If your twins are in different classes - Birthday Party question

My boys' Birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and I've been thinking about how to handle the invitations this year. Ethan and Isaac are in different classes, and have some of the different friends. Their classrooms are right next to each other, and kids from both classes spend lunch and recess together every day and know each other pretty well. Each of the boys will be inviting a few friends from school, so how would you do the invitations? For example, would you give the kids from Ethan's class invitations to "Ethan's Birthday" or "Ethan and Isaac's Birthday"?
Thanks for your help!

 

Hmm mine aren't at that stage yet but it is an interesting question. If you address it as Ethan's and Isaac's Birthday, the parents might feel obligated to buy both a present. That doesn't sound fair if the student is really only friends with Ethan. At the same time if they show up and find out that Ethan is a twin they might feel awkward for not bringing both a gift. I will be interested how other moms do it.

 

I think I would probably put that it's both boys' birthday party. I'm sure that a lot of the kids already know that the boys are twins, so they might wonder why only one boy is listed on the invitation--then you might end up with some kids bringing a gift for both and some not. Yes, they then might feel obligated to buy each boy a gift, but it really is a party for both of them and it is both of their birthdays so I think people are able to deal with that. I know when my girls are invited to a party, I try to buy two gifts or one larger gift from both of them so it's not like I expect people to buy each of my girls a present on their birthday but then I turn around and get the two for one deal.

 

For the boy's birthday this year, I did 3 versions. Marc's birthday for Marc's friends, Jon's birthday for Jon's friends, and some had both names on them if they were friends with both. Everyone knew they were twins, but I didn't want them to feel obligated to buy for both. Ironically, only one person asked why there was only one name, and she was someone who bought for both boys!

 

I did what Sharon said. Morgans classmates got an invite for Morgan, Brookes classmates got an invite for Brooke, and their mutual friends got two invites (one of each) in their envelope. I didn't want the parents feeling like they needed to buy gifts for both kids (not that I expected any gifts from any of them).

 

My problem is there is no way I can invite 30+ kids on top of their friends from various other places. They are going to have to each select a few friends from each class.

 

I wouldn't know. I'm a bad parent. We never have an actual birthday party for our boys. We usually let them invite a few friends for a sleepover or the movies or dinner or something. Very low key. But they all have summer birthdays so it really works best for us.

 

We have triplets, and we are lucky that they have their birthday during the winter break from school here, and the teachers in their respective classrooms have a birthday celebration at school for anybody whose birthday falls during the holiday so they get to celebrate, and have snacks and chocolate cake with lots and lots of school friends during one of their free lesson times. On their actual birthday, we can invite the few kids who actually live close to us for birthday food since they come to play sometimes, and are mutual friends with all 3 of our kids, despite the fact that our kids are in different classes. Birthday gifts are not really given here, so gifts are not a problem, and when anyone comes to the house, they bring a little fruit or some cookies or cake, so we have piles of goodies to eat.

 

I usually do what Jennifer does (including always having gifts for EACH of my boys to bring to other kids' parties (or one large gift that would not ordinarily be chosen)...love the way Jennifer called it the "two for one" deal. I also don't do that to people).

ONe year, when the boys were in separate classes half days, we did have separate invitations with one boy's name. I got a lot of curious comments and questions and about half the people brought 2 gifts; a few people were miffed when they arrived and realised that the party was a joint one (and they only had one gift). I decided after that not to try that again because it just seems too fraught with opportunities to offend or embarrass people (even though we don't mind, sometimes THEY did).

 

This is a GREAT question...something I hadn't had to deal with until this year. I've still got many, many months to decide how to do this. This is the first year that the boys have been in separate classes and all the kids know that they're twins. (There doesn't seem to be too many twins in their school from what I gather and since they started the school year late here, all their classmates know all about them.) I'd hate to send invites to school with just one of their names on it and then one of them has all kinds of friends come from his class and barely anyone from the other class...did that make sense??? This happened recently to one of my friends with singleton girls whose bdays are close together...she had a joint party and one girl had several friends show and the other girl only had one or two from her class show. Last year, I didn't give them a party with friends b/c the previous year my Mom and I had gone to all this trouble and ONE kid from their class showed!! So, I'm not sure what we'll do this year but I'm glad that this thread is here so I can get some ideas as to what everyone else does.

 

I did the invites with both boys names, my girls have only just started school and are in the same class so I'm not sure how I'll handle that.
Mine do have much the same friends though, maybe if they each had completely seperate groups of friends I'd consider doing seperate invitations