Crappy Boy and Crappy Baby are planning for their birthday party. They’ll have another joint party because their birthdays are two weeks apart and because they want to. (Thank goodness.)
They both have their own opinions on important matters like balloon colors and cake decorations so it will be pretty eclectic and uniquely them. Which is great.
They will also have a piñata.
They have always had a piñata at their birthday parties. (Well, for the last two birthdays anyway. Before that, Crappy Baby didn’t exist and Crappy Boy wasn’t allowed to eat candy, poor thing. It must be hard being the firstborn. Subsequent kids get so much more candy.)
Piñatas are awesome. For the kids.
A bunch of kids take turns beating a cute and colorful object (often an animal) with a stick until it breaks open and its candy guts spill out. Then they eat the candy. This seems backwards. I think we should give them candy first and then let them beat things with sticks. A much more efficient use of the sugar high.
The first year we had one, we made this homemade pumpkin piñata. You see how the kids are calmly picking through the loot that just dropped out? That isn’t the end of the story. I know because I was there.
The story actually continued with them eating a lollipop or two. Then with their energy replenished, they returned to the dangling hollow piñata to beat it some more.
Once they severed it from the string and it fell to the ground, a little girl (it was Wendy’s middle girl which makes it even funnier but probably just to us) started bashing it with the stick:
And the other kids cheered her on, WWF wrestling style. Then they all took turns until it was properly pulverized. Or dead, as another little girl said.
And then of course we served cake. Right before everyone got in the car to go home. This is why parents love birthday parties! (Actually, that year was the year they had pumpkin pie.)
So this year I asked if they wanted to make a piñata again. But they both said no. They wanted to buy one. And this is that story…
We are out running errands and we realize we’re next to a store that sells piñatas. We go in.
I’m a little nervous because Crappy Boy and Crappy Baby have been butting heads all day. It has been one of those days where one of them screams because the other one is looking at him. How on earth are they going to agree on a piñata? We are not going to buy two.
To hopefully avoid conflict, I tell them that we don’t have to decide on one today. We’re just looking to get ideas.
And the ideas are plentiful.
I would say they have a plethora of piñatas.
I excitedly point out ones I think they’ll like. Even agree on. Pirate ships, race cars, ice cream cones. So many to choose from. I think for sure they’ll pick the race car one. We could do a race car theme!
But they continue down the aisle.
Finally, near the end they come upon one and they both start pointing and jumping up and down:
A giant soccer ball. I mean giant.
I have nothing against soccer balls. Or soccer. But neither of them have ever shown an interest in soccer. I mean, we own a soccer ball. But they don’t really play with it. And that is where the soccer connection ends. So I am a little confused.
But they seem so happy and so excited (Both of them! At the same time!) that I take it as a success and don’t ask any questions. They agree on one!
As we drive home I think about what on earth made them choose the soccer ball over the race car. Or the pirate ship. Or the robot.
Then I have a realization.
I see the piñata as a decorative themed accessory. You match the accessory to your interests and then you have a party theme. Yay!
While they see the piñata as a candy receptacle. To them, it is functional. And its function is to hold as much candy as possible.
The soccer ball? Yep. Largest darn piñata in the store.
We stopped the animal ones….I felt so terrible when I looked at a bunny rabbit with no eyes left and an ear dangling off lol….now we use stars or happy faces..who cares if they get the crap beaten out of them. Maybe Snooki’s face will be next ?!
I know! I think it was the year my friend’s son had a Winnie-the-Pooh pinata that finished me off. I couldn’t bear it (ooh, no pun intended).
¡Feliz cumpleaños!
I love this story – with kids it’s always all about the candy (and Halloween, the King of candy celebrations is coming up) I also like how you and crappy Papa are holding hands in the store…
Yes and similarly, Crappy Boy has asked for a LARGER bag this year.
I thought Amber was holding hands with the store clerk.
It’s a sales trick. Next to “always be closing,” is “sneak your hand into theirs when they aren’t paying attention.”
“I’m already holding the clerk’s hand; it would be weird to say “no” to the purchase at this point.”
hahahahahaha
ROFL
*dies*
I’m sure that tactic works quite well.
Neal, I cannot stop laughing at this. it’s going to make my archaeology class difficult because the collapse of ancient Greek societies is just not funny.
HAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, I’d love a whole bunch of crappily illustrated photos of sleazy sales techniques like that 😉 HYSTERICAL!
