Suddenly, your baby’s an adult, and it’s nice to mark the occasion with a little added oomph. Only question is, what kind of party? How do you incorporate his friends into the celebration? And what on earth do you put in an 18-year-old’s goody bag?
No worries. Teenagers don’t need goody bags – although if your heart is absolutely set on treat bags, a $5 iTunes or Starbucks card and some Hershey’s kisses will do nicely. But an 18th birthday offers all sorts of more grown-up party possibilities. Unless you’re going the surprise party route, be sure to clear your plans with your child and involve him in the planning. Here are five 18th birthday party possibilities. (Pssst - if your child is already away at college, here's how to get a birthday cake shipped there in time.)
- A Surprise Party: A surprise party is always a fun and relatively easy option. Enlist the help of a couple of your child’s friends to assemble a guest list, choose a location – a cool sushi restaurant, for example, or a boisterous Tex-Mex joint, or your home – and get your child to the designated location at the appointed time. (Click here for easy ideas for an at-home taco bar, panini buffet and other options.) There’s no need for additional activities – good food, wonderful friends and hang time is all you need.
- A Limo Adventure: A pricier, but definitely luxe option – and one that particularly appeals to teenage girls who like the idea of a glamorous, dressed up night on the town - involves renting a limousine for a couple of hours ($200-$400, depending on the limo company and time element). They can tour the city, snap glamorous photos of each other and grab dinner at a teen-pleasing restaurant such as the Cheesecake Factory, a favorite with the prom crowd.
- An Experiential Splurge: Grab a couple of your teen’s friends and catch a baseball game or a show, hit the beach, go river rafting, or book a cooking-for-college class at a local kitchen boutique. (If you go the baseball route, be sure to arrange for a happy birthday message on the scoreboard.)
- A Shared Wisdom Party: This one’s particularly lovely for a family dinner. A few weeks before the big birthday, take a large scrapbook apart. Remove the heavy pages and send one to each member of your extended family and other important people in your child’s life. Ask them to share their best life advice and any photos they’d like to include for the newest adult member of the family. Present the bound scrapbook at the birthday dinner and read the pages aloud.
- A Wild Scavenger Hunt: No, not the old “find a clothespin and a green Lego” type of hunt. This is the kind Stanford’s freshmen run every fall during campus welcome week. In the Stanford version, students fan out across San Francisco with cameras and a list of quirky, hilarious and often risque items to “capture” and bring back. You'll want to omit some of the Stanford choices – the naughty ones and anything involving a tattoo or piercing parlor – but the others are fairly inspired: getting your (preferably male) face made up at a Mac cosmetics counter, singing or doing a conga line through some public venue, or posing with a police officer. Craft an inventive list and turn the kids loose with their cell phone cameras. Code-filled treasure hunts are good options too, as is Geocaching, a treasure hunt that uses GPS units and a web site with thousands of possible treks.
And afterward, bring on the frosting swirls and ice cream. And the gifts. Don't forget the gifts! (Here are 89 suggestions for those.)
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