So the Party was a Mega Success

The theme was candies and I spent days planning the candy based games for the bunch of 45 kids & 35 adults I had managed to invite.

So first things first-

The decor- Balloons and Happy Birthday Streamers and candies stuck on the walls- coutsey Dadda

A giant lollypop fashioned out of a ball placed in a Stax pack- of -3 net bag secured with rubberbands and a red ribbon on a stick and covered with coloured paper.

This was pushed into the mud right at the door of the party hall. That's another matter than someone thought it is a mop covered with paper! grrr....

No I am not advertising- this is the pinata bag- a paper bag filled with lollypops and jelly toffees and decorated with candy wrappers and candy packet cutouts. The bag was sellotaped in the top.

The games-

The kids assembled at 5.30 pm and since most kids were from the complex it was easier to start on time.

We had the balance the jelly cup on your head race first. Offcourse all kids were winners as they got to keep their jelly cups.

Next was the spoon and coin chocolate race (chocolate instead of lemon on the spoon)- I named the race "can you save your money"

For the kids upto 5 age group I had an easy set of games like-

Search for money- chocolate coins inside a tub full of thermocol bits and 'fill your bag with chocolate race"- gave them plastic bags and asked them to fill it up with candies and run. Ojas & Tejas did exactly what their mausi did 28 years ago- just kept on collecting the toffees and never ran.

Then there was the candy marathon- The kids were divided into 5 groups and made to stand in a line.

The finish line was scattered with toffees and at the blow of the whistle, they were supposed to run one by one, collect 2 candies and come back and the next one in the group would run to collect candies. The whistle blew to end the race at the end of a minute (correction- when the toffees started getting over)!

We had the grand breaking the pinata attempt- a shoehorn served as the pinata bat. The younger kids were picked up to hit and the older ones blind folded.

We then went inside the hall to have the "guess the number of candies in the jar". A paper was passed on for the kids to fill in their guesses and the closest guessers shared the candies.

The grand finale was the Candola- the tambola with candy names instead of numbers. I used this site to generate the tambola numbers , and this sheet to get a precalled set of numbers.

I pasted the generated numbers to an excel sheet, then assigned candy names to numbers from 1 to 59 in a separate sheet and sorted them alphabetically. Then I did a find replace command and replaced numbers on the bingo sheet with candy names. Instead of 15 numbers on a ticket, I had a cap of 12 numbers with 4 in each row since the numbers were not upto 99.

The next task was deletion of columns containing numbers from 60 to 99 in the sheet.

Finally the candy names were assigned to the precalled number sheet in similar manner and the tickets cut painstakingly the night before.

Kids & the parents of younger kids participated in the game and the prize was - yes- chocolate coins!

The cake was Tom & Jerry- their current favourite cartoon and not a hansel and gretel candy house as I originally planned as that would have not been understood by the kids.

Earlier I used to have lotus/ firecracker candles that did not require blowing. But I noticed that the kids wanted to blow candles and were embarassing me by blowing candles at other's birthday parties!

So I went overboard this time. We had the number 4 candles, the Happy Birthday Letter candle and a magic candle for luck that would relight even after blowing- the kids were maha thrilled at this one!

Notice that the table used for the cake cutting is their 2 study tables joined together and covered with a duppatta- I forgot to scatter the candies I wanted to before cake cutting as things got a bit rushed.

The cake was duly cut - Tom for Ojas - a choco scotch flavour and Jerry for Tejas- strawberry flavour- keeping in mind the candy and chocolate theme! (force fitting eh!)

The return gifts were either plastic binoculars (everybody across age group wanted them even though they would have broken after reaching home!), or rubik cube (nobody wanted them) or brainvita for the older kids and bubble maker & color book for the younger kids.

The snacks were a pre packed box of samosa, chips, macaroon & an appy tetrapack- less for adults but ok for kids - but that was not the key- the fun the kids had was the key!

I have been attempting to make parties for the kids more experiential than just cake and snacks and I think I did fairly ok.

A word on logistics-

1. Lists lists and lists- of invitees, return gifts, games and items needed to be arranged

2. the night before the party I packed separate game bags- each bag had the stuff needed for the game- like spoon & precounted candies packed together, thermocol and a pack of chocolates packed together, candola chits, toothpicks packed in a box etc. and the game list was placed in the game bag for easy access.

3. There was a separate bag for cake items- candles, knife, matchbox, candies to be scattered- which was kept in the shelf of the table that was to be used for the cake cutting so that there would be no searching at the time of cake cutting. Also on the size of cake- 1 kg gives about 15 good size pieces, so we did a 5kg cake for 80 pax

4. Dividing responsibility- for photography, videography, hall decor, lollypop making (Dadda's), helping me with the game (neighbour),

5. Volunteers- helping in snack distribution & cake cutting, neighbour ladies and AD

6. The one who would remind me of my responsibilities towards the end of the party when I got dazed and zombied and would take care of organising the gifts neatly- neighbour

Thank you all those who made the party fun.

Special thanks to R- the neighbour who was like a rock- she is a mother of twins too so she knows!

The dear friends & the enthu kids who came over t make my planning a success

The "blogger" friends - AD, Sunshine & Don, Art-Navy with Anush & yay- Aditi- (her first party?), IBH with kaju & camera!- the only problem being I could hardly interact with them and they missed all the games except candola- grrrrr