I am not against pizza. I love pizza. My kids love pizza. I love pizza.
But I was still very nervous about throwing a birthday party without pizza for a group of 5-year-olds. I had to email the venue where we celebrated and make sure there will be no announcements “time for pizza!” before transitioning to the food part of the party. I had to approach each of the gymnastic coaches on the day of the celebration to make sure they know that there would be no pizza. Can you imagine what would sixteen 5-year-olds do to me if they did not find the promised treat on their plates?
Instead of pizza, we decided to serve fruit and sandwiches. Of course, some of the food we served is not nutritionally superior to pizza. But it was not pizza. It was something different and hopefully exciting.
And guess what? Not a single child asked me “Where’s pizza?”. We had very few leftovers. The bagels with smoked salmon were the least popular choice so I had a lot of those for my breakfast for the next couple of days. And all the kids ate tons of fruit. It took us about 1 hour to prepare all the sandwiches and wash the fruit on the morning of the party. But I think it was worth it. And cheaper than ordering a pizza. Again.
Here is the menu:
1/ Cucumber sandwiches on white bread with cream cheese spread
2/ Ham sandwiches on whole wheat bread (we used a cookie cutter to make cute shapes).
3/ Mini croissants with ham and cheese
4/ Mini whole wheat bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon
5/ Strawberries on a popsicle stick
6/ Watermelon on a stick in a muffin liner
7/ Grapes