Ahhh Neal, you owe me a keyboard … coffee spray … everywhere. *giggle*
My son has also asked for a bigger Halloween bucket. I told him no before realizing that his costume comes with a giant bag (he’s going to be Santa Claus.) So, big bag it is!
Pillow cases are the only way to go…
You have to hold their hands, otherwise they try to escape, leaving you with the kids!
Largest darn piñata in the store. HA! my kid is only 6 months. oh what there is to look forward to. Maybe we can fill it with carrots…
“Fill it with carrots” LMBO yep you can and will because this is your first. THen the second one will eat candy for breakfast 😉 Hee Hee Hee “subsequent kids get so much more candy” a truer line has not been spoken 😉
Hahahaha! You have some (too) smart boys on your hands. I hope they have an awesome time “killing” the soccer ball pinata! So, since they are going to be 3 and 6 (correct?), are there any plans for a Crappy Newborn? 🙂
Yes, 3 & 6. And I’ll just pretend I didn’t see the other question.
ha!
Wow, 3 and 6? That means your “baby” is older than my DD2. I didn’t realize that, I think because you draw him as a baby still. I also have a DD3 (6mo) and yes, it is as chaotic as you think. Lots of material for your blog! 😉
It’s still there. Haunting you…
I want to have a 3rd which means you need to so that I can still relate to your posts and say yes thats it! Thats “him/her/us/me/we!” Because thats what you are here for right? To keep us readers laughing? C’mon Amber everybodys doing it. It’s easy. It’s cool. It’s fun. And now I walk up and hold your hand as I close the sales deal…
I totally saw that one coming and laughed anyway!
Kids can be amazingly pragmatic in their decision making.
Now; what are you going to buy to actually fill that thing up?
If it were full it would be like a wrecking ball. Will probably only be about an 1/8 full! We bought a mix from the Natural Candy Store (because if it is natural it is ever so slightly less bad – something like that) and also added little toy things like tattoos and stickers and such. Tried to avoid the junk that will just wind up scattered in my house.
Is it completely hollow inside? If so the idea that comes to mind is to see, if by using pieces of cardboard/brown paper grocery bags and tape, if the inside can be compartmentalized so all the goodies don’t come out all at once. (Or maybe tape individual brown lunch bags filled with stuff to the inside walls)
Draw out the fun and allow more than one kid be the “cough” “cough” killer…
Of course then the next thing my mind leaps to is to separate out the goodies by category so each individual section delivers it’s own unique surprise when hit.
yay! my cousin owns the Natural Candy Store (assuming we’re talking about the same one online that is)
Could make for a great black/white party theme, if you don’t want to take the sports option.
Funny you mention the theme. I’m trying to stick with one for my son’s 5th next weekend and the “themed” pinata is a pull-string one. Have you seen those? I think it’s lame but he’s all for it… provided he gets to pull the first string AND I help him identify the right one to release all the candy. Since there’s no way I can know, I explained that he’ll actually be in a better position to grab candy if he’s not the one who releases it. Here’s hoping that keeps the tears at bay 🙂
That sounds way better. They’d never go for it though. The beating with a stick is such a bonus.
Have all the kids hold one string and pull together. Not quite as obvious then which was THE string.
Don’t firing squads function similarly?
Have all the kids hold one string each and pull together. Not quite as obvious then which was THE string.
We get the pull string ones and instead of going one at a time we have all the kids grab a string and yell “pull!” That way, no tears over who didn’t get a pull….
We got a pull string Mario and used tape to keep the little door closed and let the kids beat the crap out of it. After everyone had a turn we pull the tape off and let the birthday boy hit it and all the candy came flying out. Worked perfect!
We had a pull-string one–it still works if you just beat the crap out of it with a stick. I couldn’t do the strings. If it’s a pinata, you beat it with a stick–end of story.
my very own crappy children are exactly the same i love how they always go for the biggest, most expensive thing in the shop but wont share and want 2 so they get none ha ha ha
haha this is great. gotta love the way kids think. i love reading your blogs. they give me a great laugh…..
THANK YOU for the Three Amigos reference!! I love that movie!
Agreed – much appreciated!
I love the reference! I sing my daughter the cute song from the bar scene when everyone was afraid of them.
My little buttercup, has the sweetest smile… 🙂
YES! That was my favourite part! LOL
+ 1! I love that scene!
