Michelle Duggar on Making Birthdays Special

With so many family members, it's birthday time in our house quite often! We try to make birthdays a special time for the birthday person. Sometimes when a few birthdays are close together, we might do one big birthday party, but we still make sure to have one-on-one time with each birthday person. Dad and I will usually let them decide where they want to go to for lunch and then we spend the afternoon with them going to their favorite places.

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The girls enjoy shopping at thrift stores and the boys like pawnshops. We'll take them around to find some of their favorite things for their birthday. They can get what they want for a fraction of the cost at these kinds of stores, so they get more for their birthday money.

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We'll do a 7:00 ice cream party because we like ice cream instead of cake around here. Sometimes the kids will request pumpkin pie in July for their birthday, so we might even do pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream. The highlight for Dad and me is just getting that time individually with each one of them. We really want that child to know that they're very special.

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This year, my children gave me a really special 24-hour birthday. Each hour of my birthday, they'd give me a handmade card with a clue that led to a little surprise for me. It was like having a progressive dinner but you go from one surprise to the next instead of from one food course to the next. It was quite amazing! One of these surprises was my birthday makeover from my dear friend Cindy, which I really enjoyed. Somebody emailed me recently and said that they loved the idea so much that they did something similar for their 70-year-old mother. They spread the surprises out over a week because they worked long hours and didn't have a lot of time each day. So every day for a week, all the grandchildren got to be a part of the birthday surprises. The lucky grandmother said that it was the best birthday surprise she'd ever had.

Top Articles on Birthday Celebrations:
5 Cheap, Warm, and Fun Winter Birthday Party Ideas
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5 Ways to Throw a Fabulous Birthday Party on a Budget