On the night before the kids birthday’s, my husband and I stay up and decorate the house. Like birthday Santa’s, we quietly blow up balloons and tip toe around the house with scotch tape in hand filling their rooms with balloons and taping up our giant “ H-A-P-P-Y-B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y” sign we reuse for all of our birthdays. The point of it was for the kids to wake up feeling celebrated as soon as they opened their eyes. It wasn’t until this year, as Zoe was about to turn 5, that I realized that I had inadvertently made a family tradition.
“… (the kids) wake up feeling celebrated as soon as they opened their eyes.”
In May, when we decorated for Vie, Zoe mentioned that she hoped that this year, since she was turning 5, her room and door might be decorated too. Previously, because they were little, we never did too much in the little kids room because 1. I thought it was kind of a hazard 2. They still wake up during the night and I don’t need balloons getting them excited and distracting them from going back to sleep… But, since it was her wish and celebrating is what I love, this year was the first year we decorated in Zoe’s room.
It’s a very simple tradition … If you would like to get started, this is all you need…
- Balloons. I keep a couple bags of assorted balloons tucked away just for this! Nothing fancy! Actually, the best balloons have come from the dollar store!
- Crepe streamer. Good old fashioned rolls of crepe streamer. I keep multiple colors around. The roll lasts forever and it makes everything festive anywhere you stick it!
- Scotch tape. Easy enough… but, when your kids start getting older you have to start stashing this hot commodity.
- A sign. A nice “Happy Birthday” sign that is colorful and festive. I started with a cardboard sign and now here I am attempting to tape it back together because it’s not a birthday until the sign is up!
That’s it! You can add to your supply list depending on how adventurous or committed you are. I will tell you this… I tried confetti but, in my opinion, the impact it makes does not outweigh the clean-up it takes. You can also order new fancy stuff every year, but I found that the kids just love their worn sign. The familiarity brings them comfort and even when I tried upgrading the sign, they still asked for the old one!
We keep the décor up for the length of their hospital stays when they were born, 4 – 5 days. We celebrate each one of them during those days, in gratitude for the blessing of them in our lives.
Do you have any simple traditions in your home?
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