1) Monarch for the day - Have child make a custom crown out of card stock displaying their age and they can wear it all day, basking in the greetings they receive. Plan dinner menu, ignore chores. One idea was to give the kids a budget and let them plan their perfect day.
2) Celebrate birthday week - a sample may look like: week starts out with a homemade happy birthday poster and the telling their birth story. Each day after that the family gathers for one special treat, game night, a movie, dinner out, etc.
3) Wake to Cake - Everyone digs in on the bed after lighting candles and singing.
4) Hide a prize in the cake - Poke a peanut, piece of chocolate or soft candy into the cake before frosting it. Whoever finds the nut wins an ice-cream outing with dad.
5) Collect Well Wishes from family and friends - Have a party tablecloth that people sign/decorate every year with markers and stamps.
6) Decorate a doorway - You can write out a message on a plastic tablecloth cut it into strips and hang it in the bedroom doorway (can use a tension rod).
7) Tape and Watch Birthday Interviews - Create a video scrapbook by taking out a child's take and with the camera on records the childs goals, friends adn party plans as well as the highlights of the last 12 months. Then start the tape from the beginning and watch the back to back interviews.
8) Give a Shared Experience - one family doesn't give presents. The child can choose a special activity that he or she would like to do with the family.
9) Honor their accomplishments - one family creates a big poster for the birthday boy listing the special things he did that year.
Posted by kjohnson at October 14, 2007 07:21 PM