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Bridget
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How do you decide how and what to celebrate?
I used to do fabulous birthday parties for my children, straight out of Family Fun magazine. By my fifth child I realized I couldn't keep that up.
I consider the sacraments the most important milestones to celebrate, so we have big parties for those. On the years we don't have sacraments, the younger kids will get a birthday party. I think my olders will just have family parties at this point. I would like to only do family parties for all the birthdays, but it doesn't seem fair to the younger kids compared to some of the parties the older kids got.
In a few years we will have graduations thrown into the mix. Add extended family stuff and we could be partying non-stop. 
I would be interested to know what other families do about all this. Anyone have a policy or do you just do whatever works out the best for each occasion?
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
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JenniferS
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We only have a family parties for birthdays, as in grandmas(if they choose to mame it.) and our immediate family. We used to do birthday parties with the kids classmates(before we hs'ed), but that got out of hand fast. We are happier doing it the way we do it now, and the kids seem to be also.
We do big celebrations for Sacraments, and we host Easter at our house.
Jen
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Erin
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Bridget
We do have a policy. We celebrate birthday's as a immediate family, a couple of packets of lollies, birthday child chooses favourite dinner, lately I have even run to making a cake  not amazingly decorated though.
Regards parties with friends. Very early on we establised a rule as I could see it getting out of control if we didn't have boundaries. They have set birthday years that they invite their friends too, these are at ages : 5, 8, 10, 13, 16, 18 and maybe 21 
For baptisms I invite friends and family back. Our children make their sacraments at our homeschooling camp so we all go back to the camp with the Bishop and have a party after, so their friends are already there. This means that extended family are not really involved in these sacraments but as they all live so far away they likely wouldn't be anyway.
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Erin
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dhbrug
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Our birthdays begin with lollies (candy) under everyone's breakfast bowls on the table. The bowls are upside down and no-one is allowed to see what lollies are there until all are up.
The birthday boy or girl gets the great privilege of sitting in DADs chair (and I get to sit in theirs). Any presents we have are hidden on the birthday chair.
The birthday child gets to pick their favourite breakfast cereal, lunch and dinner and we end the day with an ice-cream cake. This is a 1/2 gallon ice cream tub, turned upside down with some decorations and appropriate candles. No waste. Everyone happy. Inexpensive.
And we sing Happy Birthday as often as possible throughout the day.
The only extras involved are normally Lana's parents who live with us, unless we happen to be somewhere else.
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David
http://bruggietales.blogspot.com
dw Lana 89, dd 91, ds 93, ds 96, ds 98, dd 01, dd 04, ds 07
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Bridget
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I just made a projection sheet for sacraments, graduations and major anniversaries. I'm normally not a numbers person but this was fun!
Looks like 2008 and 2010 will be quiet years so the younger kids may get a bit of a friend birthday party then. (Unless I am blessed enough to get another baptism in there.)
2013 we have two sacraments, a graduation and my parents 50th.
My youngest child should graduate in 2023. 
Maybe I'll have wedding and grandchildren events to celebrate by then.
ETA: My son said "Don't forget the ordinations!"
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
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Cay Gibson
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Not much time but your last post got me calculating in my mind, Bridget, so I thought I'd better "jot" it down.
2006 First Communion/Oldest son's High School Graduation
2007 Confirmation/Adopted dd's High School Graduation
2008 Oldest daughter's High School Graduation
2009 Quiet year 
2010 First Communion & Confirmation
2011 Quiet year
2012 Third High School Graduation & possible college graduation
[Disclaimer: this is subject to change as I figured it quickly in my head and my head is not a reliable thing to trust. I'm not sure at all if I have everyone figured right. ]
I use to plan elaborate, full-blown b-day parties for the children. #5 kinda put things into perspective. I sitll do parties for the two little girls. For the older ones we invite family over on a Sunday and generally have a big BBQ.
On the actual b-day, all seven of us (plus the adopted dd) and grandparents go out to eat at the restaurant of choice. Sometimes the godparents join us.
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Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
wife to Mark '86
mom to 5
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Lisbet
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Yikes, Bridget, I'm having an anxiety attack just thinking about making projections... 2023??? WOW!
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Lisa, wife to Tony,
Mama to:
Nick, 17
Abby, 15
Gabe, 13
Isaac, 11
Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
Cecilia born 10.29.10
Josephine born 6.11.12
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Bridget
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The part I don't want to figure out is how old I will be then! 
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
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joann10
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We celebrate "big" for First Communion's, Confirmations, and High school graduations.
I did what Cay did and did some quick figuring.
Now I am nervous....
2005-2006 we have had 2 hs grads
2008-Matt hs grad
2009-Mark 1St Comm. and Dan Confirmation
2010-Dan hs grad
2011-Grace 1st comm. and Amy Conf.
2012-Amy hs grad-and Laura Conf.
2013-Laura hs grad-and Luke 1st comm
2014-Kim 1st comm
2015 ?
2016-Mark conf
2017-?
2018-Grace conf. and Mark grad
2019-?
2020_Grace grad
2022-luke conf
2023-Kim conf
2024 Luke grad
2025 Kim grad
I need to take a nap. I also wonder how many wedding and grandbabies will be also filling up all these years.
