melissa

Our one contribution to decorating the party.

Believe it or not, I was a little surprised that my daughter wanted to have her birthday party at the roller skating rink, since we skate close to every weekend. Her logic was that skating is so much fun, she wanted to share the joy with her friends. In this case, her closest six friends. Plus siblings.

I couldn’t have planned an easier party. Bless you, my daughter.

Besides hosting the party at a business that specializes in parties, there were a couple extra tricks I used to make this birthday party The. Easiest. Bestest. Party. Evah.

1. First, we hosted a “family” party at home for the grownup relatives on the day of her birthday. I was unsure that I or my daughter would be able to successfully divide our attention between a gaggle of young friends and all the grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. A little pizza and cake and the relatives are well entertained at home, leaving us to enjoy the skating party on the closest available weekend. Also, your extended family might enjoy loud music and a gaggle of wild, screaming children – but I know my extended relatives enjoyed a somewhat (only a little!) less loud, less crazy gaggle of people who all knew each other.
2. We used a giant balloon bouquet for decorations. That’s it. Who needs more when the walls are all painted in fabulous graffiti? With the neon and black lights over the floor, the kids can be all the decoration you need.

Biggest benefits to me: No muss, no fuss. We brought balloons and a cake.

We walked in five minutes before the party started, set the balloons on the table, laced up our skates and hit the floor. Our hostess with the mostest, Alyssa, greeted us when we came in, showed us our table, made some notes with me to set up the time for pizza and, later, for cake and ice cream.

Skate World set up the table, took our cake for later, announced when the pizza was ready, announced when the cake was ready (lit the candles for us!) and cleaned it all up when it was over.

Some parents dropped off, some stayed, some skated! But thanks to the separate family party, we didn’t have too many observers taking up space, so it was easy to move around and get some skating in.

CAKE!

Biggest benefits for the kids: it was like a giant playdate, with junk food. About half the kids were real beginner skaters, but all were excited and brave and they all helped each other roller skating on the rink.

A couple parents rented “skate mates”, which are like little walkers on wheels for the little children. The kids ended up sharing the skate mates and some of them didn’t even need help by the end of the two hour party.