On Sunday, we will have a birthday party in our backyard for Rara. She turns ten on Monday. Since we do the same party every year, it is not very stressful. For about four years there, the number of party guests was necessarily huge: she would invite virtually everyone in her daycare. But lately, the invitee list has dwindled in a pleasing way and this Sunday we are expecting six predictable guests. Predictable in the sense that I've known them all for years and I know all their parents and they know what's going to happen at the party because, as I mentioned, we do the same party every year.
Here is the party: run around the backyard, eat something, hit a piñata, watch the birthday girl open gifts. The running around part is sometimes more structured, sometimes less structured. I have been known to read poems to the guests ( a Saskatchewan-inspired activity of varying popularity ), or to organize a craft. We have run across the street to the playground in years past. Whatever we do, it is always low-key and fuss-free.
The piñata, on the other hand, is a major production requiring weeks of preparation, but my mom does all of it, and I just accept the compliments of the guests' mothers afterward. Rara and Abu ( my mom ) pick a theme, and then Abu sets to creating a huge candy-filled piñata ( peen - yah - tuh is how we say it, though I have heard a mother patiently teach her son to say pin - yah - dah ) representing that theme, and then smaller take-home piñatas for each guest. Which is completely insane, but it's what we do. I mean, what she does. I don't do it. I should probably be taking out some life insurance on this woman. In terms of labour costs, Rara's birthday would costs thousands of dollars if Abu wasn't around.
This year the theme is the 2010 Olympics and the piñatas are shaped like Quatchi, Miga and Sumi. The large piñata is shaped like an Olympic torch. I should probably think of some Olympic games that we could play.
Rara is forgoing gifts this year. She is instead accepting cash donations for a project my sister is organizing that will provide school supplies for two girls in Moshi, Tanzania for the fall. I hemmed and hawed about this for a while before finally going ahead with it. Lots of Rara's friends have moved to a charitable donation birthday gift model in recent years and I thought it was time for us to try it. When I was little my parents rented a hall and had a huge pinata party with all the families we knew and everyone made contributions to World Vision. So there is a lot of precedence for this decision. Nevertheless I felt weird making it, and read some interesting views about it on the web.
The pro side is so obvious I don't think it needs to be expounded on, but just for completeness,
1) Rara has enough stuff.
2) It will do her good to think of those less fortunate.
3) Two girls will get their school supplies.
The con side, which I learned from reading some protesty-type entries on parenting blogs is this:
1) It's cruel to make kids give up their birthday gifts. Charitable giving is all well and good but it's too mean to make your kid forgo gifts when all of her cronies will be receiving them. Unfair.
2) It's rude to tell people where their charitable donations should go. Telling people where to send their giving dollars is bossy, etc.
3) When you ask people to give open-ended cash donations in lieu of gifts, you're forcing them into an awkward position money-wise. If someone wants or needs to go cheap on a birthday gift, they can shop carefully and be thrifty and it won't be obvious to anyone that that's what's going on. If someone wants or needs to go cheap on a donation, it will be right there in black and white for everyone to see.
I say "Meh" to all of the above!
Okay, not really. What I really did was carefully consider each point and decide in the end that the pro side wins! And then I convinced Rara of that fact.
The result: I need to fill the 30 minutes of party time that would normally be spent opening gifts with some other activity. Preferably, an Olympics-themed activity.
