Congratulations, Mom and Dad! You did it! You’ve seen your son or daughter through 12 years of schooling through the aches and pains of adolescence, through years of difficult teachers, cliques, braces and cafeteria drama. You’ve been there to check over thousands of pages of math homework and to praise thousands of spelling tests. You’ve packed lunches, you’ve made playdates, you’ve driven so many hours to and from sporting events and social activities with your child that by now, weeks of your life have passed in the car. You deserve a pat on the back. You deserve a varsity letter. You deserve a party!
As you consider throwing your high school senior a graduation party, you’ll probably have a few prominent concerns: Will it be safe? Will it be fun? Will it be affordable?
Will it be safe?
The Drug Free Action Alliance has a campaign called, “Parents Who Host, Lose The Most.” The purpose is to educate parents on the legal responsibilities and ramifications of hosting parties where there will be alcohol accessible to minors. On its website, the group has published a list of helpful tips for parents, whose main points can be summarized this way:
Make a guest list and send invitations by mail. With social media being what it is, there has never been a more critical time to heed this advice. You may remember hearing about the sweet 16 party in Hamburg, Germany, last summer, that was RSVPed by 15,000 and attended by 1,500. It happened when a Facebook event was marked as public/everyone, instead of private. A graduation party is not an event you’ll want to risk on an e-mail or Facebook invitation.
If you’re really committed to sending the invitations digitally, E-vite.com is safe and private, as long as you personally handle the guest list.
Don’t serve alcohol to minors or allow kids to bring their own, and be proactive if a minor comes to the event already intoxicated. While this shouldn’t need to be said, it does. We parents can be convinced of a lot by our children, and if you are planning this party with your graduate, there is a good chance this topic will come up. She’ll let you know that she and her friends are all 18 now, headed off to college, and every other party will be serving it. First off, every other party won’t be, and second, it’s irrelevant. The drinking age is 21 and the adults at the party will be held responsible in every sense of the word if an accident involving underage drinking happens following the event. This includes situations when a teen comes already under the influence and leaves again. Greet each attendee. Take keys and call parents if you have a concern, and kindly tell your child’s friends (with a few reasonable exceptions) that once they leave your house to continue “party hopping,” they may not return.
Don’t segregate students from adults. Rather than create two separate party rooms (adults upstairs, teens in the finished basement, or adults inside, teens outside), try to create groups of seats and activities that intermingle around the same food and drink tables. This provides the students some accountability for their language and behavior and allows Grandma and Uncle Martin a few minutes to chat with the graduate, for whom they’ve likely traveled some distance to celebrate.
Will it be fun ?
This leads us to concern No. 2: “Will it be fun?” The two ingredients needed to host a successful party are food and entertainment. There are a few easy additions to a party that can set it apart from all the other parties of the weekend. Consider buying a few carnival games and lawn games inexpensively from a place like Oriental Trading Company or take it a step further and rent a snow cone machine or cotton candy machine. These little novelties can go a long way to bump up the excitement of your party without taking up much space.
“I think people underestimate what’s available to rent,” says Jessica Herberger, owner of Experience Events in the Capital District. “You can literally rent anything. It’s not just about tables and chairs, but lawn games, snow cone, cotton candy and popcorn machines, paper lanterns, chafing dishes, candles, vases etc.”
Party planning companies like Experience Events, are not just for celebrity baby showers or catered weddings. Herberger says most planners offer a wide range of services and works with any budget. If a client simply needs some direction in terms of theme, food and decor, Herberger will help provide a custom party plan that the client then implements. If supplies are a biggest concern, Experience Events can fill and deliver party crates with the items the client selects such bunting, streamers, favors with hand-made tags, party signage, activities and more. Herberger says planners will also help set up events if that’s what the client needs.
Will it be affordable?
One area of worry with graduation parties, is that there are likely many other parties going on at the same time that your own student is going to want to attend. Jessica Herberger came up with a few models to help alleviate that issue, as well as address that final concern: “Will it be affordable?”
Ensure that your guests all attend, most especially the guest of honor, by kicking off the day with a brunch or pancake breakfast. Nothing says cheap, heartwarming goodness, like a stack of pancakes and bacon! Add some fresh fruit, carafes of hot coffee and cocoa, small glass dishes of real maple syrup, flavored syrups, fruit toppings, mini-marshmallows and enjoy. You’ve taken the alcohol discussion completely off table, literally, and set the tone for a wonderful day of celebration.
Another way to avoid the prime party hours and keep costs down is to throw a good old-fashioned ice cream social at the end of a long party day. Purchase vats of slow churned ice cream, rent glass sundae cups and canisters for toppings, bake several dozen chocolate chip cookies and pans of brownies and don’t skimp on the maraschino cherries! While the other parents are cleaning their grills and picking up paper cups from the yard, you will be the hero of the hour, hosting a fun and safe “after party.”
Extensions of this could include a bonfire/s’mores fest once it gets dark, renting a projector and screen for an outdoor movie and a fireworks display. Decorations can be as simple as white tea lights in canning jars or paper bags.
Slingerlands mom Susan MacMillan, whose daughter Sydney is graduating from Bethlehem Central High School this spring, has her own plan to handle the party timing issue.
“I think we’ll do a traditional backyard barbecue and prepare a lot of dishes like salads and desserts in advance, but we’ll do it later in the summer so we won’t be competing with all the other parties that weekend and so Sydney will be able to be there the whole time,” MacMillan says.
She is also considering having a small restaurant cater the main dishes since Sydney isn’t a big meat eater. That brings up another good point: Keep your teen the star of the day by taking his or her preferences into account when deciding menu, theme and activities.
Sydney’s party will have a rain date as well, to be sure it’s thrown outside and all the guests can be together. Parties like this provide good motivation for those home improvement projects that never seem to get finished, too.
“We’ll need to make sure the new deck is done before the party ” says MacMillan.
Sandy Lamb, of Fairfax, Va., will be throwing her third and youngest daughter’s high school graduation party this June, and has a fun tip for decorating. She has one set of food and drink tables decorated with paper products and balloons in the colors of the high school her daughter is departing and another set of tables in the colors of the college she is entering. Her daughters typically then wear their new college’s T-shirt or dress in those colors. It’s a fun and easy way to pay homage to the past four years while looking forward to the next four. Her parties have also been of a backyard barbecue variety, minus the barbecue because the family is vegetarian, with main dishes being large bowls of egg salad, tuna salad, pasta salad, rolls, fruit, veggies, shrimp cocktail and many desserts.
And finally, what do all of these grads want as graduation presents? Not surprisingly, gift cards are still highest on the list. Gas cards, Panera, TCBY, Subway and Dunkin Donuts cards are great for those staying at home and attending community college or entering the workforce, while Target, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Wal-Mart, Regal Movie cards or manicure gift certificates (as spending money will be hard to come by) are great for those headed away to school. And don’t think you have to spend a ton. Here’s a final little tip my own family has been using for years: Have the gift card, certificate or check made out in the exact dollar amount as the graduation year. So that’s $20.12 for this year clever and thoughtful without breaking the bank.
