Our family doesn’t throw many parties. With two kids who have celebrated a combined total of 12 birthdays, we have hosted just ONE birthday party. To be fair, my children’s birthdays are two weeks apart, so that one party did celebrate two kids. But when we made the decision to move abroad, I immediately started thinking about a going away party. I wanted it to be a celebration of the friendships my kids had made and an official space for them to say goodbye (to make sure their friends understood they were moving and that didn’t just disappear one day).
I reserved the Activity Building at our local park for a Friday afternoon after a half-day of school. It was the perfect location for the kids to run and play and for the adults to have some shelter from the cold, as it was a chilly November day. I stocked the party tables with after-school snacks: veggies, chips, grapes, apples and, as requested by the guests of honor, soft pretzels and Jell-O jigglers. I kept the food simple so I could spend extra time on the more meaningful parts of the event.
Photo Display I knew I wanted to have a display of photos of my kids with their friends, but I wasn’t sure how to make an attractive and portable display. So I was thrilled when I stumbled upon cork foam board at Michael’s – Did you know that existed? I didn’t know that existed! I purchased two 20″x 30″ boards, rounded up about 40 pics of my kids with their friends over the years, and printed them out with a white border so they would pop against the cork. It turned out to be a really lovely collage that was easy to create, transport and display – I just set them on the party table and leaned them against the wall.
Keep in Touch Kits During The Great Purge of Our Belongings that was happening simultaneously with the party-planning, I came across a stack of blank cardboard CD cases and was happy to come up with a useful way to get them out of my house. The kids painted the front of the cases, and I wrote out self-addressed-international-Forever-stamped-envelopes to tuck inside each one. At the party, I set them out on the same table as the photo display. As guests were leaving, they could take photos from the display and slip them into the case as well.
Pillow Case Memento Every good going away party has something for the guests to sign. Usually that signed item ends up being a picture frame, or a book, or some other heavy or fragile item. Since we were only packing suitcases to bring with us to Chile, I needed a memento that was light didn’t take up much space. I remembered seeing this tutorial about designing your own pillow case and decided to give it a shot as the thing to sign at our party. It was such a hit! The kids really enjoyed the activity and the end results were so fun AND easy to bring with us! We love seeing these drawings and messages from our friends every day.
Decorations The name of the party was “Chao for Now” and the decorations were simple and fun. Other than some tablecloths and the photo display, the only other decor I had in mind was a photo backdrop. There are many excellent tutorials on how to make a fabulous photo backdrop for a party, but all of them seemed like too much work. My solution was two rolls of wrapping paper, masking tape and a banner. Simple? Yes! Fun? Yes! It’s definitely not an essential element to a party, but it was nice to have an official picture taking place when friends showed up, or before they left, or when we wanted a group photo like this.
Below are the links to all of the decor and supplies I used for the party.
Birthday Calendar This was a last minute idea, but because the bulk of the work on this project came after the party, it was an easy add-on with a lasting impact. During the party I had everyone write down their birthday on a calendar printout (search “printable birthday calendar” for lots options). After the party, I created a wall calendar on Shutterfly using photos of their friends (many of the same I had already collected for the photo display plus some from the party itself) and inserted all of the birthdays I had collected onto the calendar. This Kids Coloring Wall Calendar was perfect because my younger son loves to color, so it’s a multi-functional memento.
I was really happy with how everything turned out for the party, but mostly thankful to all of the friends who showed up to celebrate with us, to wish us well, and to ensure that we will miss them so terribly that we will have to return. In the mean time, we have lots of beautiful memories and meaningful reminders of them as well.
True Story: Chile 