well, to be honest, none of my friends was there when I gave thanks. Also only one showed up one hour later” I replied“You're lying, you're really unthankful”That ruined the whole moment for me, I was thankful for my grandmother, who has difficulty to walk and still came, and for my family, who although they hate each other they still came because they appreciate me. But apparently not thanking my fake friends for not coming was the worst thing I could do.It didn't stop there, my mom was angry for a whole month with me, two popular girls invited me (along with all the ninth graders) to their Quinceaneras, and my mom told me both times “You should have invited your friends too, look at the invitations, yours looked a lot better”Last month we went to my cousin’s party. There were a lot of teenagers, all of them were my cousin’s friends.Mom told me again “See? You should have invited your friends”“I did, but they didn't want to come”"That's not true” said my brother, “She doesn't have any friends”He may be right, if they changed me for a cooler person, then they weren't friends.Mom got angrier, “HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE ANY FRIENDS, YOU'VE BEEN IN THAT SCHOOL FOR THREE YEARS AND YOU HAVEN'T MADE ANY?”Well, yes, the closest I had to a friend were the kids that let me be in their science teams, just because they knew I would do the whole work because I was afraid of a B (which I still got :( ). None of them came, and just like my birthday party for when I was twelve, they never talked to me again, except for the next monday:“Hey, why didn't you came in Friday? We were so terrified!”“You were?”“Yes! We were so lucky the teacher asked the other team to make the presentation”“Oh,well…”“Why did you do this to us?”“I had my Quinceanera, my Mom wanted me to go to the salon a day earlier. I thought it was unnecessary because…”“OH, so you HAD a party, and you didn't invite US?”Well, I DID invite you, but you said you preferred going to Jenny’sI didn't say that, in part because Jenny was there, instead I went with:“It was just for the family”“You LIAR, Mary has a photo with you in the party, it's on Facebook”“That’s because Mary is family. We know each other since we were kids, she is my oldest friend and I consider her as part of my family”Then I left, because I didn't want to hear all they had to say about her, most of it are bad things.My Mom is still angry and still tells me so everytime she looks at the photos (which is very common,since there a GIANT portrait of my in the living room, just like in any regular Mexican house with a daughter)I now understand my brother, and I'll never have a party hosted by my parents again.

Er… what? Maybe I’m out-of-touch, but to my knowledge of birthday parties, parents never stay unless it’s a birthday party for a 1-year-old, and then, frankly, it’s more of a gathering of adults anyway. Once the kids become 4–5 years old and can be comfortably separated from parents and are likely not to cry because of it, they go to parties alone to be with their friends.Plus, I mean, practically speaking, if you invite ten kids to the party and also have ten parents showing up… you’re not just going to have to worry about entertaining/feeding the kids, but also entertaining/feeding the parents. Particularly for young kids, they eat less than adults do. Feeding 10 4-year-olds pizza and cake is going to require a lot less pizza and cake as compared to 10 4-year-olds and 10 adults.Not to mention, there are some parties that may involve a special outing. Like, say, taking the kids to a movie. In my experience, birthday parties that involve “outings” are paid for by the host. If you have 10 kids and 10 adults, that’s 10 more movie tickets you have to buy. I mean, you can’t just have all the parents sitting in the lobby, right?And if you’re having the party at some place like Discovery Zone, the kids are all running around like maniacs in a giant tube fort anyway. You can’t really be supervising them directly even if you want to be.For kids that are young enough to require supervision constantly, typically birthday parties only last a couple of hours, anyway. Most adults are capable of handling 10 5-year-olds playing games for 2 hours.And, I mean, the older the kids are, the less likely they’re going to want supervision anyway. In my preteens I went to quite a few birthday parties that were slumber parties. Er. Are all the parents going to bunk down in the living room, too? Awkward. And how the hell are we supposed to be talking about our awkward crushes with everybody’s goddamn parents there?Look. It’s a birthday party. You’re inviting people to celebrate your child’s birthday so that everybody can have fun. Plus, it’s likely that every single attendee of that birthday party is also going to have a birthday party. So if the friends’ parents get a couple hours of free time on your kid’s birthday, you will also get a couple hours of free time on their kid’s birthday.In terms of “dealing” with the kids, if you’re that worried about it, pay out more and have an “event” party. If you host it at the movies, for instance, the kids are going to be watching a movie. If you host it at a “play land,” the kids are going to be running around the jungle gyms. If you host it at laser tag, they’ll be playing laser tag. No real babysitting required. You’ll have to pay more for it, but do less.