Good lord – my heart leaped at the thought of having the chance to beat Snookie’s face… maybe that’ll be MY birthday pinata… mwahahahaha! ^_^
I just want to say how impressed I am about the plethora link. I love that part of the movie 🙂 And yes, largest pinata = best pinata 🙂
We just made one for our son’s 5th – my hb spent 8 solid hours engineering a LEGO man pinata…. which looked AWESOME, only to have it destroyed – arms/legs beaten off – in all of 5 min. The kids loved every second of it. but we filled it w/ crayons, lego figurines, lego erasers, etc…
That has got to be the coolest piñata idea EVER! I hope you don’t mind if I steal this idea. The only downside is that my 5year old might be totally bummed that the lego guy had the stuffing beat out of him.
Lego pinata FTW! Great idea – except for the time it would take to build one. And the fact that we don’t have enough Lego – that stuff is expensive!
I made a lego brick “pinata” once. It was really easy; cracker box with pieces of toilet paper tubing, then spray painted.
Oh, wow. My daughter cried after watching her “pretty butterfly” pinata get pulverized. I felt terrible. Haven’t had a pinata since. Funny funny stuff.
Okay, that in itself is a teeny bit funny (but cute and sad too).
Reading this makes ME want to go get a pinata for MYSELF. I never get to beat things until magical sugary treats explode out of them.
Mostly, as an adult, beating things is looked down on. But if I got a pinata, filled it with candy, and I also got a baseball bat, I’m pretty sure I’d be a happy camper and even take over cloth-diaper laundering from my wife. Buying one candy-filled pinata per week would be cheaper and probably a lot more productive than couples therapy.
“Where’s dad?”
“Oh, don’t bother him right now. He had a bad day at work and so he’s in his study beating the pinata for a while. Also, that’s not a euphemism.”
“What’s a euphemism?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
I’m pretty sure your wife will trade you cloth-diapering duty for pinata access. Also not a euphemism.
No doubt, I think any wife would be willing to make that switcharoo. lol I’d happily feed my hubby candy packed pinatas if he would do laundry.
LOL @ pinata access.
LOL! Amber: you. are. awesome!
LMAO!!!!!!
I’d agree. That’s a win win right there!
that’s a great idea! Hubby’s been really stressed out at work lately… I can’t imagine a candy filled beatable object could disappoint!
Euphemism. Bwahahahaha!
LOL! I LOVE your posts! We have a crappy party coming up too. No pinatas this time though…we don’t have a single place to hang it in our current crappy backyard… I guess I will just have to load up the goodie bags with the candy they missed out on with no pinata! LOL! The sugar high they get later is payment to the parents for giving my kid crappy toys for her birthday that just have a bunch of tiny pieces that will get lost/broken, or worse, arts and crafts that end up all over the table/floor/walls! 😉
Oh yes. This is exactly what my daughter received for her birthday. I spend 10 minutes picking tiny foam stickers out of the carpet before I could even start vacuuming. Oh, they should just WAIT until their kid’s birthday. I’m thinking sand art.
The spherical shape may make the soccer ball the hardest to kill, though. I guess that depends on how big it actually is. Maybe it’ll tire them out!
I had a great day at the park a few weeks ago watching a whole birthday party of kids beat the crap out of Tinkerbell. The moms scooped up the candy and while they divided into equal portions, the kids continued to kill Tinkerbell until she was just fluttering bits of crepe paper in the grass.
I made a pinata once. I started in March. I finished it a couple days before my son’s party in May. My very first pinata and it was Godzilla! I was so proud of that thing! It was epic!! Second kid up to bat destroyed it with one smack….
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10757138@N05/3513343588/in/photostream/
That IS epic!
Wow! That is amazing!
Oh My goodness. That is wild!
OH MY!! Great Job!! lol if only I had the dedication to do that for my child’s bday… nope just store bought ones for mine. Great job again though : )
I actually made the best little individual pinatas for my daughter’s 3rd birthday this year. They were just toilet paper rolls, tissues paper, and ribbon. The best part (other than that they looked awesome) was that they hardly held any candy!!!
Smart!
What a clever idea!
This is hilarious and I love how logical their candy container choice is that bigger is better!
My daughter’s 5th birthday is on Sunday and I’ve been debating the pinata. This description is everything I imagined it could be. And worse. Beating a mermaid pinata? A bunch of little girls waddling around in mermaid costumes while beating a mermaid pinata? I’m thinking, pass out the Pina Coladas for the adults and this could be really funny.
That sounds like a perfectly logical plan to me.
