I wonder if anyone can help me?

We are a British family who arrived in Switzerland in October. Our children go to our local Swiss School.

My daughters tenth birthday is fastly approaching and she would like to have a pool party in our garden - thankfully we do have a swimming pool!

I speak very little Swiss German / German however my daughter seems to be confident and able to communicate with her friends. Is there anyone out there who can advise me me on the following questions:

Can you buy standard party invites that I can fill in and give to her friends?

How long should I do the party for? Is two hours too long / short?

Should I expect an RSVP? Do the Swiss know this term?

Will the parents stay? Am I expected to feed the parents?

How long in advance do party invites need to be sent out?

Can I hold the party on a Sunday?

Do Swiss children have birthday parties? My daughter has been in Swiss school for seven months now and not had an invite to a party yet.

Sorry for all the questions. I am keen to get this right first time so not to dissapoint my daughter who I am immensly proud of, for how well she has settled into our local school.

Many thanks

Answers based on personal experience:

Can you buy standard party invites that I can fill in and give to her friends? Yes I buy them from the local stationary shop otherwise knock some up on your computer & print them out, that also seems pretty standard.

How long should I do the party for? Is two hours too long / short? I always do 2 hours.

Should I expect an RSVP? Do the Swiss know this term? RSVP is the correct term. No, I find about half will let you know the rest keep you guessing.

Will the parents stay? Am I expected to feed the parents? Parents normally run a mile as soon as the kids are through the door .

How long in advance do party invites need to be sent out? 2 weeks is long enough.

Can I hold the party on a Sunday? Never tried that & never had an invite for a Sunday party. It is traditionaly a family day so you may find less people come.

Do Swiss children have birthday parties? My daughter has been in Swiss school for seven months now and not had an invite to a party yet.: They have parties but they tend to be small. The general rule is they invite the same number of kids as the childs age so 5 guests for a 5 year old.

One thing to bear in mind is that Swiss kids are not used to a big party feast in the way that e.g. Brits are. The first parties I did I binned so much food after that the last one I threw for my son there were some crisps, juice & the cake. Don't even try ice-cream & jelly .

Lou is spot on with every answer - don't expect the parents to stay They might organise a small gift though. As far as I remember "I" invited a few more classmates than corresponding to my age, but never the whole class.

A Swiss term would be: UAWG (= um Antwort wird gebeten). Best bet is that you clearly write that they should let you know (phone/mail/in person) if they can come or not, by a certain date. Then casually follow up yourself if necessary.

There's nothing else to add to Lou's post. Except maybe, after having a pool party, I wouldn't be surprised if your daughter gets some invites to other parties soon... Have fun! Sounds like a great idea.

Thanks for all your replies - they were a great help.

I have now purchased the invites and am attempting to fill them out and it is proving harder than I thought!

Can anyone confirm or correct me on the following:

Ich wurde mich sehr freuen, Dich am (is this where I put the date?)

um (what should go here?)

Uhr (is this where I put the start & finish time?)

zu (is this my address?)

Gib mir bitte Antwort, ab Du kommst (I assume this means let me know if you are coming?)

Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated. Many thanks

Add your address/location and telephone number at the bottom.

Something like:

Ort: Hauptstrasse 29, 8099 Zurigo (= Place/Address)
Bitte bis 1. Juli 2009 Bescheid geben (Tel. 044 999 99 99).

Danke und liebe Grüsse

You can wirte your own:

Hallo <childs name>

Ich lade dich herzlich zu meinem Kindergeburtstagsfest am <date> (e.g. 27. Juli 2009) von <hours> (e.g.15 - 18 Uhr) ein.

Gefeiert wird bei mir zu Hause an der <street name> (e.g. Musterstrasse 28) in <Location> (e.g. Zürich).

Bitte sage mir noch Bescheid, ob du kommen kannst.

