Planning for Little Dude's Third

If there's one thing I realized about having a child born on the early part of the year, that is how challenging it would be to plan birthday parties every single time. 

You see, Marcus was born on January 6th - that's about two weeks after christmas and less than a week after new year (then there's also his papsy's birthday on the 30th of December and the annual stressful year-end closing at work!).  That means all the holidays and merry-making are just about done by the time of his birthday.  The difficult side of this are:

1. Party planning adds to all the holiday rush, as if all the christmas shopping, gift wrapping, attending and arranging parties left and right, menu preparations, etc. aren't enough 
2. Non-working holidays cause some some period of downtime in terms of coordinating with suppliers who may also be on vacation
3. Bonuses have just been given out towards the end of the year and therefore people are broke by the early start of the year (well at least for me!) and so if not planned early, budget becomes a constraint

When I look back at the little dude's first birthday, I couldn't help but feel a little regret for not having been able to make it as "grand" as I hoped it to be because of lack of preparation.  By mid-December, the only thing final was the venue, caterer (without menu yet!), and McDonald's.  A few days before, I still didn't have cake, entertainment, or matching outfits for the three of us.  Oh my, just enumerating all these things is making me sad.  For an HR person like me who is so used to organizing company events, this is so... bad!  Tsk tsk.

Skinny little dude with kid Mcdo on his (bordering disastrous) first birthday

That's why I learned my lesson.  As early as now, I'm starting to plan for Marcus' third birthday party.  For a the-works party, this is still late but since I'm just thinking of a simple celebration at his toddler school, I think the timing is just right.  As I write this post, I am making a list of the things that need to be taken care of for the party - food, decorations, entertainment, and favors.  My target is to have everything polished before christmas, which is 60 days to go.  Wish me luck!