Good Morning, Birthday Girls and Boys!
My number one birthday celebration idea is something everyone, and I mean everyone, can do.
It’s something you have planned already but didn’t know that just by changing its time slot, you could really ramp up the fun factor.
Drum roll please….
Have cake and ice cream for breakfast on the kid’s birthday! Oh yeah, and open presents, too!
Think about it. You’re celebrating the day they were born, not dinner time on the day they were born. So, start the celebration when you start the day. And go ahead - decorate too.
You can still have whatever special dinner you were planning, and I’m pretty sure there’ll be enough cake and ice cream left for dessert. You can even re-run the song and candles part.
Bake a cake, buy one, create one from a pile of doughnuts drizzled with extra icing all over, whatever. But don’t try to spread some frosting on a bran muffin and call it cake. No, no.
For the ice cream, I always like two kinds - the standard vanilla because it goes with any kind of cake and is most people’s favorite, and then something with pizzazz, like chunks of chocolate, swirls of caramel, or pieces of candy bars in it.
At our house, it wouldn’t be a birthday if it didn’t say so on the kitchen windows. Yes, my husband and I write/draw on them with dry erase markers. Kids love it.
And I make my own streamers. Nothing against the crepe paper kind, but those you gotta have, whereas as mine can be whipped up in a few minutes, any color. Plus, mine won’t stretch out overnight.
Easy-peasy. Cut a piece of paper in half the long way. It can be construction paper, 8.5x11 colored paper, even wrapping paper, whatever you have. Make cuts about three fourths of an inch apart and about a half inch from the edge, along one side. Then turn it and make similar cuts from that side, in between your first cuts.
Of course, you can leave the paper whole and make the same cuts to get wider streamers, or you can cut the paper in thirds instead of halves to get skinnier ones. If you have a steady hand with scissors, you can make cuts closer together and they’ll stretch longer. I’ve even used a paper cutter.
Do me a favor - don’t measure this out and draw lines. That’s too fussy. I put a few here so you can see the idea, but you should just eyeball it. And stack both halves of the sheet together to cut two pieces at the same time. Now stretch ‘em out and put ‘em up wherever you like.
Another benefit of these streamers is that they’re dimensional, especially if you gather the ends together (like a giant tassel), so you can skip latex balloons and no one will miss them. Really, skip the latex balloons. If you’ve read one heartbreaking story, you’ll agree. And with mylar, you’d need to get them the night before unless you have a helium tank, so just go balloon-free and don’t look back.
Imagine your child’s surprise the first time you do this, and then the excited anticipation the following years. What kid wouldn’t love to tell their friends about having had cake and ice cream for breakfast? Timing it like this is a gift in itself.
