Birthdays were always a big deal at our house. Our children, Will and Christina, didn’t just have a birthday celebration each year. They had a school holiday as well.
Christina with special guests at her 5th birthday, 1995.
Here’s what we did for Will’s and Christina’s homeschool birthdays each year:
1. A week or two before their birthday, we went shopping for birthday decorations.
We went to a large party store, and each child was allowed to choose plates, cups, napkins, and decorations with their chosen birthday theme.
Will and Christina were born 5 years and 2 days apart, on March 19 and 21. Until Christina was 9, they always had separate themes and decorations (Will often choosing vehicles of some sort and Christina choosing ballerinas or Disney princesses). At ages 14 and 9, Will and Christina decided to have the same theme. Then they chose themes like Rugrats (it’s not uncommon for them as adults to still choose a silly theme for their birthday cake), smiley faces, or rock and roll.
2. Two days to a week before each child’s birthday, we ordered a cake to go with the birthday theme.
For their first birthday, Will and Christina had totally natural homemade cakes with honey-and-cream-cheese frosting. Later, we ordered birthday cakes.
Until Christina was 3, we had someone who made lovely decorated cakes using Will and Christina’s theme. When our cake maker went back to college and stopped making cakes, we ordered our cakes from the grocery store. When we ordered their cake each year, Will and Christina chose their favorite flavor of ice cream and beverage for their birthday party.
Will and Christina still say their favorite cake is from Albertsons grocery store. Christina even has to be sure her birthday/Easter trip home from England each year includes ordering a cake from Albertsons.
Will’s 10th birthday morning, 1995.
2. Will and Christina woke on their birthday to find decorations, cards, and a present of books in the dining room.
I put up banners and crepe-paper streamers. I put balloons beside their place at the dining room table with gift-wrapped books (their morning birthday present), a card from Terry and me, and a card their sibling had secretly prepared the day before.
Will and Christina both remember this as one of their favorite parts of each birthday. The decorations and cards made them feel special, and books were very important to our family for both enjoyment and for homeschool learning.
3. Each child’s birthday was a major holiday, so there was no school.
Because Will and Christina were competitive figure skaters, they still went to skating practice (and Christina didn’t want to miss her dance classes). We typically brought cupcakes or cake to the rink. The rest of the day was devoted to birthday activities.
4. Each child’s birthday was a family party, which started with games when our children were young.
We played games that followed the birthday theme, such as stick the nose on the clown when it was a clown birthday. This was a private family party, except for Christina’s special guests. During her early years, she enjoyed inviting stuffed animals and dolls. She was allowed a guest for each year of her age, and each guest wore a party hat. Terry, Will, and I wore party hats, too!
Christina and Will with their 10th and 15th birthday cake, 2000.
5. We had cake, ice cream, cookies, and pop.
Of course, before eating, we sang happy birthday and had the birthday child blow out candles on the cake. While I cut the cake, Terry, Will, and Christina celebrated with party poppers and blowers.
6. The birthday child opened presents.
As they grew older, Will and Christina gave us ideas of what they’d like. So after the morning books, the presents typically weren’t a surprise, but they were things our children wanted and appreciated.
7. We had party bags with fun little items for both Will and Christina.
I always hid the party bags. Sometimes we had a treasure hunt with special clues hidden in the house leading to the next clue and ultimately to the party bag. Other times, I told Will and Christina they were “hot” or “cold” when they looked for the bags.
8. We went out for dinner to a restaurant chosen by the birthday child.
This was always fun and included a special dessert with more birthday candles and birthday singing.
9. Sometimes, the birthday celebration continued into the weekend.
A couple of times, we celebrated at a pizza-and-games place with another family who had children about the same age. Sometimes, Will and Christina invited a friend over for an extended birthday celebration.
Every birthday included lots of photos. And we all still love to relive fantastic birthday memories through them.
Note: During the preschool years, one of my favorite birthday activities is the Montessori birthday celebration of life.
How do you celebrate your child’s/children’s birthdays?
