Children's Birthday parties- We are on the circuit

Fellow parents of young children or childen who were once young (you know who you are) can appreciate what I am saying about being on the circuit. When your children are young the tendency is to invite all of the children in their class or classes as the case may be.

And in turn the parents of the other children reciprocate. So what happens is you end up on the "birthday party circuit." School is back in session and the circuit is in full swing. Today was nice because we only had one party. For that matter we only had one party this weekend as opposed to other times when there have been multiple parties.

This afternoon's soiree was held at

Travel Town one of my favorite childhood haunts and a place that my son loves to visit.

It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. Honesty dictates that I include that the birthday boy's father and I have been friends for 27 years, so it was nice to see him too.

But I would be remiss if I didn't add that the problem with running the "circuit" is that you can go broke doing so. My friends and associates have different recommended spending levels, the range is $10-25 per gift. But if you estimate that the average class size is about 15 students and you spend $10 per child you can see that it is a healthy chunk of money.

A couple more comments about how to determine what to spend. The one thing that we try not to do is to have our personal issues impact our children. That means that while you may not want to invite all of the students in the class, you do it. It is the right thing and you don't want your own child to be negatively impacted by this. As for the gift, you can also safely assume that your child will for the most part "benefit" from the gifts they receive too.

As they get older there is less and less reason to invite everyone and you worry less about their dealing with the simple reality that you are not going to be friends with nor like everyone. In a later post I'll discuss the challenge of where to hold and what to do with a birthday party. Even a party held at home costs a couple of bucks and then you have the issue of cleaning up.

Since my son was born in December there remains the possibility that weather may impact holding the party outdoors at a park, but like I said this will remain for a different post.