The Book of New Family Traditions (19 page)

Stuffed Animal Parade

When my son came home from school on his birthday, his stuffed animals would be lined up along the staircase to the second floor, on both sides. When he got to the top, he would find his first present of the day. (The remainder were opened after dinner.)

Birthday Wreaths

In a ritual she says was inspired by Navajo traditions to celebrate a newborn, Kathleen Metcalf gave each of her children a simple wreath from a craft store when they were infants. The idea is that each year, friends and family give the birthday child a small charm or object to attach to the wreath that symbolizes something special about that year or a positive attribute of their character. A special diary records each little gift as it is added, its significance, and who gave it. The wreaths hang in the children’s bedrooms and are now quite crowded with little objects that tell the stories of their lives. In addition, the birthday kid gets one big gift, “usually something useful, like a sleeping bag,” says Kathleen.

Boss of the Family

In one family, the birthday boy or girl is “boss for the day” and can order other family members around. They decide on the day’s menu and activities, and usually send their parents to bed early!

Make Way for New Toys

Before her daughters’ birthdays, Barbara Franco of Florida gets them to help in a major cleanup ritual that includes donating old toys they no longer play with to a local shelter or other charity. They also sort through clothes, and those that don’t fit are passed on to the next youngest or donated to the needy.

Birthday Gardens

Amanda Soule, who writes the popular SouleMama blog, lives with her husband and five children on forty acres in Maine, and each of the kids has a “birthday garden.” To start it off, they all got to pick a type of tree that fit their personality. Then, each birthday, the kids can add plants or flowers or herbs that they like. For those with winter birthdays, on theirspecial day they plan what to plant later on, though they can’t put it into the ground until spring. “Adelaide always picks purple flowers: That is all she wants to plant,” says Amanda. “My oldest is more practical: He wants something he can eat, like carrots. Ezra is more of a dreamer and likes really different ornamental things, or he will be drawn to something because it has a funny name. His is a kind of Dr. Seuss garden.”

Birthday Playlists

Susan Wagoner makes special CDs for her daughters on their birthdays. She thinks of songs during the year, especially the month before. “I have found that most love songs can be used as a mother singing to her child, and I’ve used things like “She’s Got a Way” by Billy Joel and Olivia Newton John’s “Let Me Be There.” I burn loads of copies and give them out as party favors. I include “good” music like the Beatles, Van Morrison, etc., so they won’t just listen to Radio Disney stuff! We listen to these CDs over and over in the car.” How perfect: Music to play during the party, and a memento to give the guests.

Great Online Resources on Themed Parties

So, what shall the birthday theme be this year? Winnie the Pooh? Harry Potter? Monster Trucks? Princess Tea Party?

Sometimes parents run out of fresh ideas, but there are a number of excellent online resources for sparking ideas, including for invitations, decorations, games, and treat food.

FamilyFun.com
is a website companion to the single most creative magazine for parents. Like the magazine, the website offers ideas for all sorts of crafts, recipes, and year-round celebrations. On the home page toolbar, click on Parties for fun ideas and eats, as well as games and decorations you can download and print out.

Who knew that PBS did kid parties? Go to
www.pbs.org/parents/birthdayparties/
, where there are lots of ideas for parties themed around such PBS “celebrities” as Curious George, the Cat in the Hat, and the Teletubbies.

BirthdayPartyldeas.com
is packed with suggestions, including a list of more than 300 ideas for party themes, in alphabetical order.

For a change of pace, there is a very classy blog produced by event planners in San Francisco. They show lots of photos of fabulous, fun ideas for parties with clever decorations and food that may inspire you. Just going there makes me want to throw a theme party! Go to
CakeEventsBlog.com
.

Birthday Cake Parade

Lynn Rosen’s house in Philadelphia is laid out so that there is a complete circle from the foyer to the family room to the kitchen, the dining room, and back to the foyer. She figured out when her kids were young that it would be fun to have spontaneous “parades,” and she kept a box of instruments nearby. When her son Cooper turned five and she had a room full of noisy children, right before lighting the candles she got the idea to do a birthday parade. “I had all the kids line up behind me, with Cooper first, lit the candles, and marched twice around in a Birthday Cake Parade.” The kids loved it, and the parents vowed to copy the idea.

Birthday Treasure Hunts: A Template to Use for All Occasions

One fun way to celebrate a birthday is with a Treasure Hunt, but you might want to bookmark this page because the same basic template can be used just as well for almost any holiday or ceremony honoring a special someone.

It’s a frugal idea, actually, because the basic idea is to send your kid on a wild goose chase where one clue leads to another, but the child only gets one prize, at the very end. You can use visual clues for the pre-readers. The older the child, the more complex your clues will be, and the more far-ranging the hiding places. Rhymed clues are easy and fun.

Just to give you an idea, here are a few of the clues I gave my son once. Although this was for Valentine’s Day, the principle is always the same:

I won’t give you a snub, if you’ll peek in the tub....

Your hopes you just might pin, on a look inside the stuffed animal bin....

