Today we were meant to be on our way to Centre Parcs, to meet up with the rest of my family to celebrate my Mum’s birthday – what a time to turn 70!?! We’re obviously all gutted its not happening, but we’ve already rebooked for next year, and just going to make a really big deal of her 71st instead. It’s my 40th on Friday too. There was meant to be a big party, lots of drinking and dancing. I’m gutted, but I’m 40 and I can (just about) get over it. But my heart goes out to every little person whose either already had a Birthday or are about to. So we’ve been busy coming together, sharing stories to give you some ideas on how to still make this one of the best birthday’s ever for your little one! So here are a few tips and ideas we’ve had from local mums and seen on social media recently!
If you’re looking for more useful blogs and advise on surviving lockdown with little ones click here.
Virtual Parties. How about an Escape Room on-line?
Escape Rooms For You are offering Mumblers a fantastic online family game with 25% OFF!
There are several adult rooms and one room for children/families to play – Principal’s Office. Mumbler tried the family room and really enjoyed it! You are in detention in the headmasters office and have 1 hour to get out. There are puzzles to find and solve to unlock chests and finally unlock the room to escape. We got out in 41 minutes, will you?! The game is ideal for children age 8-13, younger children can do it but will need more help from parents. We really enjoyed doing it as a family though (Our children are aged 9yrs & 12 yrs.)
You have your own real-life dedicated host throughs the game who will explain how to use the room and how to play the game. The host will to make sure you can get everything loaded, make sure that you know how to use the controls. The host stays with you throughout the game in case you need any hints or clues. The Escape room is usually £60 to play but can be played by up to 6 families/screens together making it an ideal event to do for a special occasion such as a child’s birthday party on lockdown.
Find out more on their website here (adult room info on there currently, info and booking for family room Principal’s Office can be found here), or follow them on facebook here.
Get 25% discount off the virtual escape room with Mumbler! Simply enter the discount code Mumbler at checkout to get 25% off and book to play for £45.
Presents, wrapping paper and decorations
My friend’s little girl turned 7 yesterday and all the presents she’d ordered online didn’t come in time – which is completely understandable. So she got creative and drew little gift vouchers for her – trips they’ll take her on, a voucher for a restaurant of her choice to have her Birthday tea when this is all over and a voucher for her favourite toy shop. She also couldn’t get hold of any wrapping paper. I suggested going all Gavin and Stacey and using kitchen foil, but she came up with an even better idea. She got her other kids, on a secret mission – which made them love it even more, to make their own wrapping paper by decorating some old wallpaper! Genius.
Thank goodness for click and collect and home deliveries! There is so much choice, especially for children. But we always like to champion small independent businesses. So if you can order from them and not just make the child receiving the gift’s day! We absolutely love local Mum Mabie Makes and her brilliant crafting gifts! We love the On The Go Activity Packs!
I saw a woman on Instagram, whose family were self isolating so couldn’t get supplies, got the Christmas decorations down and used those to decorate the house instead – lots of flashing lights everywhere. Her kids loved it!
For local balloon installations check out Sophie Styled It – click and collect and local delivery available over lockdown. That something a little bit extra to make this lockdown birthday one to remember!
Party games
We’ve got loads of great ideas to play online with friends or at home with family (or even the teddies!) check out our blog on Party Game ideas on Lockdown.
Zoom and Facetime
And any other forms of video conferencing I haven’t come across yet! We did a group Whatsapp call with my Mum and my brother and his family today. Group rendition of Happy Birthday really made my Mum’s morning. Another local Mum, whose son turned 4 the other day, said they were kept busy and entertained most of the day by all the Facetimes they had with their friends and family! I even saw online one woman held a Zoom party for her daughter’s 5th birthday. She got all dressed up, as did all her friends and they had a little disco for 40 minutes – she even managed to play musical statues with everyone!
House Parties
Birthday parties on lockdown
Get all the teddies involved if you have to, and make it a party to remember! Get the birthday girl/boy involved in the planning – if they want burgers for tea, do it, if they want sweets for breakfast do it! It might take some planning, so even if its a few weeks away its probably an idea to start sourcing all the ingredient now! Let them plan the whole day, if its a “home-schooling” day let the whole family have the day off if you can. Play games all day, do whatever they want to do – let them take the lead, they’ll love having control over their own special day.
Our local favourite Doe donuts are doing local deliveries AND postal boxes of some of their bakes so the whole of the UK can enjoy their yummy treats. If you can’t get hold of a cake, be creative, a birthday donut, flapjacks, even get the wooden toy cake out!
Virtual Day Trips
Take them to Disney Land, to look round the British Museum or have a trip to the Zoo. In a world where we can’t leave the house, we can go anywhere, virtually! Check out our other blogs here and here for some great ideas. There are also plenty of classes going online too – so maybe if they’re really little it might be fun taking part in one of those? We’ve got a whole section on our website dedicated to online classes!
Special Birthday Messages
As we’re all trying to adapt to this new world, loads of party entertainers are going online and offering special birthday messages! If you’re looking for someone – locally we have the brilliant Beyond Imagination Emporium. My friend’s little boy turns 6 next week, she’s reached out to anyone remotely famous on social media who he likes asking for a birthday message from them! You don’t know if you don’t ask! But actually, the best thing I saw was a video online of a whole street going out to their front door and singing Happy Birthday to a little girl on their street. It melted my heart, you should have seen this girls face!
So there you go, a few ideas on how to make their day as special as possible. But most of all, all they need is love. Stay home, stay safe. They’ll be plenty of time to celebrate again once this is all over – and when you do we’ve got it all covered right here. And from everyone at Mumbler a huge Happy Birthday!
We hope you found this blog really useful. Here at Mumbler, we strive to make family life easier by writing & curating useful information & blogs for local families. Each local Mumbler website is a franchise, and is owned & operated by a local parent who is raising their own family in the area.
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