How She Celebrates Birthdays

When my son Abel heard I was doing a birthday episode, he suggested that maybe my sister Hayley should be in charge of this episode. It’s not that I’m bad at birthdays, per se, it’s just that I’m not very flashy about them. Or consistent. 

I’ve thrown big, fun themed parties, we’ve had small family parties with just cake and presents.  I’ve put up a few decorations here and there, but nothing beyond balloons and streamers. Sometimes we celebrate on the actual day, sometimes on the weekend before or after, sometimes we celebrate for the full week. My cakes don’t always look great, but they usually taste great. And sometimes birthday dessert isn’t a cake at all. Sometimes I make a birthday dinner, sometimes we go out. 

If I have a birthday specialty, it’s flexibility and maybe a high chaos tolerance, in the form of lots of children running around my house at birthday parties. 

But I’m a curious woman, and I really wanted to know, how do other moms do birthdays—and not just parties, but what are some of the quieter, behind the scenes family birthday traditions? So for the past year or so, I’ve been asking most of the moms I’ve interviewed how they do birthdays. Some are birthday superstars, including my sister Hayley, the one my son was referring to. My other sister, Cassie, is also very good at throwing themed parties, so I don’t always show their birthday party pictures to my kids for obvious reasons.

I ended up grouping the ideas I collected into four categories: parties, including friend parties, family parties, milestone parties and adult parties, Gifts, food, and finally a bunch of miscellaneous traditions that build connection. Whatever your level of birthday expertise, the moms I talked to have some really great ideas, from simple traditions to hilarious themes to an elaborate coming of age ritual. I love that they all do it their own way. Some go big, and some keep it simple. 

I love the way Monica Packer, host of the wonderful About Progress podcast knows her limits related to birthday celebrations.

I don’t do birthday parties until my kids turn eight. As a young mom, I knew I got really burnt out by doing a lot of the fantastical stuff with my kids. My mom was amazing at making our birthdays so fun. It wasn’t extravagant, but she took a lot of time to throw them. 

I’m kind of the mom who doesn’t do Elf on the Shelf. I don’t have that inside of me. I made that decision about who I am as a mom. The other moms do this differently. 

But birthdays and birthday parties are also conspicuous events, so it’s easy to compare your kids’ birthday parties to the neighbor down the street with the petting zoo in her backyard for her toddler’s birthday.

So even though Monica knows her boundaries, it’s still easy to compare.

I still have that little voice of shame coming in my head comparing my efforts to other moms. I worry my little kid is upset that they don’t have a birthday party, but they’ve never complained about it. 

 And it’s true! Often the parents care and notice these things way more than the kids—especially the elaborate 1-year-old parties. We all know those are really for the adults!  

It really doesn’t take much to make a memorable birthday. Think back to your own birthday memories. Most of them probably don’t involve a petting zoo. I love this memory from Amy Wilson, co-host of the What Fresh Hell Podcast.

My most shining childhood memory was when we were in the Poconos. We were staying in a camper. It was my sixth or seventh birthday. We had people over to our patch of ground right outside the camper. 

A bearded man who I did not know came to my birthday party. I remember him holding a can of beer in his hand and giving me $1. I had gotten $1 from a stranger! I thought anything could happen. It was like anybody could come up to me and just give me money on my birthday. It felt like the most important thing in the world. I loved it.

That clip was from a great episode of the What Fresh Hell Podcast called, Let’s Rethink Birthday Parties, from September of 2021. I’ll share a few more clips from it, but as with all of their episodes, the whole thing is a great listen.

Whatever you do, and whatever expectations you set for your kids, especially when they’re young, will be great. You get to celebrate in a way that works best for your personality, your individual kids, your stage of life, and your family dynamic. If throwing elaborate parties is what you want to do, that’s amazing! If you prefer intimate family gatherings, that’s great too.

And, you don’t have to be good at all aspects of birthday celebrations. You can focus on one or two things that matter most to you and your kids.

Birthday Strategy

Let’s start by talking about why we celebrate birthdays. It feels weird to set objectives for celebrating birthdays, but most of us have already done this subconsciously.

 We celebrate our kids’ birthdays to make them feel special, to help them build or strengthen connections with their family and friends, and to reminisce about their birth and other special memories. We also celebrate their advancement to new stages like becoming a teenager or adult. I like using birthdays to really zero in on what makes a kid unique—their talents, interests, current obsessions, and the way they like to spend their time.

