Another birthday question... sorry!

We're celebrating our guys' 6th birthday at a local indoor playground in December. They're in separate classes at school this year, but were in the same class last year and so play with a lot of the same kids at school. We'll be inviting about 20 kids– some are old friends (not from school) that they share, some are new friends that they share (from school), and a few will be friends from their classes this year that are closer to one boy than the other.

I have two questions:

1) Should I send out one invite listing both boys' names? I REALLY don't want each kid getting a gift each from every attendee (that seems so crazy excessive for both us AND the invitees), so I was thinking of sending joint cards to old friends only, and any school friend would get an invite from the boy who's class they're in (that would work out to an equal number of "individual" invites, but would mean their "shared" school friends would only receive an invite from one boy.) This way, I'm hoping the parents won't feel obligated to buy two gifts (old friends would buy a gift for each boy, as they always have, but that's only a few kids.)

2) Can anyone recommend a good way of opening the gifts at the party? We only have two hours for the whole party (and that's supposed to include clean-up!) and don't want gift-opening to take too long, but I would like the boys to open their gifts in front of their friends. Would it be rude to have them open them at the same time? We could separate them into two groups (kids invited to party for DS1 could go to one end of the room, kids invited by DS2 to the other), but I'm worried that would be rude, and we'd have the few kids who bought gifts for both boys caught in the middle.

Argh! Is there any way to do this that would work? I'd love any suggestions.

 

I would do the separate invites for the individual classrooms. And I personally see no problem with them opening the gifts at the same time. But I wouldn't bother splitting them up, stick them right in the front middle so everyone can see. I let my twins open their gifts up at the same time, who wants to wait to open gifts on your birthday??

 

I second the two invites for separate classrooms.

As for gifts, opening gifts is going to eat up a ton of time, imo. You're talking twenty presents. Or more! I know kids go fast, but to read the card, open gift, acknowledge gift giver, wrote down what was given...I don't know. I'd leave opening gifts for at home-or at least plan it that way. And if time allowed at the end, let them open them.

We went to a party at a children's museum two years ago. That was one fast party! Kids played, had snacks, pizza, sang to birthday girl, had cupcakes, and next thing we knew-we were being rushed our of there. Time was up! It was crazy fast. So I would go in with thoughts of not having time to open them, but will if time allows.
And I agree with Danielle-plop them in the middle of the room together!

 

I wouldn't open gifts at the party if it's only two hours. So far of all the parties I've been to, none of the kids opened their gifts.

I think the invitations sound good. Plus it would be weird for the twin not in their class to send an invite too, and to buy gifts for kids they don't really know.

 

I have always done 3 sets of invites, one with each childs name, and a third with both names for shared friends. As for gifts, I wouldn't open them there. It becomes total chaos, the kids don't know who gave what to send thank yous--and mine cannot play with anything until thank yous are written, which at 5 meant I wrote them and they signed their names. At parties at places, there really isn't much time, and opening gifts just takes away from the playtime.

 

I agree with the separate invites. Even though my girls are in the same class, they each have their own set of friends, so I allowed them to invite 5 kids a piece and put only their name on it. Plus, I didn't want every kid to think they had to bring a gift for both girls...but most ended up bringing 2 gifts anyway. We did open gifts at the party. We put Sarah and Allison in the front of the room facing the kids, and we set the chairs in a semi-circle around the girls and the girls opened a gift at the same time. We made each girl tell who the gift was from before they opened them, then they opened them at the same time. It worked really well.

 

Thanks for all the feedback! I like the idea of putting them in the middle of everything to open presents at the same time.
As far as not opening the gifts at the party... I know that would save us time, but I'm really hoping to do it, just because I think it's good for my guys to start building skills related to being gracious, showing thanks and appreciation etc, and I think the kids coming are excited to see their gift being opened. If we played for an hour, stopped for pizza (leaving about 20-30mins for that) brought out cake, and had the kids eat cake while my guys opened their gifts, do you think that would work?
That would mean we'd have about half an hour for gifts/cake-eating. I truly don't have a sense of how long the gift-opening might take. There shouldn't be 20 gifts per kid– the whole point of the separate invites by classroom is that they'll "only" get about 10 each (only! yeeesh...) Is this crazy-talk? Is it really not doable?
On a related note, we've only ever been to one other party where the gifts were not opened in front of everyone– and I heard several negative comments about it. This is probably also influencing my choice of timing.

 

One reason I don't like opening the gifts in front of the kids is because invariably my kids end up with a different # of gifts, and when they were smaller, they didn't always get that, and watching their brother open one when they didn't have one was tough. At home, I could control that better. And I can't remember a party where the kids opened the gifts in front of everyone.