Parenting with less stress {Celebrating Birthdays}

 We celebrated our oldest childs' 11th birthday this week (as well as Ken's). It was a pretty laid back celebration but it was fun and it was genuine. It started me thinking about why we celebrate the way we do.

 We have made some choices concerning our children's birthdays that are not really typical but they have worked well for us. We have never had one of those birthday parties where we send out cute little invitations, prepare a bunch of little favor bags and then have a houseful (or restaurant) of little kids. I don't think there is anything wrong with that sort of thing but we do have our reasons for doing things differently.

  I thought I would share what we do and why. Not to make you feel guilty if it is different from you, nor to have you feel sorry for us or our kids if that is your reaction. I simply thought I would share so if you were wondering if it would work to scale things back and if others have done it, then you will know that the answer is "Yes!" and it works and we have fun with less stress.

What we do:

• We give gifts (usually fairly simple, often homemade) in the morning before breakfast.
• The Birthday person gets to pick the menu for the day.
• We have a birthday cake. The Birthday person chooses what they want and usually I bake it (unless my Mom or sister does).
• We have my parents and siblings over and every so often somebody else of our friends from church.
• We often alter our schedule a little in a effort to do some fun activity. Not necessarily hard or expensive. For Mara's birthday we had a picnic for Ken's we played games and he came home a little early to play catch with the boys.

 We have chosen not to do the normal party thing. I have some reasons on why we have made that decision. You may or may not agree with me and that is perfectly fine but I thought I would share.

• I don't really like all of the gifts that come with big parties where you invite lots of other kids. We try to keep the number of toys that we own within a reasonable number, and really try to have ones that they truly enjoy and use. My observation of normal birthday parties is that the birthday child gets tons of toys that may or may not be his/her style.
• We haven't allotted  the time or money for the big parties. We could I suppose (though I know the parties I have seen around here can cost a lot when you rent out a pool or whatever) but we have chosen to use our time and money in ways that we enjoy more.
• I have observed children that were totally overwhelmed by parties given for them. To many people, to many gifts and so on. I didn't want that for my kids.

 I guess what it all comes down to is I like simplicity and I don't like waste. I know not every birthday party is that way and I have seen some super cute ideas out there (that do tempt me for a minute to throw a party!) but over all what we do works for us and I am quite happy.

Now I am curious, what do you do in your family? Why have you made the decisions that you did?