You can also use birthdays to help serve other purposes, like teaching your child hosting and social skills.

 Here is what some of the moms I interviewed have to say about the purpose of birthday celebrations. 

First, Anna Zupancic,

I want them to feel special and honored and know that they’re valued in the family. We treasure them and put some thought into who they are and what makes them who they are. I think it’s a great chance to encourage them and help them feel honored.

And here’s Jen Brimhall,

It’s that one day that you can just focus on them, especially if they have siblings. I think it’s nice that we can spend one day that’s just focused on them. And they can feel special and they can hear the story about when they were born. They can hear everybody saying nice things about them. It makes them feel like they matter. They’re important.

And Meg Singley

 I think birthdays are a really good chance to try to bring out some magic in life. Sometimes it’s little things like streamers in the hallway that got put up while they were asleep or giant balloons that are bigger than them. something kind of whimsical, but something that we know they will like and that this day is about them, I think is just really kind of beautiful and magical and fun.

 It hadn’t really occurred to me until this conversation with Meg, but for the rest of the family, birthdays can be a great way to practice empathy—really putting ourselves in the birthday person’s shoes and figuring out what will really make them happy and help them have a fun day.

Now that we’ve talked about why to celebrate birthdays, we’ll spend the rest of the episode on the how—the tactics and logistics–parties, gifts, food, and then a grab bag of other relationship-building traditions.

Parties

First, the biggest topic: parties. 

We have several choices here, each with a whole spectrum of options—from the big parties where you invite every kid in your child’s school class to intimate family gatherings, or even no party at all. From destination parties at play centers, amusement parks, or sports complexes to your own home, a restaurant or a local park. From yearly parties to occasional milestone parties. From drop-off parties to parties where the parents stick around.

Growing up, my family’s rule was that we could have friend parties every other year, and I carried that into my own family. I also made the somewhat arbitrary rule that until they were about 10, they could invite one more friend than their age. But I actually don’t follow either rule anymore. If it works out for a kid to have a party, we have a party. If they’d rather invite a friend or two to go somewhere fun, like a ropes course or a rock concert, we do that instead. I’ve never hosted a party at any kind of party center, partly because we live in kind of a party center desert, where the closest one is about 30 minutes away, and I don’t want to make other parents have to drive out and come to them. Plus, I don’t know why, but those places stress me out way more than having a billion kids at my house, even if the kids’ parents are there to watch them.

That’s why I had my first two kids completely convinced that Chuck E. Cheese was an invite-only establishment. When they’d see a commercial for it, or we’d pass by one and ask about it, I’d just ask like it was some elite establishment—you have to know the right people to get in.

Margaret Ables, the other co-host of the What Fresh Hell podcast, has some strong opinions about these kind of parties. I’m going to let her say what we’ve all thought:

The birthday party where you spent two hours of your Saturday sitting in the jumperoo trampoline park or the bowling alley talking to some other person who doesn’t want to be there is horrible! It’s awful, right? 

But here’s the thing. Kids love these places, and planning is as simple as making a reservation and sending invites. So if this is your thing, it’s generous of you, and the kids are going to love it. Maybe just not the parents.

I also appreciate the sentiment of being inclusive and inviting the whole class, and I especially like the rule most schools have about not passing out invitations at school unless you’re inviting the whole class. And inviting that many kids to your house is not really feasible unless you have a great big yard and can do it outside.

Plus, for any parents that are annoyed about coming and staying, there is no obligation to bring your kids to every party they’re invited to. If you did that, once you got multiple kids in the mix, that would be all you would do every weekend.

Which brings up another question: drop off or stay? As Margaret just said, often the rule of thumb for dropping off kids or staying at the party is 8, but I think this varies by community. Regardless, it’s probably good to specify your preference on the invitation if kids are under 8, so families can make plans.

I’ve actually only hosted drop-off parties, even for three year olds, which is the youngest friend parties we’ve had. At that point it’s usually just 3-4 kids, and I know the families well. A couple of years, while all my kids were little, I also hired a 10 or 11 year old to help out with the parties—a great age, since they’re helpful but still really playful and fun for the kids. Not to mention really inexpensive to hire!

On the other hand, you can invite the parents to stay and basically have your own party. This is the way Wendy Castellano-Wolf one of the hosts of the Mama Cita Podcast likes it!

