The baby is almost here! You are over the moon to welcome your little bundle of joy into the world… and all your friends and family are flipping out to celebrate with you. If you’re anything like most of the women 7+ months pregnant (when baby showers usually take place), you can’t see your feet, you can’t lift anything heavier than a backpack up off the counter, and the thought of organizing a baby shower on your own seems like the most daunting task quite possibly ever. You still want to put together some kind of gathering to get all your pals under one roof to light it up one time before baby arrives. Well, hopes are you have 1 or 2 (hopefully more) good friends who are willing to roll up their sleeves and help you put together a little something something to commemorate the baby on the way. If you want to ensure you aren’t overdoing it without missing any quintessential steps, let me tell you a few things about what really worked well for me.
Consider this a party for your inner child. What would she most certainly be the most happiest to see/do/eat at such an event? She would love to see you live your best life! She would enjoy watching all of you drinking cocktails with umbrellas hanging over the side….even if yours just so happens to be a mocktail. She would love to see you eat cake, playing games and receiving the love you so thoroughly deserve. Delegate tasks to friends who are willing to help. Ask one friend to take care of the food or all of your friends to bring a dish following a general theme, and the other two to handle decor. If you’re having a summer baby maybe a soirée outside is most fitting. This could take place in a backyard, in a park or on the beach. If money is tight and you don’t rent furniture, bring lots of pillows and blankets for people to sit on or ask all your friends to bring their own. No one will complain, it’s your day, remember! Make one big jug of your favorite tasty punch for everyone to share and ladle portions directly into plastic cups. You can even make two…one alcohol free or just have champaign for those who would like a little liquid courage floating ‘round. Don’t skimp on things that are important to you! Ask everyone to play a part. Its much more fun when all hands are on deck.
Pick a theme and select a few games to tie it all together. I enjoyed this portion of my baby shower very much. I had a baby in a pandemic so mine was virtual. My biggest worry was keeping everyone engaged for longer than 30/45 minutes on a zoom. So I partitioned the day’s events. The first 30 minutes was meet & greet. I encouraged my guests to have a drink of their choice on deck to make things as lively as possible. Just because we couldn’t all be in the same room didn’t mean we couldn’t enjoy that energy we were all seeking.
After the meet / greet where my guests all shared origin stories about how we all met we played a multiple choice game which required you to take a sip of our alcohol if we guessed wrong. These first round of questions were general questions about pregnant women and the world at large. I found a slew of good baby shower game questions on the internet and cherry picked. The second round of questions were all about me and my baby daddy directly. This was the “how well do you know the couple” round. It was by far the most fun and lengthy part of the day. I believe I had 15 or so questions in this round in addition to the 15 or so that came in the previous round. It took us almost an hour and a half to play both rounds. This was in part because my friends loved to chat and go into depth about each answer.
Afterwards I shared a slide show of the girls because I had them all submit baby photos of themselves prior as a special gift for the nursery along with a quote and I wanted to show them what they had created. They were all so touched to see their little faces on the screen next to all of our friends. It was my special treat and thank you to them. I then opened gifts and ate the massive cake I was happy to display on camera. LOL. In general, there was a little something for everyone to enjoy and the event sparkled because we all made the effort enjoy each others company, share stories and send good energy to the little baby on the way. Give your guests some homework like I did, you won’t regret it. And just remember, gifts aren’t the only thing that make the day go around.