Liebe Grüsse

<your childs name>

The birthday party issue is giving me a headache! We are planning to have a 4th birthday party for my kid next weekend (on the Sunday). We gave out invitations to around 8 kids that he likes at the garderie he attends. But all responses have been negative so far (unable to attend as busy etc.). Is this because we picked a Sunday afternoon???
I am hoping for one postitive reply! I am dreading what to do if none of the kids can come. What am I going to tell my kid? That none of the children at the garderie can come to his party??? Potentially very heartbreaking! Even more heartbreaking because last year at his 3rd birthday we had around 24 kids and we hired a room, and he had a blast..

maybe you can save the issue of dates and just ask to come to the garderie one day and have the party there? if not, he's only four so if it ends up that just a couple of kids can make it, or worse, none, try to salvage the day with a trip to the water park or someplace else that is funfunfun for a 4 year old and don't make too much of a fuss about the friends not coming. at 4 he's likely to forget about the issue after having some goodies and a fun day with the family, so the more fun you all have the less explaining to do!

good luck!

Lemondrizzle - I am sure some are not coming because it is a Sunday .. in our village, some families do not let their children play round at others houses on a Sunday (and vice versa) but as someone else replied, the smaller the group just means it is easier to do stuff with them and make it really special!

With regard to the original post, we too found that our child had not been invited to any parties after almost 10 months in kindergarten in a really small village. It upset me to see other children having parties and he continually not being invited. I took the bull by the horns so to speak and held a summer party (his birthday is December so it wasn't even a birthday party!) and invited the whole class. Then, as if by magic, the following school year, he started to get invites.

I second the comment about food .. after many many attempts at feeding Swiss children, I find the ones we have in our house to be very suspicious of anything they have never seen before (jelly - ha!) and really very difficult to feed. The only thing that seems to go down well are frankfurters in buns and paprika crisps - so that makes it easy at least!

Regarding the length of time for the party, 2 hours is in my experience too short. My son has never attended a party that lasted less than 3 hours. The very idea of organising a party for 3 hours turned me cold until I realised that they all tend to involve a large element of "free play", with very little organised activities, so I guess not so stressful if you are not trying to pack 3 hours with party games and crafts.

Have fun!

Invites about two weeks in advance is good - long enough that only 'big' events would be booked in already, not so long that they forget to come ...

One other thing which I found rather strange: many Swiss people (in Zurich at least!) consider it to be bad luck to celebrate your birthday before the actual date ...

As for food, the kids who came along to my daughter's party loved the home-made sausage rolls and mini-quiches ... it was also a low-stress party: parents dropped off their kids, I walked all eight of them up to the local pool and paid for entry, the kids played for about an hour and a half, we got out and heade back for the food & cake (& present-opening!).
Kids all appeared satisfied ...

for some reason I got a double post here ... :/

If all fails ( and i do hope it doesn't ), invite some Ef'rs with kids,i'm sure some of us are up for a good slice of cake and its a great way to meet new people
However i do hope it works out, ill keep my fingers crossed..

Lemondrizzle, if you end up in a serious trouble, we are 20min away and have a 4yr old. I might be able to get our 3yr old neighbor with us, maybe also a friend who also has a 3yr old. We make new friends and you can tell your kiddo they had a sick scare in kindy, or sumfin

I know how it is with parties here, can be difficult to fit in with locals. So, from the start, I have always invited a few expat families we hang out with plus a few locals, some of the both parties always show up. To expect just kids from kindy can be tough, especially if you don't go full time full days. I have also noticed, we get invited more from locals that are also mixed cultures, they seem to know it is difficult to blend in and tend to help out the new foreign kindy kids since somebody probably helped them, too, in the start. We have been to kid parties on Sunday so it's done.

If all fails, there is still Yatouland in Geneva. It's a nightmare, kids go nuts there, though.

Good luck, maybe call a few closest moms to see if they just forgot to RSVP.

All the birthday invites that my daughter was invited too were mostly planned on a Saturday . My daughter started to be invited after we organised hers in May. I organised it on a Saturday and the 12 kids we invited came. Before I decided of a day and time, I asked other parents at the Kindergarten gate about the culture here.