If you’ve ever been to a Latino birthday party, it’s really not about the kids. It’s really about the parents getting together and having a party. The kids just play with each other and have a  pinata and candy. It’s not about them.

As your kids grow, parties definitely evolve. I relaxed my every other year rule after my kids got a bit older. Now we’re hosting 5-10 kids, usually teenagers, pretty much every weekend, between my three oldest boys, so I’m used to being a party house. I’m not going to put in the effort that I used to put into parties when they were younger—my kids do most of the planning now—and I’m not as excited about planning themed parties as I used to be, so it’s a good trade off. The older ones got cooler parties, but the younger one get more of them.

 A lot of other moms talked about being influenced, especially at first, by how their own parents did parties, and then evolving into their own patterns. This was true for both Devan and Alexis, the hosts of the Word 2 Ya Muva podcast. Here’s Devan James:

 ​When I had my first child I thought we had to have a birthday party every year because I think I only had maybe two birthday parties. I thought, she’s gonna have a birthday party every time no matter the cost! She’s a tax baby so tax returns came every time it was her birthday we had money. She always had a birthday party, but after nine or 10, we slowed that down. We would do intimate stuff or have a couple friends to go do something. I definitely want to make it memorable for them and not really worry about how much or how little it costs. It’s the little things that make her excited. With my youngest, because of the pandemic, we just had in-home birthdays with cake. I would have a theme, decorate a little bit, and she was fine.

And here’s Alexis Mayberry:

I had maybe three or four birthday parties growing up. The first one I remember was when I was five, my mom brought a clown. She bought a cookie cake, and cookie cake is my favorite. 

Then I had a hotel birthday party when I was 10. 

I had a Mardi Gras themed party when I was 18. I’m a really party person. So I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m gonna get every mask, and the mask is gonna be the invitation. That was my thing.

 When Kaia was born I decided she would have a party every year because I didn’t have that many parties. It was like that until she was five. Then I made a new rule. They get a birthday when they’re 1, 5, and 10. Maybe their golden year, I’ll do something special. I also throw a party for 13, 16, and 18. 

Devin and Alexis have a great rapport, probably because they’ve been friends, and practically family, since middle school. You can listen to their really fun podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts!

You don’t even actually have to have a plan for how often you throw friend parties. You can just kind of take it year by year. Even though she loves parties, that’s what Joy Chantry does.

It depends. Some years, we don’t do a party. It depends on where I am mentally, if I can handle it or not. We’ve done birthdays where we’ve gone to the Family Fun Center. That’s been a great birthday.

Joy blogs about her fun and affordable ideas for parties and family fun at joysfunstuff.com. So many great party hacks!

 I love that Joy gives herself a break from parties when she’s stressed or busy. And guess what? You can also opt out completely or just occasionally. You’ve already heard that Monica Packer’s rule is no friend parties until age 8. Jen Brimhall feels even less pressure to have friend parties.

I’m pretty low key on most birthdays. I usually don’t do a great big birthday party. Well have their special dinner with grandma and grandpa over, but that’s about as crazy as it gets.

Occasionally we’ll have a friend party if they ask for one, but it hasn’t been anything we’ve done a lot.

There’s your permission, if you felt like you needed it. However, I have to add a caveat here. Jen does throw one really big birthday party when her children turn 12. We’ll talk about that a bit later.

When I asked my Instagram community about their favorite birthday party themes, they came up with some good ones: Outer space, Ponies, Puppies, Superheroes, pirates, Neverland… And then of course the character based ones: Harry potter, Cars, Big hero 6, Little Mermaid

But one response made me do a double take: a garbage party. Of course, I had to know more. So I set up an interview, and I got to meet the lovely Anna Zupancic.

When my son was three, I asked him what he would like to do for a party. Right away, without hesitation, he answered that he wanted a garbage party. It was like he’d been thinking about it for ages. 

So I said, Okay. I’m gonna lean into that garbage party idea. 

I don’t know what his expectations for it were. But it was really fun for me to plan and to execute because the bar for success was so low. I mean, it’s a literal garbage party! I don’t know where he came up with the idea from, but it was really fun, just because it was free. It was fun.

Then she told me about another great theme, a take-aparty, complete with a pun in the name! 

