A Jingle Bells + Happy Birthday Mashup

Trying to make a December 20th birthday standout on it's own without being steamrolled by Christmaspalooza is hard, I'm finding out. As H grows, I refuse to let it get lost in all the holly and jolly. He's just turning one this year, so we have a few practice runs before he realizes this day really matters.

We decided that since it's so close to Christmas and we don't want to take up out-of-town family's whole day (and because our house is on the small size), we'd have two parties for him. One with Neil's family at his mother's house and one at our house for my family. My freezer and oven are full of layer cakes for each party, the food  has been ordered for both parties and the paper goods are all prepared. Pinterest has been consulted ad nauseum. Two parties. Great idea, Lindsay. My dream is that once he's of friend-bday party age, parents will be dying to drop their kids off for the day so they can do last minute shopping. Or how cool would a NYE sleepover bday party be? And what parent wouldn't love to have an overnight babysitter on NYE?

And since we're talking about it... Does a first birthday party really need to be a big, huge thing? I know of people who have rented halls and had elaborate, catered events. With W, we just had grandparents over our house because he was still on preemie related germ lock down. But even if he had been healthy, I don't know that I would have done much more.

Is your child's birthday around Christmas or another big holiday? What do you do to make it stand out, apart from the holiday festivities?

It's a birthday tree...