COVID-19 is impacting nearly every aspect of our lives. In March, when we first started staying at home during the early stages of COVID-19 in the US I never imagined we’d still need to social distance to the point where we couldn’t eat out at a restaurant, go to a graduation ceremony or have a kid’s birthday party. Two of my three kids had birthdays this month and they were heart-broken that we couldn’t have their friends over to our house for a normal birthday party. We wanted to give our kids the closest thing to a normal birthday celebration and while that wasn’t possible, we did come up with 5 ideas to help make our kids’ COVID-19 birthdays as memorable as their time in quarantine.

With the first two ideas we were able to kill two birds with one-stone. We used a site called Build a Head to create some unique experiences.

1. Drive By Birthday: We found these big heads from BuildaHead.com which we got in just a little over a week. We had about a dozen made of each of the girls and gave them to their friends who we called and asked them to line up their cars around the corner from our house at a specific time on their birthday. Each car was decorated with balloons, streamers, or even just the heads we had handed out. For about 10 minutes straight their friends drove by screaming their names, honking their horns, and singing loudly. The parade lasted 10 minutes but their smiles lasted nearly an entire week.

2. Cupcake Toppers: A few hours after their drive by birthday celebration we took cupcakes to all of the kid’s friends. Each cupcake had a cupcake topper which was a funny face of my daughter. When we delivered the cupcakes the girls wore masks and we had to talk from a distance but we got to connect with friends in a way we hadn’t been able to in months

3. Heart Attack: We asked our neighbors and friends from church to write a message on a cutout heart and place them on our front door on our daughter’s birthday. When she came downstairs, she saw the shadow of something on our door and opened the door to dozens of messages from friends and family.

4. Birthday Breakfast: This one isn’t really that related to COVID-19 but it is a family tradition. Every birthday you pick whatever you want for breakfast on your birthday. One of my daughters always picks a pound of bacon and the other always picks donuts.

5. Birthday Video: With all of the free time we’ve had on our hands we were able to make each of our daughter’s an epic birthday video. There were silly pictures and action shots of jumping into the swimming pool behind a beautiful chorus of the year’s top hits. We watch the birthday videos right after breakfast, but we watch them dozens of times throughout the year.

These are a few of the ways we’ve found to make my daughters’ birthdays memorable during the chaos that is COVID-19. If you have other suggestions for making a memorable birthday celebration right now, email us or comment below.