This year we’re struggling to figure out what we’d like to do for Georgia’s 2nd birthday. On the one hand, we had a very quiet first birthday party with just us, and her grandparents in OH. All of our friends where we live were really disappointed. So this year we thought about doing a big party for her. But on the other hand, she’s only going to be 2 – it’s going to be overwhelming (for me too!) to have a big party for such a little girl. Choices, choices…
I really like your idea of a book gift each year – we might have to add that to our family’s traditions!
Thanks for your comment, Laura! That is a tough decision when your friends were disappointed. We’ve sometimes extended celebrations over half a month or more to have celebrations with one family at a time. (although we often had celebrations with larger groups when it was our extended family). That worked well for us but doesn’t work for everyone. I hope you find the right balance for Georgia and the rest of your family!
I enjoyed reading your post — I have not been to your site before and I’m so glad I found it!!
Thanks for your kind comment, Mary! I’m so glad you found my blog, and I’ll look forward to getting to know you!
This sounds so fun and a lovely way to make their Birthdays a special day. I love that when you homeschool their Birthdays can actually be a Holiday and there’s no school! How fun is that?
Thanks, Michelle! It really was great to have birthdays as holidays – a very fun benefit of homeschooling!
Your birthday celebrations sound great. I like the idea of making their birthdays a holiday. That is what we ended up doing yesterday for my son’s 5th birthday anyway.
Thanks, Myrtle! It does seem so natural to have birthdays as holidays in a homeschool. It would probably be difficult to do otherwise!
Love how you make it a holiday in and of itself! You definitely have a way of making it special for them. 🙂
Thanks, Sherry! I guess I’ve always been big on celebrations, and there are great ways to create celebrations with a homeschool!
Deb, this sounds just wonderful! I suppose it won’t be very original if I copy each and every one of your ideas (but I will anyway). 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing this is such detail. I think that’s one of the things I look forward to and know I can count on from your posts – that you take the time to really share the details. They are so helpful to know.
I wonder, are your children very close now as adults? My sister and I are 6 years apart and we couldn’t be more distant (literally and figuratively). I don’t chalk that up to our age difference, however, just that we’re quite different people. I was thinking that celebrating a birthday alongside someone would have a certain ‘bonding’ aspect to it. If we are blessed to have another child it would be anywhere from 4 or more years younger than James. Which is more than ok with us. The only challenge I see is in homeschooling – what a lot of materials to have out all at once!
Sorry for the long comment – you can see what a chatterbox I am in ‘real’ life! 🙂
Best,
Mari-Ann
PS: LOVE that you used the word ‘pop’! I refuse to call pop ‘soda’. You can take the girl out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the Midwest out of the girl! 🙂
Thanks SO MUCH for your very kind comment, Mari-Ann! It was great fun having Will’s and Christina’s birthdays 2 days apart. Will and Christina always were very close – and still are. I think it helped that we homeschooled (which probably made them automatic best friends), and they even skated together. Will and Christina were a pairs team for a number of years and actually competed in ice dance together for 3 years (the ice dance was Will just being nice to his sister who was and still is in love with any form of dance)!
Midwesterners unite – as a former South Dakotan, I MUST say “pop”!
Hi Deb,
I just nominated you in the 2010 Homeschool Blog Awards. 🙂
Warmly,
Mari-Ann
I’m SO honored, Mari-Ann! You just made my day! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Birthdays were always a big deal for us too! I love how you include them in the decoration buying and all the prep work as well the weeks before.
Thanks, Abbie! The decoration buying and prep work were really fun when I did it with my kids. They always had great ideas, and our outings were wonderful!
I really impressed how you planned the birtdays
of your kids..you have different ideas each year. that is amazing..great post!!
Thanks, Maggie! We really had a lot of fun planning around a theme for each birthday.
I really inspired your blog. Celebrate a holiday or special day is important moment in your life. My family stumbled in to a wonderful birthday tradition which have repeated each year ever since. Thanks for sharing this valuable article…………………….