The spot you want to look, is a place where food is usually cooked! (And that was the final clue—the gift was in the oven.)

Birthday Daddy Dates

Colleen McGuire has three girls, and each year on their birthdays, each girl gets a private date with dad, dressed in her best dress, at a “white tablecloth” restaurant. After that, Dad treats her to a few extra gifts they pick out together.

Birthday Parties for a Cause

Some kids start very early wanting to help others in need. The impulse to donate one’s birthday to a good cause shouldn’t be imposed on a child, but if this idea excites your kid, there are many ways to organize it and many terrific causes. You can certainly just ask guests to bring a donation rather than a present, then hand over what you raise to a local cause for which your child is passionate. Cole Hodges of Richmond, Virginia, is a boy who asked for money for charity on his birthdays starting at age five, and raised hundreds for causes such as cancer and homelessness.

There are also online sites that take you through the process and suggest national and international charities. The OneDays Wages.org website was founded by the Cho family in Seattle, Washington, because they wanted to do something to help eradicate extreme poverty around the world. The site features a protocol for creating a birthday to raise and collect funds. You pick a charity, set up a special page for your birthday giving campaign, alert your friends and family via social media, and One Days Wages turns all the proceeds over to the charity you designate. Meanwhile, your friends can check your event page to see how close you are getting to your goal. Go to the site, click on Donate, and look for the “Birthday for a cause” logo.

An excellent charity for children who love animals and want to help the poor is Heifer, which provides farm animals to low-income people in the developing world. A flock of chicks is only $20. Go to
Heifer.org
. If you click on Get Involved, and then Families, you’ll find a number of videos that will bring the program to life for your family.

Celebrating the Birthday of a Family Member Who Died

Let’s face facts: Your kids will suffer the loss of people they love, including adored grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Here is a very sweet way to honor those loved ones on their birthdays. In December 2005, Cynthia Taibbi-Kates found herself trying to explain to her seven-year-old daughter Mary-Rose why she was so sad one day. The previous summer, Cindy’s father had died and she scattered his ashes at sea: This was going to be the first birthday (and Christmas) without him. Her little girl’s matter-of-fact reply was: “I think we should bake a cake for Papa and put candles on it. Then, we should go outside and sing Happy Birthday to him and let the breeze blow out the candles, because now Papa is part of the wind.”

They perform this ritual every year on December 22 and get a chance to talk about what a great father and grandfather he was. A little cupcake with a single candle would also work.

The simple power of this brilliant idea reminds me why children of all ages should be asked to help create rituals: They have a more primal grasp on life, and they can often cut to the chase about how to express emotions through action.

Milestone Birthdays

When my son, Max, turned three, it felt like a special milestone to me, and I wanted to find a creative way to celebrate his new powers. I thought about tribal rites of passage, where those initiated into a new stage have to cross over a physical threshold and bravely face the adventure of their future. I decided I could make a threshold with a simple bedsheet. Max would have to go through the sheet to get his birthday gifts, and I could use the blank surface to record his accomplishments. I painted symbols of “big boyness” on the first sheet, including underwear, since he had just been potty trained, and scissors, to symbolize nursery school.

Honestly, I have rarely made him that happy since. He got the biggest kick out of that first sheet, squealing and racing deliriously through the slit to see what was on the other side. I thought he would immediately sit down and open gifts in the family room, but he was having too much fun racing from one room to the next and back again. It was like playing hide-and-seek with a whole room!

I’ve since made four more threshold sheets, one when he turned five, another at seven, then again at ten and thirteen. At five, the sheet was painted like a pirate’s treasure map. At seven, it was a list of breakthrough achievements such as: “Max can read,” “Max can write,” and “Max can swim.” He didn’t ask for a sheet at sixteen, so maybe he’s outgrown this idea. But each of the others came after he requested them, explaining why he deserved another milestone sheet because of all his new skills and accomplishments.

Ideas vary from family to family about what is a milestone birthday. Is it reaching ten, the first double-digit year? Or twelve? Or the first teen year, magical thirteen?

The most meaningful celebrations come from deep personal knowledge of a particular child, and his or her dreams and aspirations. When my little sister turned sixteen, I happened to know she had “never been kissed” so I assembled half a dozen boys from my high school class (I was a senior, she was a sophomore), who lined up to kiss her during a slumber party. All her girlfriends went spastic with jealousy watching this little parade of kissing boys, and Tracy still says this was the very best ritual I ever invented for her!

How to Make a Mitestone Sheet

Materials

One white, full-size bedsheet

A supply of paint, in bright colors, plus black (I used washable paint because that’s what I had around; but I never intended to wash any of these.)

Pencil

Scissors

Newspaper

Instructions

Put plenty of newspaper on the floor to protect from stains. Spread the sheet out flat. Cut a slit from the bottom to the middle, ending slightly higher than the child is tall. Sketch your design in pencil first, then paint. Let dry completely before handling. On the big day, use masking tape to hang the sheet across a doorway that leads to the room where the presents are.