Who did you invite to your child's first birthday celebration?

[Anonymous]

We have no families here and very few close friends. We wonder if we should invite the people from his home daycare.

[Anonymous]

Why can’t you just celebrate it yourselves? Go out for a fun activity, have a special treat. He won’t know the difference.

[Anonymous]

We invited all of our friends and did a. brunch here at our house. Easy breakfast foods, mimosas and bloody Mary's, it was great! I don't think I'd invite families I didn't know well, the party is definitely for the parents/adults, 1 year olds have no clue what's going on.

But we're a birthday family - I love planning and having parties. Absolutely nothing wrong with just celebrating with the 3 of you.

[Anonymous]

We had family visiting from out of town for both kids’ birthdays: one set of grandparents and one aunt and uncle. We also invited the part time nanny and her husband, and another family we’re close to with kids the same age. Only around 12 people total. We had a few appetizers and cake and that was it. There is also nothing wrong with just your immediate family. Get a cake and a few decorations, and have a few presents to unwrap. You will have some cute photos.

[Anonymous]

No one.

[Anonymous]

Our neighbors, our friends, relatives, friends from work (mine), DH's entire team from work. It was around 150 people at our home. It was a big do. Dinner was catered, a cook was on site who made the appetizers and bread, there were 3 servers and 1 bartender with open bar. We had a magician for the kids. First birthday is huge in our culture. It was great!

[Anonymous]

We did not invite other kids until he was turning 5. Then we invited his day care and baseball team.

[Anonymous]

We had no one except grandma came from NYC. Nobody cares, 1 year old is too small to deal with crowds.

[Anonymous]

Grandparents who were all out of town and siblings plus two of our good friends. No other kids.

[Anonymous]

We have no local family. For my older DD I had joined a moms group so I invited all of them (kids were all turning 1 in the same weeks) and a few friends who had similar aged kids. It was in the summer. My younger DD was a winter baby and I knew several family members were busy around that time so we just did something at home ourselves, and my ILs came down the weekend after. Neither kid had a clue so in both cases it was who we wanted to see/what we wanted to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our neighbors, our friends, relatives, friends from work (mine), DH's entire team from work. It was around 150 people at our home. It was a big do. Dinner was catered, a cook was on site who made the appetizers and bread, there were 3 servers and 1 bartender with open bar. We had a magician for the kids. First birthday is huge in our culture. It was great!

What is your culture? My neighbors did this and they are Indian. Catered with rented tent and tables, like a wedding. I had never seen a first birthday that was such a big event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our neighbors, our friends, relatives, friends from work (mine), DH's entire team from work. It was around 150 people at our home. It was a big do. Dinner was catered, a cook was on site who made the appetizers and bread, there were 3 servers and 1 bartender with open bar. We had a magician for the kids. First birthday is huge in our culture. It was great!

What is your culture? My neighbors did this and they are Indian. Catered with rented tent and tables, like a wedding. I had never seen a first birthday that was such a big event.

We are North Indians. We also did several ceremonies through out the first year to mark the 40th day, the naming ceremony, the first solid meal etc. I guess, in olden days infant mortality was high and if a child was healthy at the end of the first year, it was worth celebrating.

[Anonymous]

We invited all our friends—DS’ first birthday was Labor Day weekend so we did a big backyard bbq.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t you just celebrate it yourselves? Go out for a fun activity, have a special treat. He won’t know the difference.

Because I want to have a celebration, even a small one. His older sister is excited about his upcoming birthday as well. We don’t plan to do anything big but just to go to a local park/playground.

[Anonymous]

We did a pretty small celebration. We invited one of the families from moms group, one family from church, and two sets of friends. All in all there was 10 people who came and it was PERFECT! We don’t have family close by and this was just a fun way to eat cake together. It was low key but we all had a great time.