Nice! My friend always does a pinata at her daughter’s birthday party. The worst was a few years ago when the pinata was Elmo. Cute, but once you start beating on a beloved children’s character with a stick, there’s not enough candy in the world to unsee that particular horror. First his leg flew off, then the body cavity split open. And then all the kids started tearing him apart and chasing after the candy and toys. My daughter was horrified when they started beating up on Elmo. And then she got a lollipop. And a handful of candy. Okay, so a lollipop and toddler sized handful of candy is enough to get over watching a furry muppet pal get beaten with a stick and disemboweled for the treats within.
This made me laugh outloud!
Oh my gosh, that is too funny! The exact same thing happened with our first pinata party too – ‘cept it was a Spongebob pinata. The 4 & 5 yr. old kids beat him, ignored the falling candy, ripped him down, switched from wiffle bats to aluminum baseball bats and continued to beat all the remaining pieces of poor Spongebob. (I think a few adults got in a few whacks too.)
We did a Sponge Bob pinata for our little guy last year. I was worried we traumatized the poor guy for life, because not only did we do the pinata, we had a Sponge Bob cake and most of his presents were wrapped in Sponge Bob paper. So we made him eat Sponge Bob. We made him tear Sponge Bob apart. And then we made him beat him to a pulp. Poor Sponge Bob.
In my opinion, SpongeBob deserves all of that.
Being latino i have a bit of advice…piñatas can have more than just candie
Hi Amber!
Ah yes, those kids are crafty little guys you have! Nice that they agreed on a shared Birthday party. I am not looking forward to the day that we have to do 2 separate parties for our twins (boy/girl), although maybe when that day comes it will be easier than getting them to agree on a party theme/style as their tastes may diverge as they get older. This year they both wanted a Phineas and Ferb party, with an Angry Birds pinata.
Does anyone have suggestions on how to avoid having someone break out in tears after the pinata cracks open? Some kids grab too much, leaving others feeling slighted – are there any ways to set rules about this? We end up coaxing the big grabbers into sharing with the crying child, and then all smoothes over, but how to just avoid this circumstance – (Um, without just canceling the Pinata all together….)
You could give them all either snack sized bags, or sandwich sized (depending on how much candy there is per child) and they can stuff their bag w/their favorites, trade ’em, whatever. It wouldn’t be an exact thing. You KNOW the bigger kids could probably pack more in, but that’s OK, it’s just the way things work, at least they’d be in the same ballpark! I’ve never tried this, mind you…we just redistribute a bit if someone has WAY less!
We always keep an extra bag of candy and treats set aside. Once the pinata opens and kids begin to grab candy we throw handfuls of treats in the direction of the slower kids. This gives everyone a chance to get plenty.
Megan,
Thank you for the idea. Putting an extra bag of candy on my list.
We had a hula girl piñata at my 11 yr olds luau party last week. She decapitated the poor thing! My husband thinking it was funny then placed the severed head on a limb of the tree ad promptly forgot about it. My 12 year old daughter went out in the backyard in the dark to take the dog out and within seconds came back in the house screaming…she had come face to face unexpectedly with the severed head of a hula girl on the tree in the dark! I think my husband about pissed himself laughing…the head is still on the tree.
Lol 🙂 we do pinatas for ds o. But I put only a little candy in and a bunch f balloons and party toys from the cheap shops 🙂
My boys’ birthdays are 2 days apart the week before Christmas. I’m hoping the joint parties last forever! They will be 2 and 4 this year.
We used to always choose pull string ones to reduce trauma… but then they want to save them and after a few years of this their rooms are looking kind of like dusty piñata graveyards. I’m beginning to like this idea of somehow getting them to bash it after the candy rush sets in. (Except for the one we made together back when I wasn’t working. Bubbles the fish piñata will hold a place of honor forever. 🙂 Maybe I could talk them into getting ones of characters that annoy me.
Suckerrrrrrrr! LOL!
A little more clean up but a pinata that size I would totally add packing peanuts etc to add to the “mass” and more hunting for /sugar!/ 🙂 Happy Partying!
I loved the children’s fists while they cheered the piñata “killer”. Very “Lord of the Flies”-ish, and accurate, lol!
LOLOLOLOL!!!! I love it at the end when it hit you they chose the biggest pinata in the store. That’s awesome and so accurate!!!!