We had a take-apart-y one year. The same child wanted to do a party where everyone would take things apart. So we went to the thrift store and bought all kinds of electronics. I got the kids’ little screwdriver sets. We laid down heavy paper and cloths to protect the table. We all had our little screwdrivers and took apart cameras, old clocks, and video cameras. The kids took this stuff apart and it was really cool. They were pulling out screws, pulling out little wires, pulling out magnifying type instruments in the cameras. It was also very inexpensive because I had 50% off sales going on at the thrift stores. I’d buy up those particular electronics. Then the kids could recreate something with it. They could remake it. Everybody got a bag they could take home all the parts that they wanted. We had hot glue guns out. It was great. 

What a fabulous idea!

Another creative one we’ve been part of is my son’s friend who had a backwards party. All the guests wore their clothes backwards and they just played simple party games but with a backward twist, ate dessert before dinner, etc.

Joy Chantry also loves creating themed parties for not only her kids but her husband as well.

They’ll pick a theme, they’ll tell me what they want and then I’ll just start thinking.  And that’s my favorite part, coming up with the food, decorations, and other things that go along with it. 

A couple of years ago, I chose my husband’s theme for him–a unicorn party. So he came home and it was all decorated pink and purple and turquoise with a unicorn cake. He loved it. 

But guess what. Your theme for the party can also be birthday party, which is definitely all my teens want, and that’s the only kind of party ever knew growing up. You played duck duck goose, pin the tail on the donkey, and musical chairs, maybe a water balloon toss if it’s summer. Then you ate cake and ice cream and you played. 

This is Margaret Ables’ go to, again from that same episode of What Fresh Hell, “Let’s Rethink Birthday Parties.”

Our birthday parties are “come to the backyard, and do whatever the heck you want in the yard.” The kids have a really good time. I leave out a soccer ball. That’s basically the theme of the party: recess. Come out and play. You’re not allowed in the house. I’m sorry. If you have to go to the bathroom, that’s the only exception–if you can really convince me you can’t hold it. Then pizza is served an hour and a half in. Cake is served an hour and 45 minutes in. Then everyone gets picked up at the two hour mark. 

One of these backyard parties also involved an awkward dancing Darth Vader, which ended with a free for all of kids whacking him with pool noodles. Definitely worth listening to the episode to hear the whole story.

My third son only had one themed superhero birthday party. After that, he said, when he was just 8, “Can you not put up any stupid decorations or plan any silly games and just let my friends and I play whatever we want.” Yes, and yes. He’s been in charge of his parties ever since, although this year, just last week, I did buy candy bars so they could play that game with candy bars and dice. I’ll explain the game on Instagram this week if you’re interested.

Milestone birthdays

There are regular birthday parties and then there are milestone birthdays, which are different in different cultures—or really whatever you decide are your family milestones, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 20 or 21, 40, etc.

Jen Brimhall, who we heard from a bit earlier, was intrigued by the idea of milestone birthdays and specifically coming of age celebrations, as her oldest daughter approached the age of 12.

Our culture right now doesn’t have traditions associated with milestones. If you go into the past with different cultures and different religions, it was a really common thing to have something that marked the movement from child to adult. In our culture right now we don’t have that. People want to find the meaning. If they don’t find meaning in a healthy way, sometimes they’ll find it in unhealthy ways. 

I feel like our American society does a really poor job helping teenagers make the transition from a child to a responsible adult who is independent, who makes good decisions, who contributes. We wanted to focus on helping that transition for our children.

And then I read a book called Wild Things that talked about raising boys, because I have four boys. And they mentioned something along those same lines as well.

And so I kind of took those two ideas and mashed them together in a way that felt good for our family. And the reason I wanted to do that was because I feel like our American society does a really poor job of raising teenagers, of making the transition from child to adult–responsible adults who are independent, can take care of themselves, can make good decisions. They’re contributors.

I think it’s also a kind thing to do. A lot of times, kids hit that magic age of 18, and we say, “Today, you’re an adult, you can pay all your own bills, you’re responsible for yourself now legally, there are more consequences, all these other things.” So I think the kind thing to do is to help them through that transition and teach them what they are capable of, what is expected of them, and what’s healthy living too.

So we decided to create our own coming of age celebration. We invite all of their mentors, aunts, uncles, neighbors, coaches or whoever it might be of the same gender. We don’t have anybody  their own age there because that gets a little distracting. So for my 12 year olds, we invite ages 15 and up. We had a nice picnic lunch on my mom’s back deck with my mom and my sisters. Since then it’s evolved into more of a big day activity, with physical trials, or service elements. So there’s just a lot of different ways you can take it based on your family situation and what you think your child specifically needs.

We live in a rural area, so for us, that looks like going out into the forest, and doing target practice, doing axe throwing, rock climbing, rappelling… And then at the end of the day, we have a campfire ceremony. That is where all of their mentors, whoever was invited, will bring a letter of some of life lessons or, or advice that they want to impart to them, or just things that they think are important. And then we put the letters in a binder, sometimes there’s a gift attached with it.  And it’s just a really special time. It helps bond the generations together. They have a day of fun, but also some time that’s really meaningful, where they can share what’s in their hearts. And it’s so neat just to see your 12 year old leafing through this binder reading advice from their older brother, or reading it from their uncle. It just it really sets a bar as they go into their teenage years about the kind of person they can become.

One of the best outcomes is that their connections are a lot deeper. I feel like once you share your heart with somebody, that’s kind of unusual. I feel like in our, in our world today, we’ve stayed mostly surface level. But once you share your heart with someone, it really helps those those bonds go deeper. For example, one of my kids is 19 now. Several months ago, he was just having a rough time. He was in a time of transition. He had a big thing coming up. And he was just freaking out a little bit internally. So I called my brother in law, who had been at his coming of age celebration and has been a really positive force in his life. And I said, “he’s having a hard time. Is there anything that that you could do for him?

He needed help build fixing his horse stalls, so he invited my son over to go help him. And my son just broke down and cried at their house.  This man was able to help him in ways that I couldn’t as his mom. And I was so grateful for what he was able to teach my son that day, for the love he was able to give to him, he and his wife. And I just think things like that don’t happen often, especially when we stay surface level. Seeing all those people around that campfire showed my son how many people loved him. He could count them one by one because they were all there. He had concrete evidence of them love for him. And he knew that he could call on them at any time. And that’s priceless I think.

In addition to planning these amazing celebrations and parenting her five children, Jen runs the website raisethegood.com, a great resource for families to learn about how to use media positively in your home, which she’ll be talking about in a future episode. She even created an online guidebook with everything you need to throw your own coming of age celebration, available for just 13.99 at raisethegood.com.

Adult birthdays

Of course, grownups can have parties too, usually with bigger ones at milestone birthdays. Devan James had her first daughter when she was almost 18, so her early birthdays as a mom looked a little different than they do now at 30.  

Since I was a young mom, I was blessed to have my parents and her father’s parents involved. I got a lot of free time to be able to be with my age group. 

When I was in my 20s I would go out with friends once in a while. I was able to celebrate my birthday, like a normal 20 something. I would go out and wear a cute outfit. But as I got older, I feel like we don’t really celebrate our birthdays that much. Now, I know I’m content with food and a cake. That’s all I ever want.  

As a mom, sometimes it’s nice to just have a quiet birthday at home. But mom birthdays don’t always have to be low key. Just ask Wendy Castellano-Wolf, the other half of the podcasting duo that hosts the Mama Cita podcast.

When I got older, I came up with this thing called COLM: Celebration of Life Month. Basically, the whole month is yours, and you get to celebrate and do whatever you want. Because it’s special.

We usually keep adult birthdays petty low-key at my house—a quiet family party, but I did throw my husband a 40th birthday party.  We had a bunch of people over for Indian food takeout, and I put up a timeline of pictures from every year, and posted little-known facts around the room. Nothing too fancy, but we had a great time.

The biggest adult birthday party I’ve ever planned was a milestone party for my parents a few years ago. Since we’re a family of Beatles fans, I proposed to my siblings that instead of a big 50th or 60th party, we should throw them a When I’m 64 party, and make it a big Beatles concert. So we all prepared music within our own families, and then several group numbers, rented a gazebo in the city park, and invited friends and family from all over the country. We put on a really fun show, including several numbers with my parents and my dad’s brother. It was such a great, meaningful celebration of their lives. I’ll include a recording of one of the songs at the end of the episode, and I’ll put up a video with clips from several of the acts on the How She Moms Youtube Channel and Instagram.

Gifts

Gift giving will be its own episode one of these days, but we’ll touch on a few birthday specific ideas.