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MicheleQ
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See, this is why we don't know "the plan" in advance - it would be too overwhelming! 
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Michele Quigley
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teachingmom
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I think I am in the minority. We do parties for every birthday and really large ones for sacraments. This year we had a party in May that celebrated the First Communion of my 4th dd, and of a niece who is also our goddaughter, and the Confirmation of my oldest dd. The sacramental gatherings are large because our local extended family is large. We usually only invite a few non-related families due to lack of space and still end up with close to 50 people. As for birthdays, I don't do birthday parties like others in our culture do -- no Chuck E. Cheese, no moon bounces, etc. Our birthday parties take place in our home with anywhere from 5-10 friends invited.
In fact, I hosted a birthday party this evening. My 2nd dd turned 11 in early June. We had a lot going on and didn't have time to think about a party until recently. I looked at the calendar and realized if dd's best friend was to be able to come to the party, it would be now or not until mid July. So I threw it all together in the past few days. Even with only three day's notice, all seven girls who were invited were able to come. Dd wanted to watch the dvd "Night at the Museum" during the party, so we had a simple plan. We gathered at 6pm for a hot dog and fruit kabob dinner. We decorated cupcakes and played two games related to the theme. (A mummy wrapping contest using toilet paper and a Night at the Museum Mad Lib that we wrote for the occasion.) Then after singing, cupcakes, and opening gifts, the girls all watched the movie. It was all pretty easy. And I think the guests enjoyed it. If Mary Chris is reading this, she can comment on that because her dd was here.
I used to get so stressed over parties for the girls. Now I do what I can without worrying, and put the focus on celebrating the birthday girl and giving her a fun time with her friends. Sometimes we do a lot more with the theme, especially for the younger girls -- my 7yo had a really cool "Pirate" birthday back in January. Truth be told, I am glad that the older they get, the happier they are to just gather with friends for a relaxing fun time as in our party tonight.
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juststartn
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Welll, we have all of our dc's bdays within a three month time frame...and mine and DHs are in that same three mos, as is our anniversary (mid-March thru early June). So we do one big party for everyone (the dc--DH and I are trying to forget how time is passing, tyvm! LOL). Get a big bouncer from the rental place on post, do a BBQ type thing, invite a small number of friends and any family (grandparents, and we have my sister a few hours south, and a nephew and his wife here in town) that may want to come. Do it all on one day, get it done and over with, and save me the trouble of multiple bdays in such a short amount of time. Plus, being hsers, we don't have "classmates", and so far, all of the dc's friends have been from the same families, soooooooo...well, the guest families only come once, we only rent the bouncer once, the BBQ takes place once....etc. MUCH easier. One day to prep for, one day to clean up...
I saw this same thing done (in a MUCH bigger style) on one of those "Kids by the Dozen" shows on TLC (or Disc Health, or something like that)...The family had something like 13-15 dc, and did one HUGE party each year for all of the dc...and the year that the show was on, they did it for a grand total of $150!
Anyway, that may not work for everyone, but we've been doing that the last two years, and its worked really well. The dc get small presents on their actual bdays, but most of their presents come at the party.
HTH
Rachel
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teachingmyown
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We do parties for every birthday. I guess we don't have enough kids yet!
Three of my kids are in December. The two little girls get a combination party with some homeschooling friends. My son usually gets a couple of friends over or we go do an activity. My 11 yr old dd usually has a sleepover with a handful of girls.
My oldest has just done something like a movie with friends with us footing the bill for the last few years. We also have a big 4th of July party with friends and family, so we just add a cake to celebrate my son's birthday while we are already entertaining. Which reminds me, he turns 16 in less than two weeks!
It is all low key, no clowns or ponies here! But I do feel strongly about giving them the chance to celebrate with friends, and I don't want them to grow up with the feeling that there were too many kids so they didn't get birthday parties. I already have to deal with a teen who thinks if we didn't have so many kids he would have an ATV and a swimming pool!
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Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
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Angi
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Here is what we do -
family b-day parites until age 3
friends adn family b-day parties for ages 3-5
age 6 b-day party - go to American Girl store, get doll, and have tea (this year will be our first for it).
friends parties at ages - 9, 12, and 16
parties for sacarements :D
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missionfamily
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I try to combine events when I can. We scheduled Kolbe's baptism July 1st, for which we would normally have a large gathering (even larger since my sister will be in from SC)...smack in between Quinn's 9th birthday and Brendan's 4th...we are having three cakes at the gathering and celebrating all at once!
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dh Greg
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kris
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I used to have a sort of schedule where half the kids would get a big party one year and the other half the next.
Now it seems to have morphed into the older kids having big shebangs all the time (as in they invite 20 and 40 show up--teens! and the younger ones, who mostly seem oblivious to having big celebrations just have immediate family.
We tend not to have big sacrament parties because dh isn't catholic and it is a weird dynamic.
We've had one 100+ person grad party and ds #2 will be graduating this year, but I kind of like a friend's idea of offering them a party or the $ you's spend on a party.
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: Family Celebrations
