Today we were meant to be on our way to Centre Parcs,  to meet up with the rest of my family to celebrate my Mum’s birthday – what a time to turn 70!?!  We’re obviously all gutted it’s not happening, but we’ve already rebooked for next year, and just going to make a really big deal of her 71st instead.  It’s my 40th on Friday too.  There was meant to be a big party, lots of drinking and dancing.  I’m gutted, but I’m 40 and I can (just about) get over it.   But my heart goes out to every little person whose either already had a Birthday or are about to.  So we’ve been busy coming together, sharing stories to give you some ideas on how to still make this one of the best birthdays ever for your little one!  So here are a few tips and ideas we’ve had from local mums and seen on social media recently!

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Presents, wrapping paper and decorations

My friend’s little girl turned 7 yesterday and all the presents she’d ordered online didn’t come in time – which is completely understandable.  So she got creative and drew little gift vouchers for her – trips they’ll take her on, a voucher for a restaurant of her choice to have her Birthday tea when this is all over and a voucher for her favourite toy shop.  She also couldn’t get hold of any wrapping paper.  I suggested going all Gavin and Stacey and using kitchen foil, but she came up with an even better idea.  She got her other kids, on a secret mission to make their own wrapping paper by decorating some old wallpaper!  Genius.

I saw a woman on Instagram, whose family were self-isolating so couldn’t get supplies, got the Christmas decorations down and used those to decorate the house instead – lots of flashing lights everywhere.  Her kids loved it!

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Party games

We’ve got loads of great ideas to play online with friends or at home with family (or even the teddies!) check out our blog on Party Game ideas on Lockdown.

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Zoom and Facetime

And any other forms of video conferencing I haven’t come across yet!  We did a group Whatsapp call with my Mum and my brother and his family today.  Group rendition of Happy Birthday really made my Mum’s morning.  Another local Mum, whose son turned 4 the other day, said they were kept busy and entertained most of the day by all the Facetimes they had with their friends and family!  I even saw online one woman held a Zoom party for her daughter’s 5th birthday.  She got all dressed up, as did all her friends and they had a little disco for 40 minutes – she even managed to play musical statues with everyone!

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House Parties

Get all the teddies involved if you have to, and make it a party to remember!  Get the birthday girl/boy involved in the planning – if they want burgers for tea, do it, if they want sweets for breakfast do it!  It might take some planning, so even if it’s a few weeks away, it’s probably an idea to start sourcing all the ingredient now!  Let them plan the whole day. If its a “home-schooling” day let the whole family have the day off if you can.  Play games all day, do whatever they want to do – let them take the lead, they’ll love having control over their own special day.

 

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Virtual Day Trips

Take them to Disney Land, to look round the British Museum or have a trip to the Zoo.  In a world where we can’t leave the house, we can go anywhere, virtually!   Check out this blog for great ideas. There are also plenty of classes going online too – so maybe if they’re really little it might be fun taking part in one of those?  We’ve got a whole section on our website dedicated to online classes!

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Special Birthday Messages

As we’re all trying to adapt to this new world, loads of party entertainers are going online and offering special birthday messages!

Here are a few local entertainers who offer this service:

AK Academy of Dance offers video calls with Queen Elsa and Olaf. Get in touch!.

Minky Moos: Some of the characters available are Elsa, Anna, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, Ariel, White fairy and Spider-Man.

Outalimits Discos: Check their shout outs on their Facebook Page.

Also…

Kudoboard: You can use this awesome tool to send a group message to someone special. You can add your own photos, messages, videos and more. If you are organising a special day for your little one, you can create the board and send the link to all their friends, so they can add their own messages. See an example here.

Are you friendly with your neighbours? There’s a great video going around on social media of a whole street going out to their front door and singing Happy Birthday to a little girl on their street.  It melted my heart, you should have seen this girl’s face!

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So there you go, a few ideas on how to make their day as special as possible.   But most of all, all they need is love.  Stay home, stay safe.  They’ll be plenty of time to celebrate again once this is all over.  And from everyone at Mumbler a huge Happy Birthday!

 

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