My daughter just had her tenth birthday party and I decided to save a few bucks I would make the pinata. It was a disco ball ( nice and easy) I spent and entire week making said pinata. It came out pretty good and I was very proud of the finished product! I was even happier when the thing stood up to the beating it received! Next year I decided I’d make it out of a beer box, duct tape and wrapping paper. Let’s see them crack that open!! Haha 🙂
For my son’s 6th birthday he wanted a Star Wars/Lego theme. So I made a Death Star Pinata and we filled it with Legos. The 8 little boys were really surprised when no candy fell out, but a massive stash of legos!! It was awesome!
what a great idea!
I used to love pinatas for a party–so festive! so traditional!–and now I rather regret it, even when stuffed with crappy non-candy. I feel like it would be more economic to just stuff with money. But once, we made a homemade, very ugly pinata and decided to “Boo” our neighbor with it at Halloween. (Do I have to explain booing? Ding-dong ditching around halloween with goodies…) I filled it with McDonald’s toys we’d collected around the house. Months later, my son asked when we were going to “play the McDonalds game” again, and that’s what he meant, lol!
I had a friend who got into a drag out fight with her daughter 5 year old at a party store because she refused to get a Dora pinata. She said “I just couldn’t let a bunch of kids beat the crap out of poor Dora. It seemed too much like bullying”
My two girls beat the snot out of each other daily. It would be a nice change of pace to see them collaborate and beat the snot out of something else for a change.
Yup, my 3yo insisted on a certain bowl for corn chips one evening. It was the biggest one, so of course he thought that meant more corn chips 🙂 Nope, just put the same amount in the bigger bowl.
When my niece, who was the first baby in our family, turned 4, my sister bought a piñata for her party. It cost over $25, so my sissy assumed it was *already* full of candy. You can imagine the reactions of the sugar-thirsty gang of four year old girls who whacked the heck out of Dora the Explorer only to crack her open and find NOTHING inside. We have never let my sis forget it, almost 7 years later!
Try a piñata cake too! http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/food/cookingtips/784280/party-pi-241-ata-cake
It’s pretty easy, but you have to be careful, if the chocolate shell is a bit too thick, it ends with a parent beating the crap out of it with a hammer to get into it (which is kinda fun too…).
All I can think about with your description of the piñata bashing is this scene from Office Space:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_hF_RhD-xE
Last summer I bought a piñata for the kids at our family reunion which would have been awesome for most of the kids had the one 12 year old not acted like a
complete tool12 year old and smashed it to BITS on his first “at bat” and then snatched up as much candy as possible while the little ones stood by completely confused by what was going on.Not that I’m bitter.
Much.
Haaaaahahaha! Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta!
Ha! We had a piniata at my daughter’s surprise birthday party. Making it was a huge fiasco because the balloon kept deflating and inflating while it was drying due to changes in temperature overnight. So the paper mache kept ripping, and it wasn’t drying, but we had to get it done before the party, which my daughter knew she was having, but didn’t know when. Then I had to sneak it out of the house without her knowing.
We get the the pinatas that have ribbons on the bottom. each person gets to pull a ribbon in hopes that it is the ribbon tied to the trap door.
We have had the regular ‘normal’ ones in the past but they were so damn hard to break!!
Unbreakable pinatas! http://youtu.be/sTYIlyRGrA4
pinatas are so lame these days. ’round my parts, anyways. they all come with ribbons so kids can pull the pinata open. what’s the fun in that? i bet none of THOSE home movies make it to america’s funniest home videos.
glad your shopping adventure was a success 🙂
Well it appears that my 12 units of Early Childhood Education, 5 years of teaching experience, and 8 years of parenting have failed me. HOW did i miss seeing that kids choose pinatas by size rather than theme? It all makes sense now- this is why my daughter bypassed a unicorn pinata in favor of a ginormous mustard yellow star pinata. Thank you for enlightening me!
This reminds me of when I was a kid – my sister and I are born 2 days apart and we shared parties for a couple of years (after which we refused, sorry mom and dad!). One year our parents took us to the party store to pick out pinatas for our party. BIG mistake. First of all, we insisted on each having a pinata (who needs 2 pinatas for a party with like 10 kids tops?) and then once we’d paid for our unicorn pinatas proceeded to become so emotionally attached to them that we couldn’t even use them for the party. They sat on our porch for the next 20 years or so until my sister and I finally agreed that this was ridiculous and recycled their poor, tattered cardboard carcasses. If there’s any sort of karma in this world, I will probably give birth to tiny little monster children so that my parents can spend the next 18 years laughing their asses off and shouting “vengeance is MINE!”
