Brace yourselves for the return of the kids’ party

Oh God. I had forgotten about children’s parties. Lockdown put paid to a fourth, fifth and sixth birthday party in our house. Which wasn’t a total loss.

There were no party bag politics, no throwaway themed theatrics, no plastic sequins, or microplastic glitter or balloons or plastic banners, tablecloths or cutlery, or plastic-covered paper plates full of individually plastic-wrapped snacks.

Or, for that matter, tribes of sweaty, hyper and slightly flammable small people in synthetic party clothes eventually crowded, if all goes to plan, around a naked flame or six.

I do concede that the final handout is the perfect and very useful “party’s over kids, the grown-ups need a break, preferably alone in a dark room with a gin” signal. But party bags in particular get right on my wick.

What a bonkers message to give our kids – that they need to be rewarded for having fun with their friends in the first place, and that such a reward comes in the form of a small plastic carrier full of single-use tat that may have come from the other side of the world but barely lasts the car journey home. Expensive tat at that.

It’s not just birthday parties, either. Halloween is a zero waste family’s nightmare in more ways than one.

All of which means an enforced break from those high-pressure, high-waste under-11s get-togethers was brilliant. Sorry, no, let me try that again. It was a poignant loss of childhood milestones. That they probably wouldn’t remember anyway.

That said, our eldest does remember her last pre-pandemic birthday party – turning five in the woods, with a real-life campfire that a merry band of reception kids lit themselves, much to the rigid nervousness of their parents.

No plastic, no waste, no pointless party bags, no problem. Though one kid did fix me with a stare that could have stopped traffic when she realised there was no take-home.

Such is the absurd pressure of the 21st century kids’ party that there would be uncomfortable comments in the playground and sulking on the stairs if we attempted an annual replay of the slightly feral undergrowth-based affair. Even if it meant we could take the coward’s way out, neatly sidestepping the consumption-heavy, single-use conventions.

The following year, on our daughter’s lockdown sixth, was a bit of a relief, to be honest. That was outside too. There was cake for four in the garden and happy birthday sung over walls from all angles of the neighbourhood, and little packages on the doorstep of carefully tied items from people’s own homes because shopping wasn’t happening. I still get a slight lump in the throat over the Railway Children vibes of it all.

All of a sudden, though, it’s business as usual. For the first time in two years, the kids were back in the nearest village hall last weekend, albeit in coats with all the doors and windows wide open.

We braced for the conversations with overtired kids about whether they really wanted to take that plastic tiara home because don’t forget we don’t use plastic in our house. It didn’t happen. It didn’t need to, because something interesting has happened since the last pint-sized party of early 2020.

Whether it was all those nature walks, or the chance to catch up on the Attenborough box sets, or that we hosted Cop 26 or just that eco-friendly is now the lifestyle trend of choice, post-pandemic parties have a different flavour to them. Literally, as it happens. The seemingly obligatory food element included veggie sandwich options at every event and even a plant-based choice at one.

I wasn’t the only parent who had plumped for an experience-based gift for the spotlight child, and while there are still some party bags about, they’re mostly paper. Sunday’s handout included a bamboo whistle. (A whistle, though what kind of masochist puts a whistle in an under-fives party bag?)

There are fewer things in each too – which, admittedly, is probably more of a reflection on the cost-of-living crisis but doesn’t hurt the sustainability side of things either. Some contents are second-hand, as are the carriers.

One genius dad, after having a massive clear out during the colder, drizzlier lockdown and was refusing to go back to the old ways, even decided to dispense with the party bag altogether – by resurrecting the 1980s church fete-style lucky dip as an alternative. Brave soul.