Half Birthdays: Your New Must Have Tradition
Photo by Tiffany Sowby
What could possibly be more exciting for a kid than his own birthday? My kids are constantly counting down the months, days and final hours until their birthdays. It’s hard to imagine a day that could top that, right? In one family, half birthdays are close contenders to the real thing. And the good news for mom is they’re half the effort.
Tiffany, a friend of mine and mother of the half-birthday family tradition said, “It is a fun tradition, one that really just happened to start by accident on Friday evening when my husband was working late and I realized my second child was one and a HALF that day! I craved chocolate cake, and voila a tradition was born.”
I love a mom that craves chocolate cake!
Her kids look forward to their half birthdays like it’s the real deal. And why wouldn’t they? Kids love to feel special. They love traditions. They love fun and all reasons to celebrate. So, us moms tend to find ways to make those things happen throughout the year in hopes that when they leave the nest their buckets are full of great memories. And if we aren’t doing those things, well, we’re thinking about how to do those things or we’re wishing we did those things. I’m really great at the wishing part.
So, make room on your calendar for a new must-have tradition! Your kids will love you for it!
Here are the 4 simple, half the effort, steps to throwing a memorable, fun, half birthday party…
1. Bake HALF a birthday cake
2. Light HALF a candle
3. Sing HALF of the “Happy Birthday” song
4. Wrap HALF a Dollar Store present
And that’s it! You could, of course, add your own half spin on the tradition (half a can of their favorite drink, etc..) if you wanted, but the point is to keep it simple, memorable and NOT stressful.
I like the sound of that! Anything to keep my kids smiling and me stress-free.
Does this sound like a tradition you would want to implement in your family? Do you have similar traditions that you’ve started in your family?
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Believe it or not, I was just thinking to have a four and a half birthday party to give us something fun to do during my husband’s deployment in Afghanistan. I thought I was the only crazy one with this idea! The universe has confirmed it: half birthdays are our new tradition! Great ideas for the party. Thanks!
I love half birthdays!! My baby was born on December 7…so we will be throwing half birthday bashes for years to come! I always do the 1/2 cake….huge hit!
I love this idea and I’m going to do it!!!
We would have a huge 1/2 birthday, summer pool party and bar b q the first four years b/c my daughter’s birthday is the 29th of December (she already got all the presents she needed and none of her friends were available to come to her party over Christmas break) but the fourth year, my precious, darling four year old threw a FIT that she wasn’t getting presents and a party on her birthday. So there ended the 1/2 birthday tradition.
we’ve been thinking about doing a 1/2 yr party too for the same reason-dd’s birthday is close to Christmas and we were trying to sort out a way to separate the two. see how long it works before we have the same issues as Lynn!