I LOVE YOU EVEN MORE since you quoted The three amigos. We have two cats – one is named “El Guapo”, and when my daughter was a newborn we’d sing “my little buttercup” to her every night.
If I may offer a word of advice from someone who had a pinata at every birthday party she had, 99 cent store toys and lots of tissue paper make filling it easier (and cheaper!).
My guy won’t turn 4 until November, but ever since we shopped for his sister’s party pinata in June, he’s been trying to shoplift “his” from Target.
My mom loves to tell the story of my 3rd or 4th birthday when the pinata we chose was Santa Claus. Can you guess the end of the story??? More than one child left the party in tears because we were beating up Santa. Another reason to love having a birthday close to Christmas. And, maybe that explains why my friends always seemed to think of me as violent even though I am a pacifist… The next year we beat the heck out of a strawberry. It went over a lot better.
Reminiscent of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade I-don’t-know-how-many-years-ago when the Barney float got a out of control in the wind. They sent NYPD in to stab Barney because the high winds were dangerous. Humorous for adults maybe but traumatizing for the kids! lol (yea, I know, I laughed…i didn’t have kids then and I thought it was hysterical)
OMG, I LOVE that you quoted The Three Amigos….one of my all time favorite movies as a kid, you made me smile on this dreary weather day…thank you!
I love this! Size does matter!
A few years back my teen-age son had a guitar-hero themed party. We ordered a guitar shaped pinata and he pretended to play it for a while and then surprised his guests by smashing it like a rock-star and sending the candy flying everywhere. Thanks for bringing back a great memory.
Omg. I am doing a guitar theme party this weekend and that would of been hilarious. Urgh, well they are five so maybe a little too young to have gotten the idea anyhow. But that sounds great.
We do a piñata too, for my son’s 1st b-day I put the mini boxes of raisins. For his second birthday I had leftover from Halloween so I put that in there – lol. I like to think that because I recycled the crap candy that it cancels out the fact that I was providing candy to my guests.
Recycled candy? Brilliant! My girls have their birthdays in November and December…
Well at least they will get to kick it around when they are done 🙂
I have a friend who makes themed pinatas for hens night’s. She used to live in a house next to a busy intersection with lowish fences. There were a few near crashes from when people could see hanging on the washing line a huge red and purple penis with balls… Now that was fun to bash up!
My birthday pinata memory: I was in elementary school and the pinata was hung on a rope between the house and our homemade tetherball pole (cement in a tire – brilliant, right?) And of course, what better to hit a pinata with than a CROQUET MALLET. So before the fun begins I am swinging it in a circle over my head helicopter style until *CRACK* I’ve nailed my neighborhood friend right in the temple. The moral of this story? Don’t mess with a birthday girl and her helicopter mallet of doom.
I love love love the Three Amigos reference!!! I also didn’t know about your other website; the tutorials are great! Love the photo of little Crappy Boy at his party – completely adorable 🙂
our last was the year we had the purchased astronaut one that refused to break open with normal kid-stick bashing and got to the point where we basically had to perform “open heart surgery” on the thing and shake it over the kids! your blog cracks me up even though my kiddos are older-thanks!
This post is hilarious, as they always are. More importantly, you worked in a “Three Amigos” reference. Just when I think I can’t like your blog any more than I already do, and you prove me wrong. Well done.
Ooo, watch out! Those store-bought, corrugated cardboard ones are _impossible_ for kids to hit open. Cardboard does not fall apart the way that a proper paper-mache one does. Crappy Papa may have to help swat this one…
True story: At my husband’s annual summer work party/picnic, they bought a pinata for the kids to hit. They started with the youngest child and went up. Success did not happen until the 3rd intern (college-aged) working for the company. Over 20 people got to hit it, before the intern swung it sideways with the bat then bashed it from the top as it swung back.
We decided to try a pinata one year – store bought, not made at home. My daughter picked a beautiful fairy.
Beautiful and invincible!
Stupid thing was put together with extra tough material and impossible to break.
By the end of it, the kids were exhausted from trying to break it, my husband had to take a solid wooden bat to it, and I’m sure the guests went home with nightmares about my husband beating up the fairy (and I mean really, really beating on it hard and my hubby is not a small man).
