Birthday Parties in Geneva

Visit lulaloo.ch for great invites

There's a song on kids TV that my daughters like to sing and dance to. Just before they do the birthday cards for the day they play a song and video, the words go something like "Birthday party, everybody's here; Birthday party, fun for everyone!"  The girls like to dance around shouting this at every opportunity. But since the big one's birthday party last weekend, we have heard rather less of it. This might be because we are mid-birthday season with the little one's coming up next week and the impetus for the song's performance has been lost.


Milestone Birthdays
As my eldest's birthday was one of those milestone type birthdays, we made a bit of a fuss. She was five, I'd lump it in with being 18, 21, 40 and 100 in significance. We decided to invite her entire class of 20, and no we really didn't consider what this might mean if they all replied yes. We picked out some very nice hand made invites from lulaloo.ch, at the same price as nice mass produced ones from Manor, and we were able to entirely customise the text. One of the reasons we sent invites to everyone was that we know none of the parents, so by inviting the class we hoped we might meet some of them.

How Many Guests
I think we must have given three weeks notice, figuring the first week of December to be a busy time. We were right, but whilst only one person declined in the first week, they were going skiing, most people replied in the second week. Merrily we bumbled along making plans, for six or eight kids plus some parents, we suddenly in the space of a day the party doubled! Crikey we thought, how will we manage 14 kids and the same number of adults, most of whom don't speak the same language as us? Fortunately we engaged the assistance of a friend of ours with good French - she was your basic super star!

But You Can't Leave!
When the first parent dropped off his kid and excused himself I wasn't prepared for what was to follow. It turns out a five year-old's birthday party is a baby-sitting service in our area. Not a single parent stayed, only our friend!  It was chaos and delightful carnage - Swiss children don't know the party game pass-the-parcel, but they enjoyed the piñata   Two hours passed quickly, and the kids seemed great, even if a few of the perhaps would have preferred their parents to be there.  In the final balance, what made me laugh hard was the generous thanks of the parents for hosting their kid, and the number of them who commented on how they'd love to spend some time with us to get to know each other better. But, I said, but... words failed me and I sought refuge in that classic tool for communicating in a foreign language, a nod and a smile. I'd had fun, anyway.