Last weekend, my oldest son turned 16. In a weak and sentimental moment, my husband and I decided to throw him a surprise party at our house. With the help of his best friend, we put together a guest list with a dozen names on it. Throughout the week, I extended invitations in a variety of ways to those on the list…emailing parents, texting the kids, yelling out my car window in the high school parking lot. You get the idea. Not exactly a Martha Stewart invitation.
It’s 6pm on Saturday night. A friend is keeping my son busy while the rest gather in our kitchen. SURPRISE! It worked. He had no idea.
And then came my SURPRISE. Every kid at the party had a cell phone and they were all working them, including my son. Up the street they came, one after another. In they walk, one after another (not on the invitation list)…confidently asking where everyone is. We reply…out back, outside, stay out there!
We ended up with about 35 kids, we think. Jokingly, my husband said that to be sure, we’d need to download our photos to see who was actually here. They beat us to that too. Within 30 minutes of the party ending, his friends had posted their own photos on Facebook and they were all chatting about the fun they had.
The evening made me reflect back on my own teenage years. With no cell phones or Internet, we were stuck driving around town looking for friends in our various hideouts. Oak Street, the dead end, the grocery store parking lot, etc. I think that by the time we found some of the parties, it was close to curfew for many of us. I can even remember some nights never finding them at all.
And as far as recapping a party or finding out where everyone ended up that night…well, you had to wait to use your family’s phone the next day. Or maybe you ran into someone at church. Worse case? You had to wait until Monday at school. Can you imagine waiting that long?!#
My take-away…extend invitations about an hour before the party starts. Have a basket at the front door and ask everyone to kindly drop their phones in the basket while at the party. And get on Facebook, so you know exactly who attended and what went on!