American Revolution Birthday Party for John

File this under … parties I never thought I’d throw.  Late last year John started to become completely obsessed with the American Revolution.  He’s like a walking encyclopedia about it, and has read every book he has been given on the topic.  He loves history, and has lately said he wants to be a history teacher.  They aren’t even learning about this in school…. so we really don’t know where this came from.  If you have a child that’s into it though, my cousin Ben of Westover Vintage, reminded me of Liberty Kids.  Which is an old cartoon from the 90s – you can find on prime video.  This came in handy when John was sick from school early January.

I am not sure if this is something other people want to recreate, but on the off chance you have a history/american revolution loving kiddo, here are all of the details.

I kept my eyes out at thrift stores for any colonial items, and had plenty of red white and blue from tablescaping throughout the years.  I loved reusing For Pete’s Sake Pottery’s beverage tub again!  We used this bounce house company – even though it was pirate’s themed, it gave a little colonial times vibes.  We had the party at our local country club, and I’m so glad we did.  We ended up having over 90 people at the party, and while it got a little crazy, there was plenty of room to spread out.

There are a million things we could have done for activities but I went full American revolution war on this.  In the beginning you could choose – Blue Coats ( blue swords, blue laser guns, tricorn hats), Red Coats (red swords, red laser guns, crowns) or a medic (stethoscope and white streamers for “bandages”).  The boys haven’t seen Hamilton, but they do love the clean version of the soundtrack.  So while there was a lot of Hamilton parties out there, there wasn’t as much Revolutionary War parties out there.  And given the size of the party, it was difficult to come up with an activity that was easy for everyone to join in/or not!

My friends dad has made a lot of birthday party dreams come true for the boys throughout the years.  Like getting the police to come over, the fire truck to come over for those themed parties.  This time he dressed up in full blue coat, and John loved it.  There were quite a few that dressed up.  It was so cute!

For a favor we gave everyone feather “quill” pens.  We decorated with some pretty colonial trays my cousin sent (who owns a great antique online shop -westover vintage), Vietri vases with some red tulips/british flag/american flag for centerpieces, and a drum and bugle for one centerpiece.  Publix made the cake from a design they already had, and I had red white and blue cupcakes ready to go.

Sequins and Lipstick made the design for the cups and had them printed for us, and knocked it out of the park.  She used the John Hancock font even.  I’ve asked her help throughout the years on a lot of themes – and she always delivers.  Like this Star Wars party we had for John a few years ago.

Truthfully, I needed/still need to brush up on my history for this party.  But it was a good time, and our boy felt so loved by family and friends!