We recently celebrated Rafa’s second birthday in our home in San Antonio, Nueva Ecija. This is Rafa’s second lockdown birthday. We would have wanted to celebrate it with friends and loved ones, possibly in a restaurant if not for the current circumstances. Just the same, we were happy that we were able mark to this special occasion together with my parents since we haven’t been home for two years in Nueva Ecija.

When organizing a themed kiddie birthday party in the province, it’s not really any different as compared to arranging it when you are in a city.

Our biggest concern was getting the supplies for our son’s themed birthday party but we soon realized that it was really no problem at all. in the end, we had a simple celebration with our sons’ grandparents.

So how did we do it? Here are the easy steps:

As with anything party or celebration, allocate an amount that you believe is practical to set aside for your kiddie party. if there’s anything good about this pandemic, it’s that we were able to save on the expenses of organizing our children’s birthday parties.

Similar to the previous kiddie parties that we organized in our home in Quezon City last year, we began with a theme. Your planning will become smoother once you have a concrete theme in mind.

Final set-up for Rafa's basketball-themed birthday party

It’s really up to you to decide on which birthday theme to go for. As for us, we narrowed it down to two of Rafa’s interests: cars and balls.

We eventually settled for a basketball theme since Rafa gets really excited when he sees balls and balloons. That meant that we had to look for decors that feature basketball and opt for a basketball cake design.

When organizing a themed party in the province, we do like to go with local suppliers because that’s more practical plus it’s a way of giving back to your local community.

Basketball-themed cake from One Sweet Day

For Rafa’s birthday cake, I only had my eye on one local pastry supplier and that’s One Sweet Day. It’s owned by my high school schoolmate and I’ve been seeing her cake designs on Instagram.

I was impressed with how good-looking One Sweet Day's cake designs were so I told her that I’ll order from her if we got the chance to celebrate a special occasion in our hometown. Rafa's second birthday celebration was the chance to finally try a cake from One Sweet Day.

It was a smooth ordering process, from submitting our preferred design to One Sweet Day down to the coordination of the delivery and payment. When Rafa’s cake arrived, it looked exactly how we envisioned it. It’s as attractive as the cakes that we used to order in Metro Manila but not as expensive. Nonetheless, the chocolate cake tasted delicious so it was definitely a great choice.

As for the food, we opted to cook spaghetti, and pork menudo, and prepare creamy macaroni salad. We also ordered our favorite pancit palabok from a local restaurant.

If you can’t find items that you need in local stores, then ordering online is also a wise option. It used to be that orders from Metro Manila suppliers arrived in my hometown in a week, on average.

Balloon with basketball print

With Lazada and Shopee expanding their logistics, our orders arrived in two to three days. That’s almost similar to the average waiting time in Metro Manila.

We ordered basketball-themed shirts and shorts for the kids (Shopee), gold and silver balloons (Shopee), and basketball-printed balloons.

Even when we are at home, it’s still best to practice health and safety precautions. As such, celebrating within your household is still the wisest thing to do. If you are inviting your fully-vaccinated loved ones, practicing social distancing and wearing face masks are also sensible things to do even when at home.

This is exactly the message that Lady’s Choice wanted to communicate in its recent campaign called #MayoHaveASafeChristmas. We are encouraged to celebrate with our families over simple holiday favorites like cream macaroni salad.

And while we are with our kids at home, it’s also the perfect opportunity to reinforce collaborative parenting and co-creation by involving kids in our household chores. In the end, we should still keep in mind the well-being of each other during family gatherings.

This year, we were fortunate to have the chance to celebrate Rafa’s second birthday in my hometown. It’s been two years since we were last in Nueva Ecija so it’s a welcome opportunity to celebrate Rafa’s birthday with his grandparents.

Our little family

In terms of organizing his second birthday party, it was quite a breeze since the celebration was just for our household. We got in touch with mostly local suppliers and ordered the items that were not available locally from Shopee.

In the end, Rafa’s second birthday party was a simple yet happy celebration for our family.

Similar stories: