The Best, Most Memorable Birthday Party

Ironically, the most memorable birthday party my husband and I ever threw for our son was also the simplest. There were no party invitations, no reservations for an overpriced locale, no coordinated tableware festooned with licensed characters-not even any party favors or goodie bags! This birthday party required very little planning or expense, and the guest list was very select-just the birthday boy plus his mom and dad-but somehow I think my son will remember it as one of the best and most memorable birthday parties ever.

My son's fifth birthday was his first since our move from Louisiana to Kansas, and marked the first time that he would not have a big family birthday party with his aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and great-grandparents showering hugs and gifts on him. My husband and I struggled with the best way to mark the milestone in a memorable way while minimizing homesickness and expense. Many kids at my son's preschool had very fun but very expensive birthday parties at local hotspots-Pump It Up, Monkey Bizness, and Chuck E. Cheese's, mostly-but nowadays if you invite one kid from the class to a party, you have to invite everyone, and there was no way we were springing for a birthday party for twenty or more screeching 4- and 5-year-old guests. Plus, though my kid undoubtedly would have loved to get all those presents, our house was already full of more toys and games than any soon-to-be five-year-old could possibly need-what would we do with even more stuff?

Finally the weekend before the big birthday arrived, and though we had been hinting for weeks, it was clear to everyone but my son that he was not having a birthday party. We broke the news as gently as possible on Saturday morning, explaining that we just didn't see the point in blowing as much as $200 for a big birthday party when we could do lots of things that were more fun as a family. We softened the blow by laying out plans for a big birthday weekend, starting with our first-ever trip to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival and a visit to his favorite restaurant, T-Rex, on Saturday, then lunch at a Brazilian steakhouse on Sunday with my husband's co-workers and their families (like his dad, our kid is quite the carnivore and he loved the prospect of going to such a grown-up restaurant that serves tons of meat!). Instead of a birthday party, we ended up with a wonderful weekend full of new family memories for what we would have paid for an hour or two of party time elsewhere.

Having done all of this celebrating the weekend before my son's birthday, when his actual birthday rolled around he assumed that we were pretty much done with the revelry-an assumption my husband and I encouraged without actually fibbing about it. He and I went to school as usual (I am a teacher at his daycare), where he celebrated with a paper crown and shared birthday cookies at snacktime, and that night our little family went out to eat and to Toys R Us to spend birthday money sent by far-flung family members. What my son didn't know, however, was that there was a party, albeit a small one, waiting for him at home. During my lunch break, I had snuck home to hang streamers and balloons in our dining room, put out the dinosaur-themed cake I had made (rather than ordering the $45 dinosaur cake my future-paleontologist son had spotted at the grocery store), and lay out all of his gifts (those he had opened already and a few yet to open from my husband and me) and birthday cards on the dining room table.

When we got home from dinner and the toy store on his birthday night, I ran upstairs ahead of everyone to add his new toy purchases to the party table and get the camera ready. My son climbed the stairs wearily, the long day finally catching up with him, and sat down on the floor to take his shoes off. When he finally looked up, his tired eyes lit up in an instant as he took in the decorations, the cake, and (yes!) more presents! "I thought we were done with birthday stuff!" he exclaimed as he scrambled into the chair to see his gifts and cake better. We opened gifts with much ooh-ing and aah-ing, and I read birthday cards that had arrived from family members, reminding him of all the people who loved him and were thinking about him on his special day. I answered questions about the homemade dinosaur cake (which, by the way, was proclaimed to be "way more awesome" than the cake he had coveted at the grocery store):

"How did you make the volcanoes?" ("They're upside-down ice cream cones covered in icing.")

"Why I didn't see you bake it?" ("I made it last night after you went to bed. Pretty sneaky, huh?")

"Are those my toy dinosaurs on it?" ("Yes, but I washed them very well before putting them on the cake!")

"Can I eat the sparkly icing?" ("Of course!!")

We even made a quick phone call to grandparents back in Louisiana so he could tell them, in a voice full of wonder, that he was having a party after all! As my husband and I sang "Happy Birthday" and lit the sparkly candles on the cake, the grin on the birthday boy's face was enough to tell me that even though it was not like any birthday party he had experienced before, his fifth birthday party was just perfect.