The birthday party still ranks as the most exciting day of the year, even for your tween! While you have variety of birthday party venue choices to choose from, like gym parties, ceramics, bowling parties, and more, all of a sudden your tween looks at you and demands slumber party. After years of handing over the reins to a party place for their nice, neat 1.5 hr package, you are on your own. Don’t fear! Here is how to make an awesome slumber party for your kid.
First, let your child be as involved as she wants in the planning. Tweens are old enough to come up with high level, cool ideas for their own big day. Put your heads together and pick a theme or activity, and you are on your way to making this the best sleepover yet! You’ll be surprised at how easy and fun planning together can be.
One of our favorite themes is “Take a Trip.” First you pick a destination, like the Caribbean, New Orleans, or Japan. Take Japan for example. Your party theme would be “Take a Trip to Japan,” and you can transform your apartment into a party space with paper lanterns, colorful printed fans, and coordinating balloons. The kids will have a blast learning origami and making candy sushi. Disposable bento boxes are perfect for the kids to take their creations home in. For dinner, order in from your child’s favorite neighborhood sushi place. Follow with a unique Japanese-inspired signature cake from Lady M Confections, or have a sundae bar with green tea, red bean, and lychee ice cream. Everyone can snuggle in their pajamas and watch a movie, maybe award winning animator Miyazaki’s, “Spirited Away.”
Your theme can also be based around games, activities, or some friendly competition. Divide the kids up into teams and stage your own “Cupcake Wars,” “America’s Got Talent,” or “Minute to Win It.” They will love starring in the birthday girl’s reality TV show. Not a fan of reality culture? No worries–kick it old school! Bust out a Ouija board, teach ‘em how to conduct a seance, tell ghost stories, and actually have your child open presents in front of their guests. Retro can be fun!
Another way to personalize the slumber party is to up the ante from pizza to cooking your child’s favorite dinner. Let her help create the meal, and design and print the menu. Remember not to skimp on breakfast, the sleepover finale! Tweens love feeling confident in the kitchen. Have them crack the eggs and flip the pancakes. You can also set up a waffle bar with yummy toppings, or sing another round of “Happy Birthday” and blow out the candles again on a coffee cake.
If this all seems a little too DIY, bring in the pros–a really easy way to entertain! Call in a professional glam squad or even your older niece or babysitter to run a spa party or order up a private chef for a cooking lesson. Since slumber parties tend to be a smaller group, splurge and treat the kids to a night on the town at Sugar Factory, Brooklyn Farmacy, Black Tap, or even a red sauce joint in Little Italy. How about a movie, concert, Broadway show, or Knicks game? Stop into a cool candy store on the way, and let them fill individual candy bags, an event unto itself. Want to get really extravagant? Book a night at a hotel and have the sleepover there. Other sleep out options could be a night at a weekend home, or Grandma’s house in the ‘burbs.
No matter what type of party you choose, your birthday kid and their guests are sure to have a great time at the ultimate sleepover party!
Katy Goldman and Allison Zaslow are the founders of B2, a Manhattan-based and mom-based team that specializes in fun and fanciful activities for teens and the adults in their lives to do together. One of their most popular specialties is customized sleepover parties. For more of B2’s ideas and events for tweens and the adults who love them, visit b2events.nyc.
