Tips on Throwing Birthday Party for School Age Kids

Yesterday afternoon while I was cooking dinner, the door bell rang.  I told my son to take a peek who that might be.  He said, “It’s Nick” (one of his classmate who also lives in our neighborhood).  So I told him to go ahead open the door  while I washed my hands.  This boy, along with his mom and his two siblings, dropped off a birthday present for my son since he forgot to bring it to the party.  Throwing my son’s birthday party was such a nerve-wrecking, which I vented the whole ordeal in this post .  I thought that was really sweet of them; My son was happy enough just to have him coming to the party.  Anyway, the mom said to me that we missed Nick’s birthday party.  I was like, say what???  What party??  I didn’t get the invitation!  His mom said she lost my number and actually stopped by to our house a couple times to:

1. Dropped off the present
2. Wanting to know if we could make it to the party or not, since obviously she never heard anything from me

Both times we weren’t there.  Then I told her I felt so bad because she probably thought I was so rude for not RSVP-ing, but I really didn’t get the invitation.  She was very nice and blamed her son for not asking around if his friends could make it to the party or not.  So what happened to the invitation?  It’s still a mystery.  All I know is each kids have their own mailbox and at the end of the day, the kids have to take out everything from their mailbox and put it inside their folders.  My son could have dropped it off or Nick might accidentally put it in somebody else’s.  Lesson learned:

1. Never trust an 8 yr old (or any kids around that age, especially boys) to distribute invitations!
2. If you are planning on throwing birthday party for your child, seriously I would contact the teacher and ask permission to get the parents emails.  Then send Evite!  Public school is a little strict about privacy, but I’m sure the teacher wouldn’t mind asking the parents’ permission.  I, too, wouldn’t mind getting emails from parents
3. If you send out an invitation and never heard anything back from a few parents, don’t take it personally.  Clearly there is a possibility those parents don’t get the invitations
4. Now if you are the one on the other side of the fence, your child found out so and so was invited to so and so birthday party, there is a possibility that he was invited.  It’s just the invitation went MIA

Feel better moms?  Not everybody is downright rude.  Maybe some, but certainly not all.