More Cousin Party Ideas

Cousin parties or camps provide a great chance for all of the cousins to spend time with each other and is a wonderful way for those long-distance cousins to get together with one another and nurture those relationships. The younger cousins begin to look up to the older ones and the older ones take on a protective nature.

The one thing that seems to be important to the success of a cousins party or camp is that NO parents are allowed.  Thanks to Lisa and Annette for sharing the following cousin party ideas.

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Grandma and Grandpa Hale have a cousins Christmas party every year.  It is always on a Saturday afternoon in December.  They invite all grade school age children.  The kids who move out of grade school that year come back as the helper.  They are great helpers and take their job seriously.  No grown ups are allowed.  Grandma Hale been doing her cousins party for many years and she suggests that it works much better without any parents. 

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Some of their cousin party traditional activities include:
* a craft
*play the candy bar game http://familyreunionhelper.com/blog/2011/06/candy-bar-game-for-your-family-reunion/
*Decorate Grandma and Grandpa’s Christmas tree
*They go out for pizza
* They go to the theater, watch the dollar movie and see Santa or stay home and watch a movie if the party falls on a weekend that Santa is not visiting.
*White elephant gift exchange – They play the game where you can choose a new present or steal some one else’s http://familyreunionhelper.com/blog/2011/04/ten-ideas-for-your-family-reunion-part-2/
* Sleep over for one night
*They go to church – Two aunts come before church and have a beauty shop to do all the girls hair.
*They have a family night lesson – given by one of the older children who come prepared.
*They eat dinner and go home
Hint for parents of the cousins- Grandma and Grandpa are tired. Parents come on time!

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The Parson family has a “Cousins Camp” that lasts an entire week.  The cousins come prepared to go swimming and fishing at the beach.  They eat watermelon and hotdogs and when they get back to Grandma’s house after the beach they make homemade ice cream while everyone showers. One of their traditional activities is to play hide and seek and Annie I Over.

The Parson family have a special “workshop”day where they the cousins rotate from station to station learning new things.  One year Grandma and Grandpa had a neighbor come teach the cousins how to play tennis, then the girls rotated to the fingernail painting station and boys rotated to the bird house building station.  The last station was decorating sugar cookies.  One year the cousins all made decorative stepping stones that have become a lasting treasure in Grandma’s flower garden.

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When everyone is tucked into their sleeping bags at night Grandpa tells stories until the cousins reluctantly fall asleep.

Whether an afternoon, one night sleepover or a week long camp consider planning a cousin’s party with your family.  It’s a fun way to have a family reunion with the very best part of your family.

Cousins Party Ideas

About 25 years ago I invited all of my nieces and nephew to a cousin’s party at our house.  They came in the afternoon, slept over and went home after breakfast the next day. 

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The two activities we did that those now grown cousins still remember were the pudding painting and swinging in the rope swing. 

In talking to other daring moms I found that the one thing that cousins parties seem to have in common is that there are NO Mom’s or Dad’s allowed.  It’s just the cool aunt and uncle hosting the party that get to hang out with the kids.

If you’re considering hosting a cousin’s party consider adopting some of the fun ideas my friend, Jana, did at her party this year.  This is part one of a 3 part article so be sure and check back for more cousin party ideas.  Take it away Jana…

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Every year I have a cousin party at my house. All my nieces & nephews come over for a day of fun, and building relationships with my kids, and their other cousins. I look for a kid’s movie that is coming out in the summer, and base my party on that theme.

This year was a ‘cars’ party. We all meet at the movie theatre (since we live in 3 different cities) for an early matinee. We watched Cars 2, then we were off to my house. My sister in law helped drive some of the kids out to my house after the movie, then she made paracord bracelets with each of them while I got the t-shirts ready to tie dye.

By the time the bracelets were done, I was ready to start tie dying shirts with each of the kids (10 of them). We got the shirts done, took a quick picture before my 2 year old nephew left, and ate pizza for dinner. My one requirement for the cousin party is that the parents have to go out on a date that night (hey, I’m a free babysitter- they have to take advantage of that!)

Then we had a food fight (I know this doesn’t go with Cars, but it’s all Ryan wanted for his birthday, and since it rained all of May, we did it in July) I gave each child a tray with instant potatoes, and they had to create a potato sculpture, Then we went to the swimming pool filled with noodles, and the kids had to try and sit on balloons to pop them. After that, they filled their tray with the noodles, and then a whole bunch of old produce we got from the grocery store. We set up some boundaries so that food wasn’t all over the entire yard, and started the food fight. Lots of fun!!

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After that we went out front to the ‘car wash’ to get cleaned off. I had made it out of pvc pipe and literally looked like a car wash. By then it was 9:00 and everyone went in, got on their jammies, and went to bed. The next morning my husband made his ‘famous’ pancakes and then everyone went home.

I do try to make sure there is down time for the kids to just play together- jump on the trampoline, swing, play tag, etc. Last year the theme was magic. We saw The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, played a magic hat game, and ate a magic cake (it was black & white, and then turned colored). For the finale everyone had to perform a magic trick. They had to practice it and have it mastered at home first. It was so much fun to see all these little kids do magic tricks!

Thanks, Jana, for sharing your great ideas.  In our next installment we’ll hear how the Hale family runs their cousin’s parties.

Aunt MO