Nothing says summer bummer louder than an August birthday.
I speak from experience.
Being a Leo has its pitfalls; namely not being able to celebrate your big day with your entire class. In all of my years as a student, from kindergarten all the way through high school, I never once had a major birthday blowout to commemorate my summer birthday. Why? Because no one was around to join in on the celebration.
My poor nephew is just now realizing that being born in the middle of July is not as cool as it may seem, especially when all of your friends are out of town on family vacations.
Fortunately, we have a rather large extended family, so my nephew will still rake in the loot, though on a slightly smaller scale. Interestingly, it isn’t the mountain of presents that he is concerned about. Rather, his 5-year-old brain is focused on playing (see: winning) group games.
During the school year he was invited to a plethora of parties which included members of his entire class. During said shindigs he had a blast playing kiddie games that pitted classmates against classmates. He is over games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey and bobbing for apples where a single winner is declared. These days he is all about teams and being a part of the winning group.
In the days following his classmates’ parties, my nephew would beg my brother and sister-in-law to throw him a birthday party featuring a variety of group games which he and his pals from school could participate in. He has his heart set on sack races, egg and spoon relays and a mass water balloon war.
Turns out he’ll get part of his wish. My sister-in-law is planning a sack race using pillowcases while my brother volunteered to head up a water battle complete with balloons and squirting pistols. The only bummer is that my nephew will be competing with older (in some cases, much older) family members at his party rather than his peers since the majority of his classmates are gone on vacation.
How do you handle your kids’ summer birthday parties?
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