Simplified children’s parties would continue for ever, we said. So why were my two at a ninth birthday in a ‘casino’?
One welcome hiatus during the pandemic was from the rat race of children’s birthday parties. It never reached Christina Crawford levels of pony and fairground rides in our corner of New York but, before March 2020, middle-class kids in my neighbourhood would routinely throw parties at venues that once catering, party bags and gratuities were factored in, comfortably hit a low three-figure amount in dollars per child.