Beating up a fairy? I shouldn’t laugh, but I did. There is a “fairy party” shop just near us and we have to be careful riding out bikes past there – don’t want to get a fairy stuck in the spokes…
The “pleathora of pinatas” reference made me lol!!
We moms are so funny with our themes. I always let my boys choose, as soon as they are old enough to have any kind of opinion. When my little one turned 2, he asked for a ‘Choochoo duck’ party. What does that even mean? We did a pool party and put rubber ducks in the pool, and decorated the place with trains. He still talks about choochoo ducks as if they are a thing.
Wow – there are places you can go to buy pinatas? I never knew that! I always assumed the parents (other parents, not me) made them out of glue and old newspapers. We ended up getting out a power saw at our last pinata party…
Hefe how can you say I have a plethora of piñatas if you don’t know what a plethora is?!? Hahaha just watched this movie 2 days ago… It makes me smile!
(a) I love that you have a craft site (I have two little boys at home and the plethora of ideas on your site is unbelievable) and (b) that your writing style is the same for both blogs and of course (c) that you referenced Three Amigos
LOVE this! We had our company picnic/camping trip 2 weeks ago. They had a Sponge Bob Square Pants Pinata. Let me tell you, I WANTED to get a whack at Sponge bob myself… So my 4 year old son gets picked to go first. He is standing there bat raised about to strike, the adult in charge went to lower the pinata, and Sponge Bob just DROPED to the ground, not even a WACK. Well with no way to attach him to a string, they just dumped the candy out. We said that my son used the FORCE on it… 🙂 He is always doing that with doors at the grocery store…. Then, once sponge bob was empty, the kids took him out in the field and BEAT him. 🙂
Oh errrr – I’m planning for my daughter’s 4th birthday party on Saturday and completely forgot about a pinata!! Geez! I’d better get myself to a $2 shop pronto!!
My sister had a pinata for her daughter’s birthday party…maybe her daughter was 3? It was dinosaur shaped. When we tried to show her how to hit the pinata, she started crying, “Don’t hurt the birdie! No…No…Don’t hurt the birdie!!!” She wouldn’t let us break the pinata. As a side note, I thought it was incredibly brilliant of her to intuit the connection between dinosaurs and birds. :- D
LOL… I’m guessing she won’t need to be taught evolution at school!
Smart kid, a sphere is the shape with the highest volume to surface area ratio. good choice! 🙂
Amber this whole story is hilarious. It reminds me of my friend telling me just before I had my son about her Kid’s fifth BDay party. How the kids couldn’t get the piñata open, so a friend finally cut it down and the kids began whacking it with sticks they found. Please no one get offended because this is so awful it is yummy funny, but her description of what the kids looked like was a team of LAPD going whack on some bystander. The image as sad as it is, was just hysterical as her family are all LAPD, lawyers and judges.
By the way this must of been the week to get pinatas as I got one this weekend too for my son. Sorry, a rock and guitar theme, with a nice skull and crossbones to aim for. Taking the kids to help pick this stuff out is always such a risk. So glad the little guy told me what he wanted for his Halloween costume. I don’t think I would have the patience to watch him try and choose at a store.
Oh my goodness, exactly how big is this soccer ball??? BEWARE.
Let me tell you a tale..
Son’s 4th birthday party, pirate theme. Pirate ship pinata. A lot of my son’s friends are older so a bunch of 7 -10 year old boys took a whack at this thing. Then who steps up to the plate but a TINY little girl from my son’s class. She somehow channels her inner Barry Bonds and hits this thing clean off its rope. STRAIGHT AT MY FACE!!!! I still see this pirate ship barreling straight at me in my nightmares sometimes.
SCARY! 🙂
oh and if it gets to heavy and breaks they can always kick it!
The information in the blog is really good.And the art in the blog is very nice.
tieguanyin
Ours got thrashed to pieces and was then thrown in the pool. Think lots of pink tissue paper, bleeding its pinkness into the pool. It was the only moment during the party I sort of lost my rag and may have raised my voice a little bit. Which I think isn’t bad going when you have 20-odd 7 year olds in your garden for 3 hours. Right?
If I may, I´d like to suggest a few tips for decorating the soccer-themed party I see in your future…
I am from Spain, where soccer is HUGE, so you see a lot of them around here.
