<p>My daughter, who will be turing 16 shortly, has strongly hinted that she would like me to plan a surprise party for her.</p>
<p>She is not a super social kid, although she interacts well with adults and does have a number of friends that she mainly sees at school.</p>
<p>I am thinking of maybe having about 12 people at a party - perhaps serving fondue – and I’m looking for an activity, especially as not all the guests will know each other.</p>
<p>One idea I have had (and posted a thread here) was to have them build gingerbread houses, but I’m guessing that might be too ambitious.</p>
<p>Any other ideas? Cookie decorating would probably be a bit too lame – I want something quirky along the lines of hermit crab racing or maybe building small vehicles to chase around the house.</p>
<p>I think a Yankee swap will also work well, with strange gifts like a kit with a gnome to paint (saw it today at Newbury Comics).</p>
<p>What about a photo scavenger hunt at the local mall? Followed by lunch/ dinner. D just did this in SF with her dorm. Said it was a great bonding experience.</p>
<p>I always wanted to do a Spa party for one of our girls but they didn’t like the idea. Maybe I should throw one for myself.</p>
<p>You could do gingerbread houses the way they did in preschool with graham crackers and milk cartons. Be sure to have lots of gum drops and m and m’s for decorations. They might be amused. We always had a treasure hunt and I’d still do one if my son would let us have a party for him. Painting t-shirts is another activity they might enjoy.</p>
<p>They could make bead necklaces or crowns (You can buy silver wire and a variety of cool beads and ribbons if you want it to be relatively upscale crowns, or the kind of thread sold for stringing beads plus a variety of beads if you want it to be more modest. There are several great beading stores in my area), eat hot fudge sundaes (Make good sauce, maybe even make the ice cream together), and watch a chick flick. (I went to a women’s weekend once when we did those things, amongst others. Lots of fun.) </p>
<p>I just did a Sweet 16 for D2. It was a lot smaller than D1’s, but it took just as much work. We had 50 kids and I did a night club scene, complete with up lights, bar tables and a DJ. I did a montage of D2, I had great time doing it.</p>
<p>Your D sounds very much like my own! I’m very much looking forward to reading the ideas you get. </p>
<p>Have you thought of something artistic? I know in the past we had a multi-generational painting party: an artist came, brought all the supplies, and walked us through, step by step, into painting a beautiful watercolor landscape from scratch. It’s a bit formulaic, but each of our productions came out looking fabulous! This person was able to make everyone feel like an artist. </p>
<p>I know of another artist who does parties, and has the group do a number of things, including making a large abstract painting at the end. The neat thing about it is these are all very interactive (lots of talking while doing, lots of laughs), introduce some new skills for those without the exposure, and you end up with a valuable keepsake at the end as well. </p>
<p>Another might be an outdoor activity party. Examples that would work for our D would be go-cart racing, or horseback riding, or skiing/skating/tobagganing (and renting a chalet for the weekend). For others it might be say bowling, or going to a ceramics shop. But these may be very dependent upon time of year, your D’s interests and where you live.</p>
<p>Here is my take on a Sweet 16 party. No matter how down to earth they are, they want something just a bit more different (or sophisticated) than other parties they’ve had.</p>
<p>What about a grown up sit down dinner for the girls or boys? A friend of mine set up tables complete with table clothes/napkings, nice china at her house. Kids got dressed up. They played some music (danced) after dinner, boys went home later and girls slept over. My daughter said it was a lot of fun.</p>
<p>Another family had the guests cook the meal - someone made appetizer, some made the main course, dessert. Parents provided the ingredients.</p>
<p>Yes we definitely want to serve a nice meal, which is why I was thinking of fondue (works for vegetarians as well).</p>
<p>Now I am thinking that I will have a choice of silly crafty things from which they could choose - I saw a paint your own garden gnome kit at Newbury Comics, maybe the materials for a balloon propelled car, and a few other things.</p>
<p>For one of D’s birthday parties, the girls made chocolate truffles. I bought some ultra-cheap little bowls for the various kinds of sprinkles. I had the ingredients mixed and chilled already - they just had to roll them in balls and dip them in cocoa, powdered sugar, sprinkles, etc. I provided the little white candy papers and a fancy box for each of them.</p>
<p>Some ideas from parties my kids have gone to-
How about a cooking class? My D attended a party where they had a caterer come and give a cooking lesson for the girls. They made a multi-course meal and of course ate it.</p>
<p>Another had a yoga teacher come and do a class. The made a healthy dinner and had a sleepover.</p>
<p>Lots of good ideas here! My oldest D has a December birthday and sounds similar to the kind of kid you have. I just wanted to throw in my two cents about the importance of timing: If you can possibly schedule the party right after the kids’ last final, they will be happy no matter what you do! The relief, energy, silliness and giddiness (sp?) that go along with a post-finals high makes any party more fun than it would be if it were, say, the weekend before finals. I finally learned this lesson while D was in high school and even though that meant her parties were about a week after her actual birthday, she understood because she and her friends always had such a great time.</p>
<p>One year we did ice skating, and another year we did that gingerbread house idea you were talking about. I didn’t read through that whole thread, but lemme tell you, we did everything wrong (ALL of the gingerbread houses collapsed because the pieces were too soft) and the girls just cracked up about it all and still had a fantastic time. We had fun holiday music playing in the background - I remember them getting up and dancing SILLY CRAZY to the Peanuts’ Linus and Lucy song. I can’t remember what else we had going on, but everyone had fun - and I attribute a lot of it to their predisposition to be happy and let loose because their finals were finally OVER.</p>
<p>Austinhills, great to hear about your experience building gingerbread houses - I like the idea of courting disaster but having a good time anyway.</p>
<p>IloveLA, thanks for the vote of confidence about the garden gnome idea. I saw some paintable garden gnome planters which strikes me as an even more ridiculous concept (and we could have plants and potting soil, too!) but the only ones available seem to come from the UK.</p>
<p>Charades are a lot of fun, and rarely happen these days. If you do charades, I’d have another activity also, like painting gnomes. Have you heard of gnome homes? They might find making them very cool. Or that might be too ambitious. How about making goddesses out of colored bake-able clay, then stringing them on cord with feathers and beads?</p>
<p>OP - for my twins’ 16th birthday (which was over the summer), I rented one of those huge bouncy inflatable jumping thingies and the kids had a BLAST. They never left it. We certainly got our money’s worth and then some. I also rented a cotton-candy-making machine which was a big hit, too. </p>
<p>don’t know what part of the country you are in and whether it’s warm enough, but I wanted to throw that out there.</p>