We try to be intentional in making any celebration a family event. Jason’s parents are dear to us and our kids love having them over for anything we celebrate. Tomorrow is never promised so we try to make the time we spend together meaningful and memorable.
We get asked a lot of questions about how we spend birthdays. I will try my best to give you an accurate description on what we enjoy doing as a family.
1. Give praises before presents! Praising their character, not flattering their ego is important. We start the celebration with praising the birthday child for the person they are and how special they are to our family. It is important to show gratefulness to God for placing them in our lives.
2. We typically know our child’s favorite meal and dessert and we try to take that into consideration when we prepare for the birthday. It is so much fun for the other children to be a part of all the preparation into the birthday food.
3. We give lots of handwritten notes and handmade cards. The older children will make homemade bracelets, necklaces, or earrings for the birthday girl. For the birthday boy, they may make him a handmade wooden box with a nifty little clasp. On many occasions, our little ones will give away their money to their birthday sibling and tape it to a handmade card. These are some of my favorite gifts, because it is all about the thoughtfulness behind the giving.
4. Make it memorable for them. We set up games, scavenger hunts, a day at the lake, make birthday crowns filled with jewels, have surprise tea parties, go roller skating, slip-n-slide kickball, fishing, canoeing, etc.
5. It is about connecting, not perfecting. Ask God for creativity. I sometimes struggle with being creative and could use some help in this department. Thankfully, I am married to a creative man. He saves the day when I run out of ideas. I have to remind myself that the children just want to laugh and have lots of fun with the family… and that is what’s most important.
There are times where it calls for a girls birthday and we have tea & cake parties! It is so much fun to dress up, decorate the kitchen to create a “tea house” style, and the boys are the waiting staff. We had jewels on our fingers, necklaces, fancy gloves up to our elbows, and all things pink and purple. That is a day that will go down in the history books of creative birthdays well spent.
6. Think about the child’s likes and implement that into the day. If your child loves games, play their favorite game. If they love quality time, then carve out special time in the day to spend it with just daddy & mama. If it’s a summer birthday, go spend the day at the lake and make sure you bring lots of watermelon. 🙂
7. Take into account all the ages of your children. It is important to have age appropriate activities so that little ones can be included in the celebration as well. It is a season, so enjoy it while it last!
8. If you keep it simple, there is order. No one likes to celebrate in chaos.
9. Blessing them and the gift that they are to our family. This helps reiterate their identity rooted in Christ.
10. Be fully present. Don’t get caught up in all the details of celebrating. Your kids aren’t worried about the decorations; they just want your time. You don’t want your countenance to reflect your lack of energy level. The efforts put into all the behind-the-scenes of the day can be helped by having the entire family pitch in with those little details.
For this birthday, we went on a walk together and picked flowers growing along the property. After some indoor celebrating, we all went outside and Jason helped the kids make giant bubble wands. We made a homemade solution and they spent hours making huge bubbles. It was a lot of fun for her and the one thing she requested for today was to be together playing games outside. I love the fact that something so simple as time spent fills their little tank completely full. When we do this, they are able to spill over their love into someone else and become a fountain in someone else’s life.
If you were to ask this little guy what his favorite thing to do for birthday celebrations, he would say, “Family time!” I would agree that there’s nothing better than celebrating the person, to value them, bless them, praising them for their good character, and who God created them to be.
And at the end of the day, there is nothing better than lying in your bed at night chatting up a storm with your siblings about the kind of day you had together. Someday, mom and dad, we won’t be there to foster these relationships. Take the time now to not only make their special day meaningful, but memorable.
I hope this was a blessing to you and your family.
Natalie