Ever wonder how you can create a great party that is fun and safe for your children for less than $60 including gas?

Considerations for age appropriate parties:

1. Invite a maximum of children to match the age of the child. An easy guideline is to invite only as many children as your child’s age, plus one. This keeps the party small with young children reducing the opportunity for them to be overwhelmed. Each year your child learns to emotionally handle a larger group of children.
2. Have the child choose a theme. It makes your job easy (a favorite book, sport, movie, or a TV show. Then they can further help with the planning plus make decorations.
3. Keep the party simple.
4. Focus on structured group activities. Individual games focuses on a winner which leaves children out – maybe even the birthday child.
5. Always ask parents about food allergies.

Ways to cut birthday party costs without cutting the party experience:

1. Hold the party in your home
2. Avoid traditional meal times by holding the party between 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. and serve snacks & dessert.
3. Bake your own cupcakes and let the kids decorate their own cupcake for a fun activity.
4. Make and hand deliver your own invitations, or “be green” and send e-vites with an RSVP date.
5. Resist hiring an entertainer or bouncy castle! Kids only remember the fun activities and birthday cake.
6. Make it a family affair and ask family members plus the guests parents to assist with activities.
7. Source theme decor from your own home first, then purchase the rest of supplies from economy stores.

ACTIVITIES FOR A BEACH PARTY (GEARED TO 5 YEAR OLDS)

We chose a beach theme to counter against our snowy Calgary weather. Collect all your colourful beach towels to cover your
party table and inflate all beach air mattresses and balls to decorate the party room.
Welcome each guest at the door with a lei and a tropical sun visor (can be part of their take home goody bag).
Encourage everyone to dress the theme (beach shorts, T shirts, flip flops, sun glasses and visors)

Simple party activity starters:

1. Decorate the birthday cupcakes (while the children are calm) using an assortment of frostings and toppings.
2. Do simple crafts (stickers, buttons with yarn, straw crafts, using little sea shells with beads and pebbles etc. Glue these onto mini frames or juice-cans. You can even use lids and add a magnet on the back.
3. Save time and purchase simple craft kits for only $1-$2 at the numerous economy stores.

Games for children with energy:

1. Fill balloons with small treasure based on your theme before you blow them up. For beach we used mini fish, wiggly worms, costume jewelry. The children then pop several balloons and gather their treasures. You can hang, hide or put them in a large garbage bag or box.
2. Group hunting games (same as Easter egg hunts) This can be treats, treasure chest items or even a puzzle piece to a treasure map that all the children work collectively to put together.
3. A circle dance of ”Hokey Pokey” works great and is completely non competitive.

Move into quiet games:

1. Hand make Lei Necklaces made from yarn, drinking straws, and colored crinkled tissue paper.
2. Simple relay races such as potato-on-spoon using a beach water toy.
3. Pin the “crab on the beach”. No winner needed here too!

Holding the party mid afternoon reduces the cost on food. Create a mock tail with juice and give it a beach name. Snacks can
include vegetable sticks and dip, seasonal fruit kabobs, mini pita pockets or bagels and finish with the individually decorated
cupcakes.

BEACH THEMED GOODIE BAGS

For less than $9, our goodie beach pail was equipped with a shovel had a snorkel face mask strapped to the outside of the pail
and was filled with a house safe beach sponge ball, squiggly florescent worm, a motorized bathtub sail boat plus a colourful
slinky. The children go home in their colourful foam visors (we collected a mixture sharks, butterflies, monkeys and pink
flamingos) Always make a few more in case extra guests arrive – yes this often happens!

THANK YOU NOTES

It is never too soon to teach etiquette to children. Create a list of the guests’ names before the party, and then jot down each gift
beside the giver’s name as they are opened for thank you cards.
Take photos of the children dressed in theme or put them in front of a prop. Download the photo onto your computer and
colour print them into thank you cards.

The party is a quick two hours, organized with a logical rhythm for child interest and safety and it was super inexpensive. Plus
why not forget our Calgary snow for awhile and transport yourself to the beach? Happy Birthday!

Yes, that’s right.  This week we’re offering tips on how to throw a Friday the 13^th party.

Sure, it might seem a little “offbeat” but the idea behind this party theme is to poke some fun at superstition. 

So along with throwing caution to the wind (and maybe a little salt over our shoulder), let’s throw a Friday the 13^th party.

