I prefer home parties to go to- that being said our home is small and we’re still in the stage where you invite the entire class- so for DC1 we do park parties (October birthday), and I’m afraid that for DC2 we’ll be relegated to a venue Bc of his January birthday.

My kids have asked for both. They seem to like to alternate and we go with their preference that year on venue vs home.

If it is at home they liked doing theme parties and we got really into decorating it and picking the games to match. Not Pinterest and-level nice but definitely dressed up very well and picked some of the much simplistic stuff from there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Venue parties for my DD. I don’t want my house torn apart.

This is on you. My children are well behaved and have been taught to respect the property of other people and when other children are in my house they follow my rules.

I don’t think you had birthday party where you invited 15-20 seven year olds to your home.

What? How could you possibly know that and her point would still apply. It’s your home. Take control

The Pinterest thing makes me chuckle a little, as I find it’s the opposite. People love to brag about the venue that they could afford; special points going to if it was unique to the group at large and the parents can claim “discovering” it. Many apologies for difficult times and limited food as that’s all that was available (they’re SO busy), or allowed.

Both are nice but it’s much less work for host parents to throw a venue birthday party.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Venue parties for my DD. I don’t want my house torn apart.

This is on you. My children are well behaved and have been taught to respect the property of other people and when other children are in my house they follow my rules.

I don’t think you had birthday party where you invited 15-20 seven year olds to your home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Venue parties for my DD. I don’t want my house torn apart.

This is on you. My children are well behaved and have been taught to respect the property of other people and when other children are in my house they follow my rules.

Exactly

Anonymous wrote:Venue parties for my DD. I don’t want my house torn apart.

This is on you. My children are well behaved and have been taught to respect the property of other people and when other children are in my house they follow my rules.

Kids don’t play together at venue parties. They scatter all around, then eat pizza and leave. When I’m at one with my kid it’s basically like we went just us but didn’t have to pay and got free pizza at the end.

At home parties are pretty special to bday kid, because it’s the one day of the year when every kid is at their house. They can show off their room, their toys, etc.

My kids like both.

But when they were younger, we did home parties so we could also invite my family; my friends with thier kids, without blowing the headcount. My kids & I liked the extra time to socialize, venues were in & out. It is more work, but only once a year.
Honestly, as long as you have a decent backyard, my house never got trashed (my kids are summer babies).

As they aged, thier parties got smaller (handful close friends) - then we did mostly sleepovers, basically just a longer, casual playdate.

My ES kids enjoy the venue parties more. But they just like parties in general, so if they do not have anything else that day, they go whether it is a home party or venue party. We do drop offs.

Anonymous wrote:No. I feel more obligated to socialize/stay at house parties and as an introvert, I just want to drop my kid off and then come back later to pick them up. I don't want to make small talk with people.

In my long years of doing both, I can assure you that the same people will drop off their kids at venues and houses, and the same people will linger and chat. It's not the location, but the individual. Feel free to drop off.

No. I feel more obligated to socialize/stay at house parties and as an introvert, I just want to drop my kid off and then come back later to pick them up. I don't want to make small talk with people.

Anonymous wrote:No one I know has kids bday parties at home anymore! My kids are elementary age, 3rd and 5th graders.

My kid is in 3rd and we are actually seeing more home parties now. One was a nerf war, one was a movie night etc.