We celebrated our son's 1st birthday with a Airplane theme since he loves to watch airplanes flying over our backyard.
The party was in our backyard and the idea was to have a airport setting. The party itself was a "Flight" on Pradhan Airways. Since my son was born in the middle of summer, to beat the heat, we had our party in the evening from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
Here's what we did
Invitations:
- We used evite to invite all our friends and family with a Airplane themed invite. The fact that it was online also helped keep track of all our RSVPs till the very last minute
- We listed out the tentative schedule on the evite as follows so that gave everyone an idea on what to expect
4:00 PM Take off
4:30 PM Snack service
5:00 PM Cake Cutting
5:15 PM Games and Activities
6:30 PM Dinner service
8:00 PM Landing
Decor:
- We had 6 round tables that seat 10 people to a table. We decorated them with Red blue and yellow colored table cloths. (www.orientaltrading.com ; Don't forget to order the clips that secure them- this was a saver since it was pretty windy the day of the party)
- For centerpieces, we had small cardboard boxes made up into suitcases. The boxes were decorated with stickers to look like it had travelled. Inside the boxes were supplies for a activity described later in this post. We also had balloons that didn't hold up too well because of the wind
- The patio was decorated with colored flags and crepe paper garlands (Dollar tree- best place for party decor) and some balloons- though again, quite a few balloons popped due to the wood shards in the patio
- The table for the cake was decorated with a festive table cloth having colored balloons and the patio
- The patio had a Gate Sign showing what time the flight was departing
- We put up signs all over the house similar to ones seen at airports (eg: Food Court, Restrooms, etc)
Setting the mood:
- Since we wanted our son to be comfortable and enjoy his party, we dressed him up in regular clothes. We had a lot of family helping us with the party, so the people who helped organize the party dressed up like the "Crew". The guys wore white shirts and blue jeans and the ladies wore blue dresses with blue bandanas tied into scarfs around their necks. We even wore lapel pins to complete the look.
Snacks and Food:
- We had airplane snacks - pre-packaged peanuts and cookies like they serve on the plane for the evening snack, arranged on platters. The air-hostesses served these to the passengers as needed.
- We also had platters of finger fruit at each table (strawberries, cherries and blueberries) that people could help themselves to throughout the party
- We had the dinner catered from Dosa Place in Tustin
Games and activities:
Our goal was to have all the guests interact, so all our activities were for large groups and for any age. There weren't too many children, so all the adults participated in the games.
1. Check in: - Icebreaker (Things needed: Poster, name tags, ribbon, Guestlist; 10 minutes)
- We had prepared a "Check In" board with pre-written name tags, organized by family and arranged by last name. I had the airplane theme design printed on small stickers and used them to personalize the tags.
- The name tags had randomly assigned seating for rows 1 through 28 with A, B and C seats. Children less than 2 years had "Infant Seat" assigned
- When the guest came in, they took the name tags. Since they tags were pre-written, there was no bottle-neck at the entrance with people taking time to write out their name
- The game was to find all the three members from your row and go to the organizer (Eg: 14A, 14B, 14 C had to find each other)
- The first 2 teams that went to the organizer were the winners
2. Water Balloon toss (Things needed: Water balloons filled with water; 20 minutes)
- We first asked everyone to make pairs and then stand in 2 lines. Only then did we announce the game
- Everyone in one line is given a water balloon. At the sound of the whistle they have to toss it to their partner
- Whoever catches the balloon without bursting it is still in the game. Every pair who dropped the balloon is out.
- The pairs that are still in the game, take one step backward and the water balloon is tossed back to the original person
- After every toss, pairs are eliminated and continue to play until you have a winner
3. Airport Code-Decode (Things needed: Copies of game, pens; 15 minutes )
- We had listed 3 letter code of 20 cities from all over the world, including the ones that my son had travelled to in his 1st year and the ones from where we had out-of-town visitors
- In a time limit of 2 minutes, people had to fill out the names of the cities. After they filled them out, we had them exchange them and them had the guests correct each other's entries.
- The person with the most number of correct entries was the winner
4. Candy airplane- (Things needed: Smarties, life savers, Chewing gum stick, rubber bands; 10 min)
- This was something I found online and is a nice activity to do when getting the food ready
- I had pre-organised all the items by table in the suitcase centerpieces along with copies of the instructions on how to put it together
5. Kids activity - Luggage tags
- I had easy to assemble luggage tags that the kids could make with some adult supervision for the little kids (www.orientaltrading.com)
Prizes for games:
All the prizes were travel themed like a deck of cards, magnetic travel games, etc
Take away gifts:
We put a little "Thank you" baggage tag on each of the paper bags and pre-packed the bags by family.We had a lot of couples who attended the party, so we decided to have take away gifts for adults and children.
Adults - Travel wallet
Children -
< 2 years - Airplane plush and a plastic cup
2 yrs - 5 yrs - Travel jigsaw puzzle
5 yrs - 12 yrs - Travel activity book
Over 12 yrs - Water bottle
It was a fun flight and all the 85 passengers who flew the flight had a great time!
Here's a short presentation on the same.
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