How to Pull Off a Birthday Parade
Leading the parade is…Chewbacca!
Last updated on September 24, 2020.
So you can’t have a party but you still want to celebrate…
We’re months into quarantine, and running out of ideas for celebrating birthdays at a distance. The party parade is here for you if the weather is right. This event is basically the baby of the birthday party and a parade. It’s a hybrid.
What is a Birthday Parade?
Think of it as a drive-thru party. Instead of getting a bunch of people from different households all together in one place, each household can decorate their car like a parade float and drive by the Birthday person’s house.
Planning
Is there a theme? The theme can always be birthday, but kids (well all of us) love a good theme. My little brother had been asking for a Star Wars Birthday Party all year, so I wanted to keep the Star Wars Theme. This also gives you a great excuse to wear costumes! If you can get people to wear costumes, they would be perfect to walk in the parade ahead of the cars (or between). Especially if the costume involves a mask!
In our parade, we had a friend wear a Chewbacca costume riding in the back of a convertible like a beauty queen. (See top photo) Chewie was in the lead car. You could also save something like that for the grand finale at the end. Think Santa Claus at the end of a Christmas Parade.
The main thing to remember, no matter how many floats (cars) you have in your parade or how elaborate or simple, the guest of honor will feel extremely special and celebrated.
What helped me a lot was delegating jobs to people. It not only lightened my load but I think helped keep us socially distanced. For example you could ask one person to stay with the guest of honor and film the parade, one person be the lead car, one person decorate the car windows with chalk, one person tape on posters, one person attach all the balloons, one person to help un-decorate the cars at the end, etc.
Invites
Graphic for Cam’s Birthday Parade (sized for facebook event).
I invited the family I knew would be involved but also opened it up to people in the community since Star Wars is popular. I hoped some fan boys with awesome gear would want to get involved.
Don’t forget to invite neighbors. They are close by, making it easier for them to participate, but it’s also good to let them know what’s happening, especially if their driveway is going to be blocked or there’s going to be loud music.
Have a time and meeting spot for everyone. Since I opened it up to the public, we met at a park near where the birthday person was waiting. (Never put your home address online). I made a facebook group for others to share, and the day before I got a headcount of how many cars or “floats” we would have.
Get creative! Are you able to have people ride horses? Could kids drive their hot wheels cars if its in a neighborhood? Would friends dress up their dogs and walk in the parade? Does your neighbor have a golf cart you could decorate? Would the local high school marching band participate? Would the local police provide an escort? It never hurts to ask.
Make extra decorations ahead of time
I wanted to make it as easy for people to participate as I could. I didn’t expect them to spend a lot of money and time decorating their cars. I made several posters and balloon bunches to share. This is where the theme can help. I just made posters centered around famous Star Wars quotes and characters. Adding glitter and streamers to your posters can dress them up and keep people from having the tape a bunch of stuff to their cars.
For the balloon bunches, I used all black balloons tied to black and yellow streamers. Ribbon held it all together, and I left a large loop to hang them from the car’s side mirrors. It didn’t require anything be taped onto the car and I made them in advance. It also gave the parade a more uniform look since all the balloons and streamers were the same color keeping with the theme.
For safety I put all the posters in the trunk and let guests come choose what they wanted for their car. Check out the 10 posters below. Let me know in the comments if you have more ideas for next time!
The Meeting Spot
Meet in a location close to where the parade will happen. Once the cars are decorated they won’t be able to go very fast without things flying off.
Figure out which side of the car will pass by the person so you only have to decorate that side (and maybe the front and back).
Choose somewhere large like a parking lot. Spread out the vehicles, don’t forget to social distance. I had posters in one location where people could choose and grab one. I attached the balloons to all the cars, and my sister wrote messages with car chalk on the windows. That was the majority of the decorations other than additional decorations others brought with them.
Use window chalk or something that washes off easily. Don’t cover the side windows, you want to be able to roll down the windows and play music, sing happy birthday, blow bubbles, shoot silly string, etc. (Don’t forget to clean up any confetti or silly string in the street afterwards).
Attach posters with masking tape/painters tape. Be careful if it’s really hot, the adhesive could stick to the car. Don’t stick anything on anyone’s car without their permission. (very important not to damage anyone’s car).
Guest of Honor
What’s the birthday guy/gal doing during all this? That’s up to you! It’s fun to set up a viewing area for them to watch the parade. For my brother, he got a Darth Vader mask and cape to wear along with some glow sticks. He kept thinking it was a surprise party and everyone was going to jump out.
Set up a “throne” so it’s obvious who is the guest of honor. Bring a chair from inside, a deck chair, or a camping chair. Decorate it with balloons and streamers.
They could even be set up on a blanket and you tell them you’re having a picnic so the parade is a huge surprise when it rolls down the street.
The guest of honor! This was his reaction at the end of the parade.
Showtime!
Once the cars are ready to go, designate a lead car and make sure everyone knows who that is. (For ours it was Chewbacca in the convertible! Hard to miss). Have music ready, we asked everyone to blare The Imperial March from their car speakers.
Especially if it’s a smaller parade, each float can stop for a second to say happy birthday from a distance. Give the guest of honor a chance to see your float, read your signs and messages. I recommend having a few people walk to set the pace for the parade. This will keep others from speeding up and help the parade last longer.
Get it on film! It happens so fast. Ours lasting only about 2 minutes. Everyone involved wanted to see how it turned out. Designate at least one person to stay with the birthday person who can film (and operate music if you have a speaker you can use outside).
Safety to keep in mind
The purpose of the birthday parade is to avoid close contact with people outside of your household during quarantine, so try to eliminate anything that requires direct contact.
If there are gifts involved, have a place to leave presents, or have a designated present person with gloves and PPE receive the gifts. You could ask guests to leave gifts in the trunk for you to retrieve them for zero contact.
Party favors or thank you gifts? It’s a nice thought, but anything that risks transmission makes chances of someone getting sick even higher. A nice way to say thank you would be to send a thank you note with the video of the parade attached.
If you do meet back up after the parade to un-decorate the floats, don’t forget to stay socially distanced still.
Avoid hugging and shaking hands. It’s very exciting to see people we haven’t seen in a long time, but we don’t want to risk transmitting germs.
Keep your masks on during the event. It’s difficult to get together in person and remain socially distanced, so please remind children. Wearing a costume with a mask might feel less strange for a child, so consider having them dress up.