Our Semi-Green Birthday Party

We had my daughter’s birthday party a couple weekends ago. We were going for “green” but traditional, definitely not “commercial,” and of course, lots of fun. This is how it went as far as meeting some green and ethical standards.

Where we succeeded:

1. Evite invitations. Some people like to make their own invitations, which are very special, but I personally find them time consuming and prefer the convenience of evite. You can choose your own background, and it’s free to use.

2. Handmade decorations. I spent three and a half hours cutting out felt letters and hand stitching them to a piece of fabric to make a Happy Birthday sign. I don’t generally sew so I am rather proud of how this particular project turned out. What’s more, we can use it for every family member’s birthday in the future: a special family tradition. I pinned balloons on it for added effect, of course balloons aren’t really very environmentally friendly, but that’s one allowance I like to make because I just can’t picture a party without balloons. We all have our “vices” I suppose.

3. No gifts. While it can be daunting to make a request for money or no gifts, proper wording of invitations can help. I think we did all right in not ruffling any feathers. Our invitation said:

Dear friends,
This year we are starting a new tradition with gift giving at ______’s birthday party. Our family is trying to reduce our eco-footprint so we have decided to host a green party. Please bring a donation in lieu of gifts because _______ has decided to support Right To Play with 1/2 of the birthday money she receives. Right To Play is an international humanitarian organization that uses sport and play programs to improve health, develop life skills, and foster peace for children and communities in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the world. In light of global warming and in support of the children of the world who don’t enjoy the luxuries we do here in the West we would like to reduce the amount of plastic generated from this party from gifts and their packaging, and support this charity’s worthy cause.  _______ will be able to purchase a special gift from her portion of the donations. 
Thank you for your support.

All of the guests then brought homemade cards or no cards at all. This wasn’t requested, it’s just the way it happened. In total our daughter received $85 dollars. We will top it up to $100 so we can send $50 to her charity, and she will have $50 to buy a gift. Not shabby. For those of you who are concerned that she didn’t get any presents, she did. We, her grandparents and her great-grandma all bought her gifts. As for the party, no one asked “when is present time?” and everyone had a good time just enjoying each other’s company and the games we played.

4. We played traditional games. Once we had a charity picked* it was easy to embrace the theme of Play. I had noticed that none of the parties we’ve ever attended had had tradtional party games, so that is what we did. We played Musical Chairs and Pin the Tail on the Donkey. The kids loved it. After the games everyone went outside and played in the sunshine.

5. Ribbons as prizes. The no-sew lady was on a roll. I looked at the scrap pieces of felt from the Happy Birthday sign and decided to hand sew badges with each guest’s initial on it. I pinned them to their shirts when they arrived. After they had participated in a game they got a different coloured ribbon. Like Sport’s Day when I was a kid. This cut down on money spent on regular prizes, but the kids still received something for playing.

6. Homemade cake(s): I made 2 dozen vanilla cupcakes (no breast milk) with real strawberry icing and a vegan cake for a couple dairy intolerant guests. They were very yummy. Enough said.

7. Goodie Bags. The kids decorated their own paper bags. Each child received a homemade sugar cookie, a real stainless steel cookie cutter and a mound of playdough that they made when they arrived at the party. While I liked this idea, I don’t think I will ever facilitate making playdough for 8 kids all at one time ever again. At least not stove-top playdough. For those who are interested, here’s the recipe I used. It’s awesome when you make just one batch.

My Playdough Recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp cream of tartar

1/4 cup salt

1 cup water

1 Tbsp oil

up to 2 tsp food colouring (optional)

Mix dry ingredients together in a saucepan and add wet ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Cook on medium and stir frequently for about 3-5 minutes. It will be a globby mess but eventually it will form a ball at the bottom of the pot. Turn it out and knead on a floured surface. Store in an airtight container. 

8. Seasonal Snack Foods. This wasn’t really planned but I have tomatoes, cucumbers and brocolli coming out of my ears right now so we had a veggie plate, I made some salsa to go with the tortilla chips and cut up some summer fruits.

Semi-Green Successes:

1. Biodegradable dishes. There are plates out there made out of sugar cane that are 100% biodegradable, and that’s what I used. I wanted to use my own real dishes but I didn’t have enough matching plates. Who cares right? I guess there’s still a part of me that likes to make some kind of impression on people that I’m a little bit normal. We ended up mostly just using our hands and napkins for our food anyway.

2. Paper napkins. This was a limited success because I definitely had enough cloth napkins to go around. But we still have dozens of pretty paper napkins leftover from our wedding celebration five years ago, so I like to think I was just using them up.

3. I made too much food. We haven’t had to throw any away because my stomach is bottomless pit when it comes to sweets, but I didn’t really need to make two kinds of cakes and I certainly didn’t need to make three dozen sugar cookies. I still have a dozen strawberry icing painted cookies in the fridge. But they *are* very good…

Ethical Failures

1. Smarties. It was her request to have Smarties on her cupcakes. We call any round coloured candies Smarties in our house. I wonder if we’d get in trouble if they knew that? It’s a trademarked word don’t you know? I could have gone with any of the other candies and it would have been fine. But in my grocery-buying rush I grabbed a package of Smarties at the till, completely overlooking the fact that Nestle makes Smarties and Nestle is a major WHO Code violator.

I’m a Nestle boycotter…

And then I ate some. 

Should I just shut down my blog now? 

*How To Choose a Charity With Your Young Child

Picking a charity might be tricky with your youngster. It was with mine. She was happy to have the type of party I suggested but first she needed to learn the concept of a charity. It’s a rather abstract notion, I realized.

1. Explaining the word “charity.”

After a number of trys this explanation worked best. “It’s like a kindness store where you don’t go to buy anything for yourself. Instead you just take the money to the people who work there and then they give the money to the people who need it.”

2. Giving choices.

Suggest two or three types of charities that you think you interest your child.

I gave her three choices: 1) Animals 2) Mother Earth 3) Children.

3. Narrowing it down.

Once she decided to help children (and that in itself took f-o-r-e-v-e-r!) I gave her three more choices. 1) Sick children (BC Children’s Hospital) 2) Milk bank (Vancouver Milk Bank). This I described as “milkies” for sick babies who can’t have their own mommy’s milkies. More “why’s” with that one. OR 3) Children who don’t get to play very often. She picked #3 which was the Right To Play organization – hubby’s favorite. 

4. Explaining what the charity does.

It was tough explaining to a not-quite five year old that some children in the world are forced to live the lives of grown ups and don’t get a chance to play games with friends. All the “why’s” in the world couldn’t fully explain the types of lives the children have who this organization helps with visits from volunteers, many who are top atheletes. All that seemed to matter to her was that some children who don’t get to play, are allowed to play with the help of this charity.

There are so many worthwhile charities out there that could benefit from a gift of giving. It is a wonderful thing to see your smiling child mail off a cheque, knowing that she was responsible for making a little miracle in some child’s life.

Do you have any other suggestions for throwing an eco-friendly kid’s birthday party? If so, I’d love to hear your ideas!

Related posts:

1. Belated Birthday Express Pirates and Mermaids Party Post
2. How To Prevent Your Child From Growing Up Too Fast
3. I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas
4. Happy Birthday Baby! A Birth Story
5. I Thought I Made Them Green, But Really, They Made Me

Tags: birthday cake, breast milk, charity, children's crafts, crafts, decorations, Environment, green birthday party, homemade, playdough recipe, Right to Play, traditional games, vegan, WHO Code