The Party Bags Are Over

Olly Mann takes issue with party bags for kids' birthdays, and he's not backing down

MY SON'S SEVENTH birthday is fast approaching, so conversation at my gaff has naturally turned to organising his party. For his first five birthdays, we hosted at home, repeating the same well-rehearsed formula: close family and friends, Costco cake, plastic tablecloth featuring whatever superhero he was into at the time, one of those tin-foiled cheese-and-pineapple hedgehog things, beers for the grown-ups. It was great.

But then, he got old enough to have an opinion about the guest list and venue. So, for his sixth birthday, we upped the ante and booked the local trampoline park. This worked out well, because his friends knackered themselves out from jumping, and therefore didn't notice how rank the pizza was; and we chaperons could hang out on the viewing gallery, ordering cappuccinos, catching up with gossip, and doing our darnedest to filter out the piercing shrieks of the leaping six-year-olds beneath us. But the whole event cost us hundreds of pounds.

This year, I'm trying to convince him that the dinosaur-themed soft play down the road offers just as much opportunity for screaming and bouncing and you don't even need to wear special socks! If I succeed, this will be cheaper, because we aren't required to hire a space-we can simply buy tickets for his mates, send out electronic invites, and bring our own food to the picnic area.