That's a really good, systematic approach. So, please, spill the beans! So, we know if we aren't doing something wrong.

I have been pretty happy with the way things were so far, my trick was to mix up our invited guests, definitely asked my kiddo who she wants in her party, then we got some people we like so the party was fun for us as parents as well, and then I made sure I catered, something people keep coming to our parties for (yummy cakes, giant 10l pot of thick soup, different cheeses, finger foods, wine, yes omg, hahaha...). So far so good, we got a really friendly gathering of around 15 people, mostly. Some reciprocate, some don't, but we keep mixing it up, the number of people stays pretty much similar year by year, just add more kindy kids as that's where our child is now mostly. The nice bit is, it does not feel like a creche activity, since that's what they have all the time. And our guests are happy to meet new friends and mingle, I have been thanked for putting people together. So, it's good. Not really the way locals do it, but c'est la vie..

Things have of course changed from when I was a wee lass in the 50s here in CH. I only went to 1 BD party - because the mum was English. I shall always remember it - the sandwiches without crust, cakes and ... jelly and ice-cream + the games like pass the parcel, etc. And the few of us who attended could NOT believe it when we were sent home with a goodie bag!!! It was just amazing - perhaps one of the things that helped me fall in love with England and eventually going to live there. Birthday parties as described are defo NOT part of the culture - so if inviting children for such, I'd add a note to explain that it is a British tradition, etc, and means a lot to you. Perhaps too late now - so maybe a good idea to celebrate with other ex-pat children for this year - and prepare a little info letter for next time. Hope you all have a lovely day.

Well there is not any beans to be spilled, I asked if it was ok for me to do it on a Saturday and they said yes even though some parents do prefer under the week. In my case I wanted my husband to be here as he speaks German. Plus in our case, we are busy every afternoon. As the kids grow older, I don't know how birthday parties can be done under the week, there will be always someone who can't make it.

I asked about the times they answered 2-3 hours. I asked when to send the invites , I was told 2 weeks before. But it's true that not every child is going to through a party. For Emilie's birthday party I did it the British style as I learnt it overseas.. games with prices + a party bag at the end. The other party Emilie went too had a also a bag of sweeties at the end. I can't say if it is always the case, or if parents started doing this after their kdis came home with a party bag.

Ok, so mental note, avoid Sunday. We were invited Sunday a few times, but that might have something to do with bday places being usually really overbooked, so parents take what they can. It's true that some local parents were surprised when we gave them party favors, but the kids were exhilarated. It's sad to watch somebody get all the attention, prezzies, baloons, sang to and just not get anything, innit. Another big day is Friday afternoon. I think in the week, people opt for Wednesday, since school is mostly off.

My 11 yo daughter is in local school and my experiences are similar to Lou (excellent advice).

I would add that in this age group the girls parties are very exclusive (3 or 4) and often they want to sleepover after catching a movie. Kids wanted hot dogs and birthday cake. No sweets or chips mummy .... They are taught in school it is unhealthy. Easy! She organized her own games, there was only one with a prize and that was a block of chocolate which they shared. I was expected to stay out of the room. Loved that ... I went with them to the cinema as it was 8pm and sat in a row further back, out of the way.

They write own invites by hand or on pc, and the RSVP is one kid to another, no parents called despite us writing "bite bescheid geben" (please let us know if you're coming" and providing a number. Swiss kids are all very independent and it is enough to tell the one whose having the party. I did make her check with them several times though, as I hate it if they forget.

All in all it is far less fuss than I remember from Australia, certainly less food! No goody bags.

Younger kids eg my 8 yo body friends, usually have on Wed from 12.00 to 3 or 3.30. The other kids parents get an afternoon off, and you feed them (uses up the start of the time, then send them outside for awhile, then let them do their own or assisted play/games (no prizes - everyone a winner if possible), then cake, then presents, then ensure they leave in time even if you have to remind some parents to come back!)

Presents for other kids birthdays are usually around sfr 20 or less (not more). A game or book. Or a manor gift card worth 20 goes down well.

Lisa