But today, children’s birthday parties have become ridiculously elaborate. It’s a rare occasion now that you would invite an intimate group of friends to your house to play a board game and eat homemade cake. Now it’s expected that you will invite the entire day care or the entire class to your birthday. And the choice of venue is everything.
Over the past 12 months, I calculated eight birthday parties for four-year-olds at fantasy play lands, museums, theme parks, and movie theatres.
Because I’m nosy – and because I have to do research for this column – I always examine the cost of these events after the fact (sometimes I ask the parents directly, but usually I discreetly look it up online and call the venue to inquire). The space alone typically runs the parents over $200 for 20 pint-sized guests. At a movie theatre, the basic costs more than double to about $420. That doesn’t include food, loot bags or balloons.
Like North American wedding etiquette gone berserk, these events require us to give and receive equally. We give the four-year-old birthday girl a $20 gift, and tend to get a loot bag of almost equal value in return. The loot bags range from small, dollar store toys to elaborate gift baskets containing playdough, toys, books and CDs (I’ve been embarrassed twice because I’ve given the birthday boy the same toy that he’s given my child as a parting gift). These tit-for-tat bags of junk, as I like to call them, are valued at an average of $15.
It’s no wonder that direct marketing to children in this country is a $10-billion-per-year industry. If you’re cynical like me, here’s a few tips for keeping your own party modest:
- Allow your child to invite the same (or half) the number of kids as his age (If my son is turning five, he can invite five kids); - Instead of loot bags, have your child help you design a craft that everyone can make at the party and take home; - Make the cake yourself. Even if it’s from a box, your child will most likely value the effort; - Have a treasure hunt, where children have to work together in teams to find a grand prize at the end; - If you don’t want to have the party at home, look for free venues, like outdoor skating rinks and tobogganing hills, a splash pad or a playground; - If you want to invite a lot of children, make a point of telling your guests not to bring gifts. Give them the option of donating to a charity instead (which has also become very trendy). That will reduce your guests’ expectation levels, your carbon footprint, and it will allow your child to spend a few hours having fun and celebrating, without tying the party to commercial gain.
Oh, and marketers take note, while I have rejected this type of birthday party, grandparents, especially income-earning Baby Boomers, are a good way to bypass resistance like mine. My mom’s flying over from Scotland next month and she’s booked a museum venue for my son’s fifth birthday party.
I told him this morning.
“Can’t we just go skating again like last year?” he whined.
I guess money really doesn’t buy happiness.