Here´s an example of one for a barcelona fan (blue and red are their colors). The grass cupcakes with the soccer ball cookies where a hit!
http://docesbolachas.blogspot.com.es/2012/07/mesa-de-dulces-futbolera.html
My son had his first pinata at his 3rd birthday this year. We had a dinosaur theme, and got a dino pinata. It was one of those that you pull the strings. So each child pulls a string until there are no strings left and the little trap door is still shut so my husband had to reach under the dino’s belly and yank it off and then rip it open with his bare hands to get the candy to spill out of the dino’s belly. The kids loved it, despite it being something of a disaster, and I have to say, I think it is okay to teach children to beat the shit out of a dinosaur. But we may have erred in teaching them to reach under the dino’s belly and rip it open with their bare hands instead of using a blunt weapon like a baseball bat. In a survival situation involving an enormous extinct reptile, children will find no trap door with candy and will likely be consumed when they go to rip open the dinosaur’s flesh with their bare hands.
Side note – we bought a half dozen stick on mustaches for the pinata and one little boy grabbed every single one. I will always wonder if he had any idea what they were.
lol for my daughter’s 2nd birthday (Elmo theme) we got her an Elmo pinata. I think they were all still a little too young to appreciate the whole “beat the pinata to death” memo so as soon as there was a little whole in the pinata they knocked it down and just ripped it open with their hands and got to the treats and toys… the whole pinata experience was wasted lol
When we were kids back in the 70s, every year there was a pinata for all the cousins at our huge Weaver family reunion. One summer, I recall my cousin Kim getting a black eye from being smacked in the face by a wildly waved pinata-beating stick. End of the pinatas.
At a recent birthday party for twin girls, the pinata was shaped like a castle. My younger son, who is 2, didn’t get a chance to whack it before the candy-splosion. After all the candy was picked up and the kids had moved on, my two-year-old found the bat and started whacking the pinata carcass. Next thing you know, there was a line to do so. This was right next to the HUGE bounce house with slide – but who cares about that? There’s a princess castle pinata carcass to whack!!! Party on!!!
after your description of the pumpkin pinata i was beginning to wonder about a lord of the flies themed party?
🙂 have fun!
We always have a piñata at Will and Ali’s birthday party. The act of breaking the piñata reminds of those wild animal shows I saw as a kid where the lioness successfully bags herself a zebra.
Pinatas. The word means a different thing to everyone. For me, it means: “thing that urges you to meaningessy overachieve.” I made the terrible mistake of making a nearly life-size Ironman pinata for Mbot’s birthday. I didn’t mean to. It just happened. I documented the process: http://superherounderpants.com/2012/05/24/if-i-build-an-ironman-pinata-will-robert-downey-jr-jump-out-of-it/
The first year we did one my daughter picked out a Pikachu that was about the same size she was, so yeah, I know what you mean!
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say: you’re living with 2 tiny geniuses! Good luck with that! (hopefully the beating of things to death stays focused on pinatas. Where do kids learn this stuff? Do I need to worry about it showing up, randomly, one day? Jk)
We had a pirate shaped pinata in March. It was a “ninja” theme party, and that pirate was the bad guy….
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klima montajı
The weirdest pinatamy kid ever picked was one shaped like a little boy – they also had little girl pinatas – it seems strange that at the pinata factory they thought it was a good idea to make a child figure that kids could gang up on, string up and then beat open…
my husband lived in bakersfield and was friends for years with lots of latino families. when our girls claim they want a pinata for b-day parties he says, “no, you need special skills and experience to have one of those…”
This post made me sooooo happy. We’ve decided to do a joint party for our kids starting next year because theirs are 2 months apart and my youngests falls at Christmas. We figure they can have a truly awesome party this way instead of 2 sort of lame ones. Our friends think we are nutty haha
This post reminded me of a story my best friend told me recently. When her oldest son (who is now like 12 or 13) was younger, he wanted a pinata for his birthday party, so she ran out and bought one that matched the theme.
Fast forward to the party day…The kids are taking turns beating the crap out of this pinata and they can’t figure out why no candy is falling out. My best friend is puzzled…until she realized that the candy doesn’t come in the pinata! She never knew that you have to stuff it yourself! LOL Now I can’t help but snap a picture of a pinata and send it to her whenever I see one!
I hope you refer to someone as El Guapo at the party for good measure.
A plethora of pinatas!!! MY FAVORITE! I say that all the time. (no really, I actually do, one of my favorite movies, ever!). 🙂
Maybe they know not to beat the sh** out of the animals, where’s the soccer ball was made to be kicked!
Smart! That’s what I thought too
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You had me at the Three Amigos reference. lol!
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