Thanks to Rebecca P. for this alternative activity to the typical opening of the presents at a children’s birthday party:
“A fun variation on opening gifts for kids’ parties is to turn it into a ‘spin the bottle’ game. This avoids a free-for-all of “open mine first!”, lost cards, hurt feelings, and general mayhem. You have all the party guests sit in a circle and the birthday child spins a bottle in the middle. Whoever the spin lands on, gets to draw a piece of paper from a jar and perform whatever silly or fun task is written on the paper…for example ‘sing the first verse of your favorite song’, ‘make your silliest face’, ‘say the alphabet backwards’, etc….the possibilities are endless. After performing the task, that child gives his/her gift to the birthday child to open. After the gift is opened, the child who was ‘it’ gets to spin the bottle to determine who goes next. If the bottle lands on someone who has already given his/her gift it defaults to the person to the left of that child. Play proceeds until everyone has had a turn. This worked wonders at Anna’s party last year…gift opening was calm, civilized, and fun for everyone. She wants to do it again next year. I just wish I had come up with the idea years ago!”
