Mother shares how she went the 'simple birthday' route for her son and got surprising results

During childhood, birthdays are an event to remember for everyone. Children wait for it with bated breaths throughout the year, as the day is built around them where everything is done only for their happiness. Most parents believe that making it an amazing day would require them to choose an "expensive" route. Booking a place, massive decorations, hiring entertainers and a large number of guests are the things parents arrange for in this setup. Amber Cimiotti—who goes by @ciaoamberc on TikTok—was also one of the parents who tried to bring the world to their children's feet on their special day by making it a costly affair. In the absence of her partner, she decided to flip the script and go for a low-key affair. To her surprise, she found her child felt as loved and special as he did in his previous birthdays.

At the beginning of her video, Cimiotti explained what she did differently for her son's third birthday party. She said, "We did like the cake, pizza, family and close friends model." This time, the mother did not rent anything like a bounce house, employed entertainers with painted faces or had a big balloon wall. She decorated her house by herself and had just one bouquet of balloons brought from the Party City of Balloons. The whole thing got toned down to homely from extravagant.

"I kept it simple for a couple of reasons. My husband and I both grew up where our parents did not have a lot of money and we always had great birthdays," Cimiotti shared. "We have fond memories of our birthdays and they didn't have all this extra fluff." Many parents want to do grand birthdays because they feel they missed out on it when they were kids and it becomes a way for them to give their kids what they did not get during childhood. Cimiotti flips the perspective here, as per her, even if those birthdays were not grand, they were memorable for her and her husband. These concepts of "grand" might not exist in children's dictionaries and therefore, the focus should just be on making the day special.

Cimiotti's objective was to make her kid happy, which she achieved even when she did not go overboard with everything. Even after doing just the "traditional stuff" with family and friends, her son was happy. They blew up balloons to surprise him as he woke up and decorated the entire house to his liking while he was asleep. For food, they had "super fun doughnuts." Despite not making a huge dent in Cimiotti's pockets, the arrangements brought a smile to her son's face. Hence, the mission has been accomplished.

As much as she wanted her son to enjoy a different kind of birthday, she also took this route for her mental peace. "The birthdays have always been so exhausting to me and a little bit stressful," Cimiotti added. Having a "down to earth" birthday meant less anxiety for her as she didn't need to manage things like bookings, return gifts and performers. Especially as the only one on board multitasking these things would have become a severe headache. However, she is not ruling out grand birthdays in the future. Her daughter's 16th birthday will be an affair to remember. However, this experience has taught her that little gestures are also a great way to bring in celebration.

The comment section loved this idea. @kelseyparmley followed the same advice as Cimiotti and commented, "I found myself getting super stressed about all of my kids' bday parties, so last year we decided we were done. No more parties, we do experiences." @liza_2642 shared why they go all out on their children's birthday and said, "I grew up kind of poor, with not enough money to do anything on birthdays. I do it up big every year for my kids' birthday. Heals my inner child!"