We’ve been struggling with how to handle two December birthdays - something new for our family. And the fact that birthdays are a fairly new concept for Kai and Shen has meant that we have kept it pretty low key up till now. But this year is their 5th and 6th birthdays - I think you kind of have to have some kind of party at this age!?!
So what we came up with for this year was to celebrate each of their birthdays with individual family celebrations with a special dinner, cake and presents, and then to have one big giant birthday party with lots of friends. Since Kai and Shen will each receive gifts from family on their birthday and then again on Christmas we figured that we didn’t need them showered with gifts a 3rd time on top of that. So we asked the families of the children we invited to make a donation to charity instead of bringing gifts.
We arranged with Love Without Boundaries to help us make a donation to the orphanage where Kai lived in Baoding. We made up a little donation box and printed up an information sheet about LWB with their tax ID number and giving/adminstrative cost ratios (97% of funds raised in ’07 went to helping children). We also brought the picture books of the Kai and Shen’s adoption stories that I made for them last Christmas.
Everyone seemed to have a really good time and we raised almost $300! I think people really liked the “no gifts” idea. It certainly made the event more enjoyable for the other children not having to watch the birthday boys open package after package of plastic excess. Kai and Shen are still at an age where they can enjoy a joint event, and while we don’t count on this always being the case, it worked perfectly this year.
Here’s a few more pictures of the party...
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