Our Toddler Birthday Party During Pandemic
The times of blowing candles over a cake that you will later cut and share with everyone that came to the birthday party is officially over. Although the global pandemic is still not over, and while we are not able to have big parties, we can still have a fun, memorable celebration. We just need to be creative and take few safety precautions.
Read on and see how we planned our daughter's birthday day!
We decided to have a small-scale, short, outdoor birthday party
Since our daughter's third birthday was in October, it was starting to get a little chilly outside. However, sitting inside with a group of people for meals and play is something we were not comfortable doing, especially since the number of Covid-19 cases are currently rising again.
So, we decided to hold the party outdoors, for couple of hours in the afternoon when the outdoor temperatures were the highest, and invite only a few of her friends and their parents. These were people we see all the time, mostly neighbors. Our backyard is not large so we could not invite many people, and we opted out inviting just the ones we see most frequently. We asked everyone to bring a mask and we provided hand sanitizers in several "stations" around the yard. We had a total of 10 people, not including three of us and everyone was great with social distancing and wearing a mask.
Covid-safe food and beverages
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We usually cook a lot for house parties, we make cocktails and home-made desserts as the center of the entertainment. This year, while we wanted people to still feel welcome, we went easy on ourselves - we opted out for pre-packaged snacks, single-served drinks, individually-boxed cupcakes and grilled food.
I know many people do BYO drinks and food, which is also a great way to celebrate during Covid-19 times, but in our case we went with us providing single-serve, pre-packaged food, snacks and drinks (and of course adult beverages). Although it was not the most exciting menu (see below), we tried to make the games and dessert the center of the entertainment this time.
Snack menu: Peter Rabbit Pouches, Cape Cod potato chips, cheese sticks, pretzels, salami, pre-cut vegetables (carrots and celery).
Beverages: Beer, wine, tea, coffee, small water bottles, soda cans, lemonade.
Food: Grilled hot dogs and burgers (grilling and serving handled by my husband, with mask and gloves of course).
Dessert: Cupcakes and cake.
Our daughter blew candles on her own cupcake and everyone sang the "Happy Birthday" song.
Outdoor birthday party ideas and toddler activities and outdoor party supplies
Kids birthday parties can frequently turn out to be a lot of work for adults and not so much entertainment, especially when you have young toddlers who you try to keep socially-distant. You find some parents counting down the minutes until the party is over. So, we tried to provide plenty of kids entertainment so adults get a chance to socialize and have fun also. Here are the few things I did for kids entertainment.
The birthday theme was "Trolls" since my daughter looooves Poppy, so we focused on bright pink, blue, green decor of the yard with some pops of other colors too.
1. Balloons
A few months back, in the beginning of the pandemic, I saw a great birthday balloon arrangement in the front yard of a house, here in Westchester, NY. I researched and it turned out several businesses in the area provide balloon twisting services for decor or as an entertainment during the actual party. I did get couple of quotes for a front yard decor, but it turned out they were quite expensive for a very simple arrangement. So, I decide to make this my own project. I sourced balloons from Amazon, a hand pump, I looked up a couple of YouTube videos and I did few arrangements myself. Also, it turned out that making a dog balloon twist is quite easy, so I did a few of those for the kids during the party. The supplies were a small fraction of the fee I would have paid for a balloon twisting services. The only downside is that it takes time and my fingers started to feel sore (mostly from tying/closing the balloons) after a while. I did everything the morning of the birthday party.
Here are the links to the Amazon product pages, if interested:
- Shiny long balloons (see the 2nd flower arrangement below)
- Colorful long balloons (also shown in the 2nd flower arrangement)
- Round pink and blue balloons (see 1st flower arrangement)
I did a few flowers like these and placed them in few places around the yard:
I also did three of these (super easy to make and I did not use any video tutorials):
2. Outdoor dartboard game:
A game the kids enjoyed during our birthday party was darts. I got a great fabric dartboard from Amazon which uses small colorful plastic balls with velcro instead of the sharp-pointed darts. We fixed that to a wall in the yard and the kids spent most of the time playing that:
Because there are four different color balls (3 balls in each color), you can have each child play with their own color and not share the balls. We had a hand sanitizer station next to that, just in case.
Here is also the link for the dartboard: https://amzn.to/3LlMaVh.
3. Bubbles
The bubbles did not get as much attention this time, mostly because I forgot to take them out early enough. But these were the bubbles we got and they went very well with the decor.
4. Bracelet making
The girls had a blast making their own bracelets with these kits by Melissa & Doug.
This was more than enough entertainment for the kids for a short two-hour birthday party! The most fun they had, however, was eating cupcakes and then running circles around the house (haha). As far as the adults, we had a good time having drinks, food and just socializing on the patio. The kids mostly played on the grass and climbed around the garden (we have a multi-level back yard) and the little slide we got during the summer.
How did you celebrate your kids' birthday this year? Please do not hesitate to share or comment below.