Party Politics….

It’s OK this isn’t a political post really, although I would like to say thank you to our local Labour candidate who nearly ran me off the road on Thursday when he was concentrating more on his loundspeaker thing than his driving! 

This is about a different kind of party politics – birthday parties….

Earlier this week Miss Frugal told me about a party one of her friends was having that she hadn’t been invited to.  She wasn’t too bothered herself but as the birthday girl had been one of the girls invited to Miss Frugal’s pamper party last September, I couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t been invited.  We had a quick chat about how everyone couldn’t be invited to everyone’s party and she seemed to forgot about it but me, being the worrier that I am, worried that they’d fallen out or that there was some other reason why she hadn’t been invited.

It must have bothered Miss Frugal more than she’d let on as well because the next day she came home from school and said that she’d asked the birthday girl why she hadn’t been invited (she’s not backwards in coming forwards) and was pleased that the the little girl had told her that she hadn’t actually chosen the guests herself – it was her mam.  Rather than sending out invitations, she just texted or Facebooked the parents with the details and only the children of the parents in her little school gate clique were invited.  So now I’m worried about why I’m not popular enough to be in the cliquey group or why I’m not receiving lots of Facebook friend requests from the other mums (only joking, I’m not really worrying about that- should I be? ;-))

In all seriousness though, I always thought there was a kind of birthday party etiquette, if your child was invited to someones party, you would make sure that you invited them to your childs.  That’s what I’ve always done as it seems like the ‘right thing’ to do.  I even write the names of the children whose parties we’ve been to on my calendar so I don’t miss anyone out!

And while I’m whingeing on about birthday party etiquette, why do people think it’s acceptable to let you know on the morning of the party that their child will be coming to your party or to not let you know at all and then just turn up! 

So now that I’ve got that off my chest, I’ll be off to tidy the house as it looks like a disaster after Miss Frugal’s sleepover last night…. I could be gone a while!