Child’s December Birthday
Make Your Child’s December Birthday Special.
It is the silly season and with everyone deep in Christmas preparation, celebrating a birthday in December can often be downplayed. The excitement of Christmas has everyone’s attention but it is also time to celebrate your child’s special day.
Here are some tips to help make your child’s December birthday memorable.
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Pick a Date
If you are going to throw a birthday party, give your guests plenty of notice. December is super busy with holiday concerts, school productions, family dinners and Christmas parties so try to find a time that will work for most of your party guests. Do not try to combine your child’s party with another Christmas celebration as your child needs time dedicated just to their birthday. If you are finding it hard to pick a date in December, there is nothing wrong with celebrating their birthday earlier in November before the Christmas celebrations get into full swing.
Keep it Separate
Easy to say and sometimes hard to do, but do keep the birthday celebrations as separate to your Christmas celebrations as possible. This means doing things such as wrapping birthday gifts in birthday paper and not Christmas wrapping paper, decorating with the usual birthday balloons and streamers and celebrating with a good old fashioned birthday cake. Remind your family and friends to follow your lead. It may seem like a small thing but trust me your child will really appreciate it.
Gifts
My birthday is in middle of December and I remember growing up getting many combined birthday gifts. Yes they were great gifts but to a child you can feel hard done by after waiting all year and just receiving one gift for Birthday and Christmas. So please give the birthday child a gift for their birthday and a separate one to open on Christmas day.
As they are likely to get some items from their Christmas list under the tree, I find a December birthday is a perfect time to give an experience/activity gift. Make the birthday child the center of attention and plan an activity they would enjoy. Perhaps it is going ice skating or bowling and out for dinner or a day out getting a manicure followed by watching a movie. Or give a gift card for a toy store so they can spend time picking out their own perfect gift and end the day with hot cocoa or ice-cream. Try to avoid typical Christmas activities such as visiting Santa Claus or going to a Christmas tree festival.
Decorations
Your Christmas tree will probably have a prominent place in your house but you can easily turn this into a Birthday Tree. Cover the tree with birthday balloons and streamers and set up a special space in the room with just birthday decorations. This space should be a Christmas free zone so you can concentrate just on their birthday. Make a birthday sign or banner for their bedroom door or hang streamers in their doorway to walk through when they wake up.
If your child’s birthday is quite early in December you could wait until after their birthday before you bring out your large Christmas decorations.
Cake
Please don’t be tempted to pick up one of the many Christmas themed cakes available at this time of year. Your child deserves a proper birthday cake, not one decorated with reindeer and snowmen. If you are ordering one from a bakery get your order in well ahead of time as they will be busy with the Christmas rush. You could bake or purchase a plain cake and decorate it to suit your party theme.
Even though during December everyone is usually partied out and totally focused on planning their Christmas Day celebrations, every child should feel special on their birthday so please don’t take any shortcuts to making their day memorable.
