The tyranny of party bags

I loathe organising children's parties. People don't reply to invitations and the kids are usually over-excited and often obnoxious. Here, parties seem to be a bit lower-key than some of the ones the children attended in the UK - they're usually held in the child's own home and I haven't heard of anyone hiring entertainers yet. For Child #1's birthday treat tomorrow we're taking a group of girls out for a pizza and a movie. We did this last year, in England, and two of the kids ended up being very sick (I do apologise, Altrincham Pizza Hut employees) so I'm hoping we'll have better luck this year.

Last year I didn't bother with party bags and I was planning not to this year either. I even deliberately ignored the party bags in Bulk Barn this morning. But by this afternoon I was feeling mean about it, so I made some fudge and then roped Child #1 in to help me make the wrappers. She found some silver ribbon lurking in a drawer and made name labels, then we wrapped baking parchment squares around the fudge and tied them up. It was an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon and I think they looked quite good in the end: not a bit of plastic tat in sight!

Postscript: The girls were all delightful and behaved beautifully. I might have to revise my feelings about birthday treats - or maybe 10/11 year olds are just more mature than smaller kids. Their class teacher and her two daughters ended up seeing the movie at the same time us, which may have been an added incentive for good behaviour, I suppose!