What Kids Teach Us About Parties

Today, I’m sharing about what kids teach us about parties. This is a sponsored post on behalf of Disney. Thoughts and opinions are our own.     

For some reason, we continue as a society to think that our kids need these elaborate things. Mostly, in my opinion, because we, however subconsciously, are trying to prove ourselves to others. Prove we can do big parties, or pay for all the extracurriculars, or afford all the toys. Yet, if you pay attention to your children, you realize they want none of that. Dance with them, push them on a swing, run around in a circle. The “what you do” doesn’t matter, it’s the how. The quality of time spend is what they are looking for everyday.

I was reminded of this recently when we were asked to host a Disney preschool party. I had big plans for our party. We were going to do crafts, have a bounce house, and Mickey inspired games. I was planning to make Mickey shaped craft projects and cookies, Disney inspired drinks and more. All the while, my mom friends would be snapping away pictures and then we could print off our HP Snapshots while the kid’s finished playing.

It didn’t happen. Literally, zero of what I originally planned happened.

The week before our party, both of our girls got really sick. After weeks of rescheduling and landing on a date that worked for my friends, I knew I couldn’t bail again. The girls had to get better. And luckily, they did. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have time to do much in terms of getting a big party together.

I went out and bought some bagged snacks, salad mix, a pizza, and a bag of frozen chicken nuggets. We made cupcakes in the Disney inspired cupcake wrappers were went sent. I hung up the decorations we received.  For whatever reason, the printer was not connecting to wifi the day of the party so I had to scrap all of that. I was running behind the morning of the party and still trying to get things set up once our friends arrived. 

NOTHING WAS GOING RIGHT.

All the food eventually got done and everyone sat down to eat. The kids were excited about the pizza and nuggets. One by one the kids got up from the table after eating and ran off to play. Before we realized it, the kids hadn’t been in the room for awhile. They were contently playing in the other room with each other. It was amazing. We let them play and didn’t even offer outdoor time like planned because we were stunned at how well they were getting along.

Serenity was reminded that I had coloring sheets printed and she asked her friends if they wanted to color. Briefly, a few of them did, but they were more excited to play together and ran back.

You see, the kids didn’t care.

They didn’t care that my elaborate plans didn’t get done. None of them cared they didn’t have Mickey Mouse sandwiches or a Mickey shaped lollipop wreath. They didn’t care that they weren’t going home with pictures of their time at my house. Not one of them said they needed more. However, they loved their experience. We can all learn from the appreciation and joy that kids have in the moment of just loving quality time with their friends without any other expectation. One day, hopefully, we will learn that our expectations of what something needs to be, isn’t what it has to be. Kids don’t need elaborate parties, but they do need quality time with family and friends.