Birthday's and invitations... and the inlaws

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redtech

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I’ll start with a little background.

When I was a kid, birthday’s were celebrated together as an immediate family. Maybe Grandma would come over too. All of our cousins live far away anyway.

DH has a step brother and step sister who have 2 and 3 kids. So he has 5 step niece/nephews. My husband was always invited to the kids birthday parties. He never really got along with the step brother or step sister very well and he never had much to do with them so he never went. We dated and got married. When we’d get invitations to the parties, we never went. I figured that it was his family and if he wanted us to go then he would say something. I was fairly uncomfortable around them too.

When my daughter turned 1 (keep in mind that we have a very small house, and didn’t really want alot of people but didn’t want to be rude) I invited my parents and DH’s mom and step dad. I told MIL that anybody else that wanted to come could if they wanted to but to let me know. None of the other people did but MIL threw a suprise party for my daughter a few days later and had all of them over. (I’m not getting into it, lets just say I was mad for a very long time)

The next year everyone and their brother came and didn’t tell me ahead of time. I had 1 cake. All the kids complained that they had such a small piece of cake. My DD didn’t eat her piece because she was so distracted and subsequently someone else came along and ate hers. She didn’t eat any of her OWN birthday cake. (OK Red… calm down…)

So this year, I sent an email to my mother in law and one sister in law (who is the head gossip in our county) and told them that we were just going to keep birthdays small from now on and we’d have a few big parties like skating parties or what have you that we would invite everyone for. Everyone said that was a good idea.

My son turns a year old in a few weeks. I’m only inviting my parents and my MIL and her husband. I feel like a jerk for not inviting a whole slew of people. My Dh would be happy not even inviting the grandparents but it would break my moms heart and I’m sure his mom’s too. The neices and nephews are several years older than our kids and look totally bored when they’re at our house. Everyone is unhappy and it really brings me down.

Is it OK to not invite people?
 
redtech said:
Is it OK to not invite people?
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Keep in mind this is coming from a person that had 27 people at my civil wedding and 12 people at my convalidation, 😊 of course it is OK to not invite people.

An invitation is just that, an invitation. You do not have to invite everyone, every time.
 
I say, thank heavens you have family who want to celebrate these milestones with you and your kiddos. If you don’t have the room, perhaps MIL will host at her house? Make cupcakes for “extra” guests (you can NEVER have too many cupcakes)👍
 
kage_ar said:
I say, thank heavens you have family who want to celebrate these milestones with you and your kiddos. If you don’t have the room, perhaps MIL will host at her house? Make cupcakes for “extra” guests (you can NEVER have too many cupcakes)👍
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I agree that you can never have too many cupcakes. I certainly would have made a few batches if I’d known all those people were coming! 😛

Also, I don’t think the family necessarily wants to celebrate with us. I’m pretty sure MIL guilted them into coming. She always tries to guilt my husband into doing things. She wants to have a big happy family but they don’t get along. Since it’s him and his family, I need to respect my husbands wishes and not interject myself. I’d like to just go to keep the peace (sometimes) but I think I should have my husbands back.
 
Sometimes it’s nice to celebrate some milestones with a small group of people- particularly when the kids are small, it can get overwhelming for them, and crankiness follows quickly on the heels of an overwhelmed toddler.

Obviously some milestones, baptisms, First Communion, etc. are nice to share with lots of family, but I don’t think it’s a legitmate cause of family tension to keep the 1 year old’s birthday simple.

If anyone gets too persnickity about it, suggest a family kid celebration for all the kids in the family. We do that- we combine all the cousins’ public, big birthday celebrations for some random time during the year. That way, the $200 party at the local bouncy inflatable place isn’t as outrageous for 7 kids as it would be for 1!
 
Red… I am going to share my secret about birthdays…just because I love you…

McDonalds Playland… worth the $30 to keep the trampling hords out of your house!!!

I used to scrub my house from top to bottom, invite only close friends (no relatives nearby) but somehow the neighbors, the bosses kids, etc would all show up, make a mess, do thinks I didn’t allow in my house, etc… and I was a wreck. Afterwards, so was my house… Trust me, McDonalds pays people to clean up and to play games or whatever with the kids. Grandma and Aunt So&So can sit off in the corner gossiping all they want without disrupting the party, Sis’s kids can smear all the cake they want on the walls (Sis doesn’t watch them) and I don’t spend a week putting my house back in order! I don’t worry about picky eaters, or getting the right kind of soda and enough of it… it’s all there!
 
Just maybe, through your genuine hospitality, your husband’s extended family will grow in love! These people could be a huge chance for you to be an example…

CCC **1971 **To the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount it is fitting to add the moral catechesis of the apostolic teachings, such as *Romans *12-15, 1 *Corinthians *12-13, *Colossians *3-4, *Ephesians *4-5, etc. This doctrine hands on the Lord’s teaching with the authority of the apostles, particularly in the presentation of the virtues that flow from faith in Christ and are animated by charity, the principal gift of the Holy Spirit. “Let charity be genuine. . . . Love one another with brotherly affection. . . . Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality.” This catechesis also teaches us to deal with cases of conscience in the light of our relationship to Christ and to the Church.
 
a one with whole, half, and step siblings (along with a gigantic extended family) I’d be more than happy if I could keep a party to a size of less than 20 guests (even less than 40 guests)😃 I wasn’t too close with my step-sister (I actually hated her for the longest time) but as soon as we both had children, we have grown to have a decent relationship. It started out superficial, but now I can say we honestly get along. A first birthday IS a big deal (at least to everyone I know). Also, your children and the nieces and nephews ( no use in calling them “step” because that isolates children, plus it’s pety imho) CAN grow in love if they spend time together.
 
1st birthdays are a big deal, but I think a smaller party is better for the little ones. They get so overwhelmed.

My kids are 8 & 7. We outlawed birthday parties last year. It was the best thing I’ve ever done. This year for my youngest’s birthday, we took him to the restaurant of his choosing and then on his actual birth day, I cooked his favorite thing to eat and we gave him his presents.

No fuss, no muss, everyone was happy, even my son!
 
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