Virtual Birthday Party Ideas for celebrating with family amidst a global pandemic. To celebrate our 10 year old’s birthday we had to think outside of the box and in doing so our online birthday party invitation became a full box!
As I have shared before we often celebrate our boys’ birthdays with experiences rather than birthday parties. Over the years our boys have blown out their candles at Disneyland (a few times), Legoland, a couple out of state NFL football games, the beach, in the mountains among other destinations.
This year, due to the pandemic, both in-person parties and traveling experiences were ruled out for our youngest. Being that it was his big double digit birthday we decided to try our hands at a virtual birthday party. Keep reading to learn all about our QuaranTEN birthday party!
Virtual Birthday Party Ideas
First things first, if we have learned anything during this Pandemic year of schooling, we have learned that too many people online at the same time is not always a good thing. That said, we invited a short list of family (10 houses in total including our own) to join our quarantine virtual Zoom birthday party and called it a “QuaranTEN” Party. After making the guest list I got busy on the invitations; in which I created invitation BOXES that would include party fun rather than ‘just an invitation’.
Party Invitation Box
- Invitation Card with Virtual Party Details
- Individual Birthday OREO Cake Cup
- Birthday Candle
- Party Hat
- Balloons
- Party Horn
- Printed Game Cards & Pens
- Notecard with the list of Invitation Box Contents
Virtual Party Games
To keep the party focused on our double digit guest of honor I chose two of his favorite online games, Pictionary and a Scavenger Hunt, along with a Q&A of ten of his favorite things. All three games were included in the invitation box and we played them in the following order.
BIRTHDAY BOY FAVORITES
- Guests filled out a 10 question Q&A game card before the party then took turns sharing their answers with the group during our Zoom call.
PICTIONARY
- To play this game online I prepared a list of Pictionary objects before the Virtual Birthday Party; all of the objects were favorite things/activities of our 10 year old guest of honor.
- At the beginning of the game I split the guests into two groups; we played the game in rounds.
- I text the object to be drawn to one team member and that teammate drew the object. They then presented their drawing to the Zoom video call and my husband used a stop watch to time the team on the clock while they shouted out their guesses.
- After the correct item was named I then texted the other team an object, they drew and their guesses were clocked.
- Whichever team guessed their correct object the shortest amount of time in each round received one point for said round.
SCAVENGER HUNT
- Our birthday boy has always loved scavenger hunts and he has especially become fond of them since his teachers have opted to play them online over the past (almost) year. In this case, I again created a list of items before our Virtual Birthday Party. Most of the items had some sort of connection to our guest of honor and/or his favorite things.
- During this game I called out an object and our party goers would leave their computer screens to go seek said object as quickly as they could. The array of items everyone brought back to share was a party favorite. Especially item #3 – pictures of the birthday boy!
VIRTUAL BIRTHDAY PARTY FUN
- After the games our party goers made their mini OREO cake cups added lit their candle and we sang Happy Birthday then everyone blew out their own candles. (Or as my husband put it, spit on their own cakes!)
- Our birthday boy had received several gifts in the mail and he requested that he open gifts with his family watching; likely to prolong the party fun as long as he could, alas he opened gift and said his thank yous, I love yous and good-byes.
In all, our Virtual Birthday Party was a huge success! Everyone had decorated their spaces with the balloons they received in their invitation boxes (and they all added other decorations too) which was AWESOME to see. The birthday boy loved every minute of his Virtual Birthday Party. And our entire family enjoyed the online time together of games, laughter and cake. We even scored a 30 minute on screen after party filled with more giggles and little cousin chaos!
