Hosting a Star Wars party for a 7-year-old

Star Wars is definitely enjoying a comeback right now; the entire franchise is all the rage with young boys, at least if my sons and my oldest's entire 1st grade are any indicator. So when Jack said he wanted a Star Wars birthday party, I knew it wouldn't be difficult, as it was for his police party two years ago, to find age-appropriate supplies. If you want to review what we did for that party, click here. I started with the invites which I usually make myself by having Tom photo-shop one of the boys' heads on a figure that represents the theme of the party (last year, Jack's head on Batman's body, for example). I posted this earlier, but here is this year's invite: Death Star, Luke, the Episode and Intro bit (which Jack wrote; hilarious)...

Per the usual we planned to host the party at home (Jack loves it, and frankly we prefer it) so I told J the group had to be small, and then I started to look for a primary Star Wars activity in which no one would be bored or get injured. Answer: a light saber battle in the backyard. But, plastic light sabers are hard, and there was no way I was going to put Oliver and a gang of seven-year-olds outside with long, hard plastic sticks. I recalled seeing somewhere online that a like-minded Mom had used swim noodles to make a safe saber so I picked some up while we were in NC a few weeks back (one of those items that's cheaper and easier to find NOT in DC; each was $1.99 or something at the Wilmington Harris Teeter). I ordered some Scotch aluminum foil tape (about $3.25) from amazon as well as a roll of black duck tape (more like $6), cut the noodles in half, and T and I pulled up a picture of all the main Star Wars characters light saber hilts on line and rolled out individualized ones in about twenty minutes. These were enormously popular today!

If your child then insists he have a double-sided saber, as does Darth Maul, Duck Tape two of the noodles back together.

As for decorations, I rarely buy them anymore because we have fun making them. This year, Jack did them all, and I think they're great. Good way to get him involved in the party planning process!

I've never been huge on giving out a ginormous favor bag at the end of a party, but a few cool items related to the party theme can be fun! (Those Wonder Woman mini-piñatas from Oliver's party still crack me up!) So in addition to each kid keeping his light saber, I bought a selection of DK Readers, each about some different element of Star Wars, and, because Jack's actual birthday is July 4th and boys seem to love things that explode, some Pop-Its.

And then the cake- I always have such a blast designing the grand finale. I bought the toppers via amazon and was happy with them though only Darth Vader's saber lit up when both were supposed to. Boo (especially for $10). But Jack loves them, so c'est la vie. These light saber cupcake picks (also amazon, $6) were a huge hit and made a fantastic, spirited addition to Darth, Luke and the glitter sugar. I decided on a tiered cake to suggest a fight on a mighty precipice and used 9", 8" and 6" pans (two layers of strawberry, one of chocolate). I already had the red sprinkle sugar and green sanding sugar but was psyched to find these cool, black sugar chips (like irregular confetti; $3.50) at Sur La Table last week (where I headed to find the 6" pan). It was perfect! I loved how Jack set up his SW action figures around the cake as well as this light saber he made from clay yesterday.

Lastly, I decided to treat the boys, because they LOVE to dress up, to a Jedi costume each. I got these from the Rubies storefront on amazon. You can see Jack's above in the double-saber pic. Here is Ol's which is slightly different. They're not terribly well-made, and the fabric is extremely chintzy but the boys are wild for them, and both held up really well today, battles and all!

All in all, a great party!