Who doesn’t love birthdays, kids birthdays at least? Birthdays are always fun to celebrate but now more than ever it’s so good to have something to plan and look forward to, to celebrate life.

Our birthday celebrations have evolved with age and our growing family. While I still like to celebrate “grown up” birthdays, and hope to more in the future, we’ve allowed the kids to take over for the most part.

For several years we hosted big parties with family and friends. As our kids have gotten older, we’ve transitioned to a smaller party or outing with just their friends. For our youngest (almost 2) we’ve kept it to just family from the start. We did have a few birthdays during quarantine and thus hosted our first Zoom party and birthday parade. There’s always ways to make a birthday special, even if not able to throw a party with friends or go to a football game, play laser tag, etc.

Through our COVID era birthdays I’ve realized how much our kids really love and appreciate the traditions we’ve created over the years, aside from parties with other people. I love traditions and this year they’re providing comfort through their normalcy, in addition to joy and excitement. We need to celebrate another year around the sun and have fun with birthdays!

Some more unique or simple than others, the following traditions help us to have the happiest of birthdays.

The kids help to select a theme which usually reflects some sort of recent favorite of theirs, whether it be a hobby, movie, or other interest. The theme drives the tableware, gifts, decor, sometimes games and food, and always cake.

We blow up loose balloons and decorate the kitchen, including a birthday chair, with crepe paper the night before their birthday. It’s a fun surprise when they come downstairs the morning of their birthday. The older ones now expect this and ask to sneak down after bedtime to help for one another’s birthdays.

We make our own cakes; the kids love giving input, watching me bake, learn and attempt various creations. (See my previous posts on baking and decorating cakes.) This year the older two wanted to design and decorate their own cakes as much as possible. A new big kid version of the tradition was born!

For gifts I always try to do a combination of clothes, books and toys/miscellaneous depending on what needs and wants we have. The way our birthdays fall it usually helps with clothes for the next season, if nothing immediate. We used to give gifts on the morning of their birthday to kick off the day, but since COVID we have made a point of spreading gifts out through the day, and now week, of their birthday. This has helped increase the fun and give something more to look forward to when we’re not doing a ton of other things.

I like to get a themed “favor cup” for at least the birthday kid. It’s one of those things the kids came to look forward to and it’s a fun way to collect kids’ cups reflecting their interests. In the past I’ve filled cups with candy and given as party favors or bought just for siblings, depending on the year.

On their birthday, we measure and mark the birthday kid’s height on the back of our basement door. The family who lived here before us had done this so when we first moved in we marked our (then) two kids on the door. We then began the tradition of marking every year on their birthdays. (We did eventually erase the other family from the door, although it served as competition/motivation to eat veggies for a time!)

Every year I do a special little photo shoot with the birthday kid and a special item. I love doing these; it’s fun to compare the photos over time and see how they inevitably grow into said items. Our first born wears an adult Ohio State Buckeyes Archie Griffin jersey (his name is Griffin.) Our middle, and only girl, poses with/in my wedding shoes. (I say ‘with’ as she wasn’t a fan at 1 and threw them at 2.) And our youngest, the baby, has an adult Cleveland Indians baseball hat with a ‘C’ on it, his first initial.

It’s birthday kid’s choice (as much as possible) for dinner on their birthday. The birthday kid gets to choose whether we eat out, order take out, or have a homemade meal of their choice. Sometimes, naturally, there is some steering in other directions. We try to avoid an outright veto, ha. We’ll also usually have something special for breakfast to but this varies depending if the birthday falls on a weekday or the weekend.