is there a statute of limitations for b-day parties?

[salsah]

my annoying neighbor recently invited us a birthday party for her two older boys. their birthdays were in february. when i hadn't received an invitation to a party by the end of february, i assumed that she wasn't having a party for them this year. then last week i found an invitation in the mail box. the party will be in april (on a sunday night at 6:30 -- this is the same person who invited us to a party for a her 2 yr old at 8 pm).
it just seems wrong to me to have a party that long after the actual birthdays. i can't understand why (it's not like they were out of town or had a major illness, surgery, family emergency, etc.).
anyone else think that it is wrong? or am i just weird?

[truly scrumptious]

I agree it seems a bit strange, but I wouldn't really let it bother me. After all, you never know why they may have decided to celebrate so late - there could have been an illness in the extended family or something that prevented them from celebrating. I remember as a child having one birthday celebration postponed because of a death in the extended family. Or maybe they just wanted to wait for warmer weather.
Having said that, if you are not terribly keen on going (and it sounds like you've had issues with this person in the past) I would have no problem sending my regrets.

[momof2girls]

So the issue is about the delay in having a party rather than the actual delivery of the invitation? My friend, whose DD was born on 9-11, always has her parties the week of Halloween. She does it b/c she is overwhelmed with back to school and tries to avoid 9-11 (we're in NJ so we are still sensitive to the date). Could it be that your neighbor is just a bit wishy washy and late to plan things out correctly? I wouldn't let it bother me but chalk it up to being a quirk of sorts.

[ncat]

I want to do this for DD - but hope to avoid calling it a bday party. If we want to have a big party at the house, it will be easiest to have it when the weather is nice, long after her actual birthday.

[Toba]

I do think it is rather long, but there may be extenuating circumstances that caused them to do it later. My DS's birthday was mid-March. We started looking for places for his party about 3 to 3-1/2 weeks before his birthday. We were sold on Bounce U (which I got from someone here ... THANK YOU!!) and we had several heavy snowstorms one right after the other which made them have a lot of postponed parties. Plus, they are crazy booked ... apparently it's a very popular place. They had open dates, but the times were really off (like 8:15 AM, 8:30 PM, stuff like that) so we chose to wait and get a better time so that we could serve food with the birthday cake. So DS's party is a little over four weeks after his actual birthday. We did actually have two smaller parties on his actual birthday (one at school and one at home for immediate family) so he feels ultra cool to have three birthday parties this year. ;) I don't think you're weird at all ... I would much rather have had his big birthday party on or around his birthday, but we had extenuating circumstances too and wanted it to be a more appropriate time for eating. In my mind, I'd rather have the eating thing at a more reasonable time than try to feed kids at 9 AM, KWIM? So we waited and booked it later.

[salsah]

just to clarify, the question is about the delay. it just seems weird. she is having it at an indoor place so it isn't about the weather. she hasn't mentioned any thing going on that would cause the delay. maybe it's just me because we don't do big parties and don't place much emphasis on them. (we had one party so far, for dd1's 4th. haven't done any for dd2, and don't plan to do any this yr for either dd. we just do family celebrations on the actual day or closest weekend.) so i just feel that if it isn't close to the time of the actual birthday, it is after the fact, after it is done, over, passed, it isn't really a birthday party anymore.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I agree it seems a bit strange, but I wouldn't really let it bother me. After all, you never know why they may have decided to celebrate so late - there could have been an illness in the extended family or something that prevented them from celebrating. I remember as a child having one birthday celebration postponed because of a death in the extended family. Or maybe they just wanted to wait for warmer weather.
Having said that, if you are not terribly keen on going (and it sounds like you've had issues with this person in the past) I would have no problem sending my regrets.

I agree with all that.

I wouldn't put much thought into why they delayed the party. Things happen. Maybe money was tight and they had to save up. You never know. It;s nice that they are celebrating the b-day now. In my family it isn't abnormal to celebrate a few weeks later just b/c of scheduling difficulties.

Beth

[ett]

It does seem a little strange but I wouldn't let it bother me as things do happen as PP's have mentioned. A couple of years ago, DS1 did go to a birthday party that was several months after the child's birthday. It could be private reasons that the family would not want to share. I do know people who have delayed parties because of weather reasons.

[newg]

I wouldn't worry too much about the delay.....I think the FB invite is strange; especially if not everyone you want to invite is on FB.......I've gotten tons of evites on my email though.
And I think the time of day is kinda strange too. If you don't want to go, then don't go and no worries!!

[SnuggleBuggles]

Maybe they couldn't get the time and date they wanted at the place so they held out for next available?

I'd still call it a b-day party and expect the celebrations even though it is really delayed.

Beth

[Toba]

just to clarify, the question is about the delay. it just seems weird. she is having it at an indoor place so it isn't about the weather. she hasn't mentioned any thing going on that would cause the delay. maybe it's just me because we don't do big parties and don't place much emphasis on them. (we had one party so far, for dd1's 4th. haven't done any for dd2, and don't plan to do any this yr for either dd. we just do family celebrations on the actual day or closest weekend.) so i just feel that if it isn't close to the time of the actual birthday, it is after the fact, after it is done, over, passed, it isn't really a birthday party anymore.

DS's party is going to be at an inside place too (it's a giant warehouse filled with 8 humungous bounce houses), but even though their facility is inside, they had dozens of postponements because of the weather we had back in January/February (we had three huge snowstorms one right after the other). I think if that hadn't happened, my DS's party would have been much closer to his birthday, but as I said in my earlier post, I was more concerned with people getting to eat at a normal time (ideally at 12 or 1 PM) than I was with the date. Just another perspective. ;)