We are living in a different time right now. So us mama’s have to get creative when it comes to celebrating birthday’s. I still wanted to make our daughter’s 8th birthday special, so we put together a surprise birthday parade with a visit from her favorite Kona Ice! She had no idea and you will see her reaction in our photos, she could not contain her excitement. Mission complete! Of course, I had to take to Pinterest to get some ideas on how to actually do this. Although I have put together many party celebrations over the years, this partying in quarantine is new for me. I hope you can get some inspiration for yourself and make your kids party magical, even in this weird, unprecedented time.
Here are a few of my tips. I will also link to some favorite things.
- Start off the day by decorating indoors but don’t spill the secret. When she woke up in the morning she was so excited to see her party table decorated with her favorite – unicorns! I will link to the party shops where I got our decor. She thought we were celebrating indoor and just with a cake.
Balloon garland arch
Unicorn balloon
Stallion balloon
Number 8 Balloon
Wall banners
Balloon cake topper
Unicorn dress - Decorate outdoors without them knowing. They will be so excited when they walk out and realize all of that is for them. We woke up early and decorated outside a little. I had seen these big birthday letters on Etsy but they were all so pricey! Low and behold I made a last minute trip to our Walmart the day before the big day and found a pack of these letters in the party section for $15! Score!!
- Send an invite to friends and family. Just like every other party we throw, we sent out online invites to friends and family. If you search Etsy for ‘birthday parade invite’, you will find so many options. Here is the link to the one we used.
- Kona Ice. Having Kona Ice was a HUGE hit. She was shocked that Kona Ice came to deliver her favorite snow cone to her. It made her feel so special! We also covered all the other kids’ cones as a thank you for coming. When I contacted Kona Ice they didn’t have a package in place for birthday parades, but from what I see, they do now! If you have a Kona Ice in your area or something similar, it’s totally worth it to have them come!
- Get the neighbors involved. I hand-delivered a few of our invites to our close neighbors so that they would know what was going on, but also to invite them to come outside that day and join us to celebrate. I was so surprised to see so many of our neighbors outside celebrating with us.
- Take video and photos. You will want to remember the day as always. It’s difficult trying to play photog+videographer and still trying to enjoy the moment, so I only took a few photos and recorded the parade and then I just took video captures of moments of the parade. Not the highest resolution but they still captured what mattered.
We were invited to our very first birthday parade in a few weeks, and from someone who has thrown one, here are my tips for anyone who will be a guest to their first parade.
- Decorate your car
- Make posters or signs
- Bring some noise makers
- Bring a gift if you can, or not. We didn’t ask any of our guests to bring anything, just themselves – but we were so grateful to see some parade guests drop off gifts to her.
- Drive around the block a few times
- Take photos from your car and send them to the host. I got a few photos from our guests. It was neat to see it from a different perspective.
All in all, I’d say the birthday parade in quarantine was a BIG HIT! I hope you get some inspiration from this post if you are planning your own birthday party parade!
