Hi Cathy B:
In a nutshell, "boys just wanna have FUN!" (smile)
We are a family of three. It's my Hubby, our son and me. We're full time Pastors and have our own business on the side and have been married for 21 years this July 18th!! (Yeah!!PTL!)
Our son is 16yrs old now. We started giving him B-Day sleepovers with his friends when he turned 10 until he turned 14. He absolutely enjoyed the sleepovers and had us to make it an Annual B-Day event! (Lol) Since we started the sleepover thing with our son, we've learned that girls are not the only ones that like having their buddies sleepover to the house but boys do to! Boys do wanna have FUN!
Our B-Day Sleepovers would last Friday night-thru Sunday morning.(sigh) The weekend would end with My husband and I taking everybody to church with us on Sunday morning. Our son's friends would be his special guests at Church and he would be given special acknowledgment from our Pastor. But with these Sleepovers and a house full of boys (sometimes 12 in all) cost became an issue. So we planned the bulk of our activities for "in-home". Our in-home activities would include, ordering pizza; making nachos; plenty of chips, candy, junk, etc; hide-n-go-seek; video game competitions with prizes; shooting hoops in our backyard; and Talent Shows. I would videotape their performances and we'd play it back and have a sorta "AFV" time watching the awful performances! It was hilariously smashing!
We also rented a few Bowling lanes so the boys could bowl. We also rented our neighborhood Fitness Gym for a few hours and held a Basketball game between the boys. My husband would chaperone the Basketball game and even play with the boys! Of course my son loved having his Dad showoff some of his fancy moves on the court in front of his buddies! His buddies started calling my Hubby "Michael Jordan's Brother"!(Lol) After the game, Hubby would take them all out for breakfast!
When our son turned 13, we rented a Cafe and gave him a type of "rites of passage" ceremony acknowledging his entry onto the road to manhood. Although we're not Jewish,we are Protestant Christians so we just adapted some of the Jewish Barmitvah activities to fit our culture and the occasion. We invited all of our family/friends along with our son's friends, and his Church and School teachers. The evening was filled with salutations and well wishes for our son as well as gifts,accolades and reflections from those present. The event ended with my Hubby declaring Prayers and Prophetic destiny over our son and a song from me, his Mommy.
Of course throughout the years, we've made sure to videotape each B-Day Celebration and snap tons of pictures for memories! Every now and then I look at these vdo's and pics and see how our little boy has grown and is yet growing...of course the tears fall and I get all "mommy-mushy" and sentimental! But they are tears of gratitude to God for every second He's blessed us to have our Son these 16 years!
Yes Cathy, over the years of B-Day Celebrations for our son, I've found that the most important things were not the activities that we planned but the love, time and honor my Hubby and I put into each activity as we did them with and for our son! What made our son the happiest was having his Dad and Mom make a fuss and commotion over him! We made sure that our son felt honored and special, and "experienced our love" on each of his B-Days.
I hope this helps!