My friend Tamsin Barlow, a big Lord of the Rings fan, carries on the Hobbit birthday tradition. Hobbits give other people presents on their birthdays. So she had her kids wrap presents for the friends who came to their parties. This isn’t too much different than traditional party favors, but a bit more fun, and a really nice lesson!

Alison Bertola tapes dollar bills on the door in the shape of the number of the age her kids are turning. I’m totally stealing this one for Abel’s 12th birthday tomorrow.

Birthdays are also a great time to get the kids thinking about each other, and trying to figure out what gifts and activities will make the birthday girl or boy happy. My sister-in-law is great at involving the kids.

The birthday child gets to pick out whatever cereal they want for breakfast on their birthday. I’ve been able to keep that happening right on their birthday. I fell into that because of my kids. Being in school, I would see other moms who did these amazing things. They make waffles and pancakes. I would think, “That is awesome!” I love that our speed in the morning is handing them a bowl of cereal. There might be balloons on the back of your chair. And there might be a birthday crown for you to wear. 

My biggest birthday gift hack is for young children, their first three, maybe four birthdays. My oldest son got quite a few new toys for his first three birthdays, but because they’re growing so quickly at that age, they lose interest in the toys by their next birthday. So I just put them in a box, take them out of circulation, and then wrap them up for the next kid on the appropriate birthday. They’re totally new to that kid, and really even the older kid, who doesn’t really remember them. Then you’re not collecting bins and bins of toys.

As for gifts for your kids friends, Ceri Payne, a life coach has a great idea:

Because I have all girls, it’s always easy to know what would make good birthday presents. It’s always some perfumes, lotions, bath stuff, and nail polish. We actually go buy that after Christmas. Then we put it in what we call the birthday box. When their friends have a birthday, they just go pick through it. No matter what, there’s always something in there.  

Food

A lot of birthday traditions center around food, from picking favorite meals or restaurants, to breakfast in bed, or pulling kids out of school to take them to lunch. Several families also have a special birthday plate that the birthday person uses.

And then, of course, there’s dessert. Most people I talked to make a traditional birthday cake, though I’m guessing that even in a post-pandemic world, blowing out candles on a communal cake is something we’ll leave in the past for good.

Making a special birthday cake is one of the main ways Meghann Guentensberger shows birthday love.

 I would always make my kids a fancy cake. We would have a theme each year. Sometimes it was a Barbie cake with the Barbie stuck in the middle of it. Once it was an American Girl party. We made it look like Felicity’s dress. When Riley had a puppy party one year, I made him a puppy cake. Tanner had monkeys one year. Every year there was always some sort of fun themed cake. I am not getting a job at a bakery anytime soon. They really aren’t that great, but they were always a labor of love. Even now, Tanner doesn’t really want anything but I will make him a fancy cake. It’s not going to be cute, like Elmo or anything, but something that takes some time and attention–one where I can lick the frosting because I love frosting.

And Anna Zupancic shared a really fun cake tradition:

For the garbage party, the chocolate cake I was baking didn’t release from the pan properly for me. I was like, well, I guess this is on point for our theme. So I had the kids come decorate it. I told them they could make it look however they wanted– like a garbage dump. That was new for me because I figured I should do the cake decorating. But the kids came and they were so excited! I had gummy worms and those little runts candies with the bananas and apples. The kids mounded them up there in little piles. We had garbage trucks that we put on top. It was awesome. It was so fun. It was better than I could have ever imagined or done myself. They were so proud of it. 

I’ve thrown probably 20 birthday parties since then.The kids have all done their own cakes. It’s been a fun tradition. It’s a lot less stressful for me, and it’s really empowering for them. I think they look forward to it every year.

Connection

Some of my favorite birthday ideas are simple, behind the scenes traditions that are really all about connection. One of the sweetest is this tradition from Casey von Stein, aka Miss Freddy, a professional photo organizer at missfreddy.com. When her son was born,

 I was given 12 onesies with the month signs on them. I photographed my oldest in the onesies every month. I turned it into a blog post because I needed content for my blog. I would also write a short letter to him about the things he was interested in. 

Then the year was over. I really wanted to keep writing these letters. So I changed it to once a year. I take my kids out for a photo shoot around their birthday with my nice dSLR. I still write a blog post that I pair those portraits. It’s still a short letter, but I imagine that by the time they get to be 18 and I combine them all, it will feel like a longer book.They haven’t seen them yet. So it’ll be a surprise. 

Kind of along those lines, my sister Hayley Kirkland does video interviews of each of her four kids, using the same set of questions, every birthday. It’s so fun to see how they grow and change. Plus, the videos are hilarious.

But here is her most fun tradition:

We like to have a balloon to pop at every hour of a kid’s birthday. Starting at 10am and going until 7pm, we’ll have a balloon to pop. Inside the balloon is a little piece of paper that says what we’re going to do that hour. It’s as simple as going around and everyone tells them one thing that they love about them. Or it can be as intricate as going to get ice cream. It’s a way that the kid feels like the whole day is focused on them.

And here are a few more traditions from Jen Brimhall, when she’s not doing a coming of age celebration.

 We always decorate the house the night before or early in the morning. That way they wake up to balloons and streamers. When they wake up, that’s special for them. 

We usually go over the story of when they were born. Then they get no chores that day. They’re all in for that. They get to choose their meals and their birthday cake and we give them a few gifts. 

My husband will also take them camping every year for their birthday. It’s a daddy and birthday child camping trip and they really look forward to that.  

And I love this simple but thoughtful idea from Meg.

I make a playlist that we listen to at dinner. I ask everyone to tell me a song that reminds them of the birthday person. Then I put it on the playlist.

But when I mentioned this to my friend Molly, she also told me about what happens when you type happy birthday and any name into Amazon music. It gives you a whole playlist of crazy songs singing happy birthday with that name. Another thing I will definitely be pulling out for Abel’s birthday. How have I never heard of this? If you haven’t either, you’ve got to try it. It’s hilarious.

Music was also a memorable part of Wendy Castellano Wolf’s childhood birthdays.  

When I was little, my dad would always put on a song called Las Mananitas. It’s basically a birthday song in mariachi form. I would wake up to that. I knew that it was my birthday. It was very special. We always had big pinatas and big family parties and everything. That was always a lot of fun.

 I spent a few days collecting birthday ideas on Instagram, and it was so fun to see the way different family personalities come out through these birthday traditions.

One Instagram contributor lets her kids open presents in the morning right when they wake up. Such an exciting way to start the day, and then they get to play with them all day.

Another mom displays pictures and memorabilia of the birthday child all week long.

Several families decorate bedroom doors, make posters with nice things written about them.

And many people read baby books, look at old pictures and tell cute stories from when they were little, or talk about the day they were born.

Another common tradition is to have the whole family take turns sharing what they love about the birthday person. I like Vanessa Quigley’s perspective on this, now that her kids are older.

The birthday child gets to choose what we have for dinner. Then we all go around the table to say what we love about the birthday child. As our family has grown and people have left the nest, that tradition has morphed into our group text. Yesterday for my daughter’s birthday, I was at dinner with her and two of her sisters. We typed into our group text what we love about Claire. Then everybody else started pinging in with their thoughts. We read them and shed tears together. It’s not ideal, but it’s still wonderful. And actually I love that we have it documented. Things that normally just get said around the dinner table are now recorded.

Vanessa Quigley is the co-founder of Chatbooks, a mother of seven, and the host of the Mom Force Podcast.

One of the sweetest ideas about birthday connections was from Meghann Guentensberger, who lost her daughter Rylie in an accident.

Riley would plan her birthdays. Her birthday is September 10. So September 11, she was planning her next birthday party. She was just always on it. We try to do some fun things in her memory. 

The first year, we raised money to set up birthday bags. It’s kind of like a birthday party in a bag, if you will. We partnered with the Douglas County Task Force on that. A parent could come into the task force and they would have everything they would need to throw their kid a birthday party. We all know that birthday parties are not cheap. It had the cake, the frosting, the cupcake liners, balloons, wrapping paper, favors–all the things they would need to do something sweet for their kiddos. We ended up with close to 200 birthday bags. Hopefully they brought some really great joy to people. When you can make joy for your kids, you just feel such a relief. Then you also experienced some joy. 

You can hear Meghann and Rylie’s story in episode 67, How Meghann Grieves Her Daughter.

I hope the birthdays in your future are filled with magic and connection, or at least that they don’t stress you out! Maybe you’ll even try one or two of the ideas from this episode. I know I will, starting tomorrow, actually! And let’s all do our part to help make COLM a thing!