Recipe for an Eight Year-Old’s Birthday Party
27 01 2008Invite your five best, best, bestest friends.
Tell them to bring their camping mattresses, sleeping bags, pyjamas and toothbrushes, for it is a sleepover.
Play some loud and hysterical party games. There should always be some crying, but not much. Do dancing.
Order Chinese take-aways (get Daddy to fetch them).
Eat birthday cake, preferably the chocolate kind with the silver balls on top.
Have a treasure hunt that takes you up and down the stairs fifty thousand times.
Watch and eat and cuddle your treasure (Shrek DVD, popcorn and teddy bears for everyone).
Colour in princess pictures.
Admire each other’s fulsomely.
Have your toenails painted in a ridiculous mixture of colours, by Mummy.
Change into pyjamas and brush teeth.
Wake Daddy to blow up the mattresses.
Watch a second DVD - Curious George - from your beds.
Pause the DVD on the stroke of midnight for a midnight feast.
Return to the DVD.
When it is finished, switch off the lights and have hysterical giggling fits for half an hour.
Fall asleep and wake at 8.30am, hungry again.
Order rolls and chocolate croissants from the bakery (send Mummy).
Play with your presents, kiss your friends goodbye, spend the rest of the day in happy afterglow.
Oh, that sounds so lovely! I think I’m going to borrow this idea for my next birthday! With a small change to the movies, I can’t think of a better way to spend the day.
That makes me wish I was eight years old again.
This sounds like more fun than I remember birthday sleepovers to be. They were most notable for the absence of sleeping and the exhaustion of the entire party (parents most of all) the folllowing morning!
I have CakeWorm’s 11 year old party next week and we’re using exactly the same formula apart from the princess pictures.
Can you be my mum, please?
My favorite part was “wake daddy to blow up the mattresses,” because I can just picture my husband someday, hiding somewhere during one of these soirees!
Sounds pretty damn good for 38-year-olds’ parties too!! Although I am hoping the treasure in the treasure hunt will run more to things like “bottle of bubbly” or “large pack of Jamon Iberico”
this post just makes me happy!
Sounds like a wonderful party - I miss those days a bit. Nice blog - found you from a comment on PW’s site. I will be back to cehck you out some more!
Weee. What a fun party! And Happy Birthday!
Perfect!
For my 40th birthday I hosted a sleep over with my best, bestest friends - ok we stayed at a suite in a hotel, ate catered food, drank rasperry flirtini’s… we still had mani/pedi’s and watched very girly movies (who knew that a bunch of 40 year olds could still get so excited over dirty dancing?) and had as much fun as you describe. in my opinion, you are never too old for a sleep over with your bestest friends.
And I wish that darling 8-year-old many more of the same over the next decades!!
Sounds like an absolutely perfect party.
Debra, come to think of it, it does make a great grown-up’s party, doesn’t it? Add champagne and, as you say, more interesting DVDs et voila!
Heliospheric, eight is a sweet age. There was very little politicking and they were all immensely kind to each other.
Litlove, there was a little exhaustion, but the good kind.
Hoverfrog, glad to hear the model works for boys too. I strongly recommend the take-away side of things - it removes potential parental stress.
Henitserk, that’s a lovely compliment. I am pleased that I am finding kids’ parties easier and more enjoyable as they get older. As for waking Daddy, well once he’d collected the take-aways and led the disco, he was pretty exhausted and was forced to have a little lie-down.
Jeanne, exactly! With a few tweaks, this is a great party for a big person.
Glad to hear it Courtney. It was a happy experience for our birthday girl.
Welcome, dlyn! Feel free to hang out a bit.
Thanks, BL. Your little namesake had a great time.
Thanks, Alida. It was good.
Pam, this theme of sleepovers for big girls is recurring … I think it’s a great idea.
Many thanks, Emma. She is a darling, isn’t she?
Thanks, Anna. It was!
I’ll have to point supermum at this - we’re wrestling with a Significant Birthday for someone (not me) at the moment.
I never had sleepovers when I was little and it’s only now I’m beginning to realise just how deprived I was…..
Oh Happy Birthday to your 8 year old
Sleepovers are so fun 
Wow - sounds fabulous.
Oh, I want to be eight years old again and have a party!
Help me. Cake Worm’s party has started. It’s like the Mad Max mutants have been released. Gotta go!
I want a little girl! I love the idea of teddy bears for everyone. I think Kiko will be inviting himself to the next birthday party at your place!
I am eight years old and strongly recomend the older version to my 53 year old grandmother. I hope my mom will let me plan a party like this
This is what love is all about…
I thought angles had wings,
until i read this mum’s blog……