Postby mumoftwo » Mon Mar 11, 2013 1:54 pm
Just had my daughter's 4th birthday party, and because she currently goes to the nursery at her older brother's school, she has a pool of 42 classmates... Since she has not yet formed firm friendships and plays with any or all of them on different days of the week, it was impossible to cut the list down without being rather arbitrary and unfair. So we invited all of them (with some trepidation!!). I sent the invitations along to nursery the Monday before the party, thinking that the late notice would keep numbers reasonable. By Wed I had 12 yes's, and by the day of the party it was 24 (plus birthday girl and brother). Was mayhem, but loads of fun and she loved it.
My husband and I are broadly thinking (hoping!) that 5th birthday is probably the last one where you have to invite the whole class. Beyond that, they've been together for a while and have formed friendships, so we're hoping we should be able to do smaller group celebrations. But if they go to a nursery and have a wide circle of classmates then before 5th it can be very hard to work out who the smaller group could be... I did try to get DD to go through the list of names with me to cut it down, but every name elicited a variation on "oh yes, we must invite Jimmy, he's my best friend!" so it was impossible!