The weekend descended and so did the quest for the ideal venue for the (not so) little one’s birthday party. Gone are the days when kids were satisfied with the “Baar Baar yeh din aye” kind of celebrations with party hats and cakes and adults having most of the samosas and the fun. No sir – today’s kids face peer pressure from the moment they start social engagements – right at the nursery next door. Coupled with the “allergy epidemic” and healthy eating (never mind the French fries and pizza that every restaurant has on their kids menu), making preparations for a kid’s birthday celebration tops every kind of stress there is:))
So nowadays, there are no motichoor ke laddoo and samosa-jalebi-ice cream combinations – oh they are so unhealthy for the poor kids – lets feed them margarita pizza, chicken nuggets, healthy fries (as good an oxymoron as they come) and organic juices – never from concentrate (why can’t they just give them the fruit), and yes, let’s have it at your friendly neighborhood (not Spiderman) Mc Donalds, coz, of course, who else serves better health and tasty non-processed slow cooked food than them? Ideal for kids, and cholesterol.
The venues themselves have multiple tier packages – the base package which looks good and within budget, until your eyes reach the “premium”package, than makes the base option look bad rather than be a great upgrade in itself, and then the “ultra” or “diamond” package which can make opting for the base package seem like living in a shared apartment with 20 others. By then, you just feel poor. Maybe ploughing in your life savings to have 30 odd screaming kids run around for two hours is what you were born to achieve.
And then there is the “goody bag” that contains, well, as many plasticky options from Temu as one could reasonably fit in (presumably for the free shipping). That electronic board that stops working the moment it is taken out of the box, the odds and ends that one can never figure out what use they come to, and the sticker that survives for 3 seconds on the unfortunate surface that it graces. And yes, the Barnie Bear cake from Viva (it’s a Dubai thing).
So, therein lies the challenge. Getting this done, without getting the standard stuff done. I know I can just go with the flow and do what everyone ends up doing (thats a lot of do in the last two sentences), but it’s no fun. It’s not me. And it surely isn’t what I want for him.
Let me try. Wish me luck!