<p>Open houses have been pretty boring here in Toledo. Everyone rents a big tent along with tables and chairs and serves sandwiches and a cake. I’d really appreciate any unique ideas for an activity, decorations, or food.</p>
<p>A dessert-only gathering, later in the day. This works because many people will have been to other open houses and will have had their fill of sandwiches. Forget the Big Sheet Cake. Have a selection of cool desserts (rich cakes, giant cookies, strawberry short cakes, chocolate dipped strawberries?) instead. Include make-your-own sundaes and root-beer floats if that sounds good to you. Don’t forget teas and decaf coffee.</p>
<p>Does that help?</p>
<p>Another option: an old-fashioned hot-dog cart instead of the usual fare.</p>
<p>Any advice on combining open houses for two or three graduating seniors?</p>
<p>We live in a development with a clubhouse that has a pool. I plan to do it poolside. I am sending 2 sets of invites (late afternoon for family and early evening for s’s friends) Of course not kicking family out, but I am pretty sure that once the music changes and kids start swimming they’ll be moving out of the pool area and into the clubhouse. This way it’s a happy medium, family gets his attention for awhile and he gets to have the “cool” party with friends. I am catering from an Italian place, I did the catering thing once before and swear by it now (I still do the dessert and salads). If you figure out how much you spend on serving trays, plates, napkins and the food it is very close…figure in my time and it is dead even. Afterall, who wants to spend their life in the kit.</p>
<p>Our school sends out a letter to grad parents who may want to do a group party. Ea. parent pays about 200, they are allowed to invite 10-20 kids and it is held at the country club (same place as their prom). Typically about 25 people do it and the kids have a blast. Our school is small (350 sr) and so there is overlap with friends and it ends up that every student hosting it always has their pals there. They have a dj, hor’s deuvres, cake and soda. What I like about it, is that you know the time it starts and ends and there are alot of chaperones…definetly not worried about underage drinking.</p>
<p>If you combine several openhouses, look for optional venues, i.e. and arboretoreum, downtown park gazebo, in NJ they rent out the old gov., mansion cheap for daytime functions, in our town we had a historic theatre b4 it burnt down that could be rented. Look in the community area of the phonebook and see where they host the town festivals, usually it has bathrooms, electricity and the town will rent it cheap, than you hire a tenting service and have them bring it (ask the town they might rent you tents also) </p>
<p>I knew someone who did this with the theme 1 night in Paris (their prom theme). They asked the school for the leftover prom decs and got them, so they were able to decorate for free also</p>
<p>Friends had a Mexican-themed Open House, held at our subdivision club house. Four boys’ families went together. They had a nacho bar as their food. It went over well.</p>
<p>By the way, I loved their invitation. They took a photo of the four boys sitting on top of the school sign, with the school in the background.</p>
<p>I prefer end of summer parties to honor the graduates—just before the kids are heading off to school…The kids are psyched about leaving for school and seem to value their friendships more due to the realization that college is just around the corner. </p>
<p>The open houses at graduation get old really fast for the kids AND parents! S went to an early August party at a park and said it was the most fun of all the parties because everybody was relaxed and hadn’t just seen the same crowd the day before at somebody else’s party. The dads flipped burgers and dogs, the kids played volleyball and had lots of fun! The ‘theme’ revolved around their imminent departure to the halls of learning 
… </p>
<p>I also truly enjoyed being included on the guest list. I know some parents aren’t into the whole thing of honoring their kids’ friends, but I enjoyed being able to personally give them my best wishes and, for the most part, the kids seemed to enjoy having the parents there…</p>
<p>Hey, I’m in Toledo and…well, you’re probably right!!! My D graduated last year and can’t say that any of the parties we went to were out of the ordinary…</p>
<p>We did a “Fiesta” theme - my D loves her sombrero and people who came seemed to think our food at least was unique…Mexican of course…we did do the sheet cake, but also had chocolate dipped fruit which went over very well…</p>
<p>Depends on your budget. Depends on your crowd - who’s coming (lots of kids or lots of adults?) and your space…if you think about it, the tent thing comes from most people preferring to keep a crowd of never ending people out of the house and more contained in the yard if possible…we had a gorgeous 75 degree day - couldn’t have asked for more…</p>
<p>You could always look at having it somewhere other than home…A metropark or Maumee Bay…</p>
<p>IMO, the goal should be to have a party that you can accomodate (again space, $$$ etc.) and that will satisfy your graduate…let it be about who they are - they want to spend time with their friends, have something to eat - not much more than that!</p>
<p>Howabout a college theme, colors of the school, food from that area (if going to Chicago deep dish pizzas, Philly --cheesesteaks, Florida South beach diet food :), cincinnatti --the funky fries (sis lives there, isn’t it watered down chili). Then you can have soda coosies(sp) from the school.</p>
<p>It’s great to see there are some people out there with imaginations. Thanks!</p>
<p>My D says she wants to go camping with a group of about ten kids (coed). I’m kind of horrified to be honest. She’ll have just turned 18.</p>
<p>mammall: the coed camp out was Spring Break my S’s senior year in HS. I made sure everyone was 18, gave him “the talk” and wished him well (OK–I made him get 2 new tires to drive to the state park). Everyone survived and had a great time.</p>
<p>I suggest that people consider giving their soon-to-be grad a budget and let them plan their own party with just their friends. My S and GF invited friends to a restaurant they selected and had the party w/o parents and relatives. They stayed w/in budget.</p>
<p>I got calls from their friends thanking me saying that was the best idea they had heard of. </p>
<p>Candidly, your child is NOT friends with everyone in his/her graduating class AND really would like a party for himself and his close friends and WITHOUT you, and Aunt Betty and the 6th grade teacher, etc.</p>
<p>And my next favorite time for a party - Thanksgiving weekend. No leftovers and see how all of the friends (and their parents) are doing after a couple of months out of the nest.</p>
<p>We didn’t do a big open house party. Instead we had an out door barbecue at a hotel. We opted to to it outside of our home because of my long hours at work. We invited her closest 15 friends and parents. It was a dressy affair, with a lot of school color balloons everywhere. I made a montage (sp?) of those 15 kids, and showed it on a large video screen (most of moms had a good cry). I gave the video out to every kid. The party was suppose to last only 3 hours, but everyone stayed much later because it was small and most of us had known each other since kids were in grade school. We walked down a lot of memory lanes that night. We also celebrated the fact college process was over.</p>
<p>Let me offer a suggestion that was really fun for our S and his best friend; we had a toga party in our backyard! Don’t think “Animal House” though–we wrote a funny poem for the invitation, invited about 80 kids and only those parents we were quite friendly with, and asked everyone to come in costume. OUr family were all in togas and lots of the kids were too. We called the party for 5 - 8 p.m. on the Tues night after their Saturday graduation so as not to conflict with other people’s parties. We had it “catered” by a Subway-type sandwich restaurant. The biggest hit of all? We rented a moonwalk for the backyard (yes, I know it has nothing to do with toga parties) and the kids just loved it!</p>
<p>O.K. I like the toga idea and I like the moonwalk idea, but putting the two together scares me! My toga costumes never stayed together too well at those fraternity parties.</p>
<p>Easy–we just told the girls to wear shorts underneath! Also keep in mind that no alcohol is being served, it’s in broad daylight (in May it’s light until almost 9) and lots of parents are there. We weren’t worried and we didn’t need to be.</p>