- You’ll want to make sure you invite the proper number of guests to your Friday the 13^th party. The key here is to make sure that all total, there will be 13 people in attendance.

- Do you have any friends who were born on a Friday the 13^th? If so, we recommend you make them the guest/guests of honour.

- Decorate your house appropriately. Place a ladder inside the doorway so guests have to walk under it when they enter. Paint lots of cracks on your walkway so no one can make it to the house without stepping on one. If possible, remove wooden furniture from the house so there will be nothing for your guests to knock on.  Decorate tables with “spilled” salt shakers. Place pennies face down on the tables. Leave a few opened umbrellas lying around.

- If you have a black cat, make sure it’s front and centre for the party. If you don’t have one, you can place fake black cats around your house that people have to walk by.

- Serve “unlucky foods” at your Friday the 13^th party. Perhaps some chicken wings because of the legend that your luck can fly away.  Grill up some blackened main courses. Turn a loaf of bread upside down after you’ve cut the first slice. Serve black cat cookies.

- Play games that poke fun at superstitions. See how far people can walk across the room with a salt shaker on their heads.

- Thinking of entertaining them with a DVD?  Nothing says Friday the 13^th like the “Friday the 13th”movies. 

- And to balance it out, end your Friday the 13^th party by giving each guest a party favour bag that is supposed to bring good luck. Include good luck charms such as acorns, four-leaf clovers, ladybug toys, tiny horseshoes, crystals, etc…

A Friday the 13^th party isn’t for everyone. But for those who are willing, we say have no fear and just have fun. Oh, and for the record, the formal term for fear of Friday the 13th is “Paraskevidekatriaphobia”. There’s a 20 dollar word you can throw out at your next party, in fact, a Friday the 13^th party would probably be the perfect place to use it.

“We look to Scotland,” Voltaire said “for all our ideas of civilisation.”  And on January 25, Scots around the world, both real and honourary, become extra, um, civilized as they mark the grand tradition of Robbie Burns Day with all of its customs, including The Haggis.

Born on January 25, 1759, Robert “Robbie” Burns, also known as the Ploughman Poet, the Bard of Ayrshire and, in Scotland,  simply “The Bard,” was Scotland’s greatest poet and favourite son.  Although he died more than 200 years ago, he is still considered the  Greatest Scot, as a poll conducted by a Scottish television channel confirmed last year. So in your face, Sir Sean Connery. You too Alexander Graham Bell. After all, you didn’t pen the song that opens every new year and closes the classic Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Nope. “Auld Lang Syne” is all Burns.

The first Burns observance wasn’t held on his birthday, as it is now, but actually upon the fifth anniversary of his death. The idea caught on and shortly thereafter, Burns Clubs sprung up across Scotland, turning into an annual event that eventually came to be celebrated on January 25, complete with The Haggis.

Over the years, Burns’ influence spread due to worldwide Scottish immigration.  Intrepid Scots brought their love of Robert Burns with them when they settled in Canada, Brazil, Jamaica, New Zealand, Argentina, and elsewhere.  As a result, the poet is celebrated in the many countries where Scots settled, and “Robbie Burns Day” is observed.

There are so many Scottish Canadians, they are considered Canada’s third largest ethnic group – and Gaelic is still taught and spoken in some parts of Cape Breton.  In fact, wherever you are in Canada, chances are good you won’t have to look  far to celebrate Robbie Burns Day.  Here in Calgary, for example, the Ship & Anchor Pub salutes The Bard with Scottish dancers, the Address to the Haggis and the John Allen Cameron Band.  Not to be outdone, the University of Calgary features the U of C Pipe Band at their Sixth Annual Robbie Burns Supper and Dance. And many Calgary offices this week will be ordering from our Weekly Specials Menu, themed, appropriately, with Scottish delights.

No celebration of Robbie Burns Day is worth it’s whiskey without the Haggis, which, truth be told, is actually nothing more than a large sausage. So of course, we’ve provided you with the perfect recipe to make your very own Haggis to celebrate Robbie Burns Day with friends and family at home.  Grab your kilt, throw on a bagpipe band CD to pipe in the Haggis while you recite Burns’ Address to the Haggis for a memorable and fun celebration of Scotland’s most beloved poet.

And don’t forget to serve a dram of Scotland’s equally famous drink– whiskey for all!