Peter Chan’s recollection of his kids’ birthday parties 30 years ago brought back a lot of memories for me, especially since as a kid I experienced many such similar birthday parties. So what makes a good birthday party?

As much fun as parties were for the kids, parents might have found the whole experience either very rewarding or very stressful. Peter remembers:

Being a young parent and full of enthusiasm, I enjoyed being the events organizer. Hosting a house-party required a lot of efforts unlike hosting at MacDonald’s. We actually did it once at MacDonald’s over in East Coast Parkway. Though it might have been a good decision considering there was no need to worry about the after-party chores, clean-up and washing of dishes; something was missing. Maybe MacDonald’s looked too commercial or the ambience was missing.

Almost every year since the age of pre-school till PSLE, we made sure our boys invited their classmates, their “best friends and “best cousins”. We never dressed up the house with balloons and birthday banners, never hired a magician nor gave away goodie bags. There are some lessons to be learnt here because it is all about the basic tenets for sincere friendship.

Read about what went into an 80s kid’s birthday party in Peter’s post on Good Morning Yesterday.

I think as a kid the most coveted type of birthday party to attend/have was the McDonald’s birthday party, which came with a host who would organise the day’s party games, food and cake. Come to think of it, such were the influence of the McDonald’s parties that I’ve had a couple of friends who had their birthday celebrated at McDonalds (complete with host and all) in their adulthood!