20 Ways to Celebrate Birthdays during Coronavirus Quarantine

Is your child’s birthday approaching? We’re all home practicing social during the Coronavirus pandemic and wondering how we’re going to celebrate our kids’ birthdays while quarantined. Kids are being faced with such a confusing time for them right now and especially important to focus on their special day. They’re bummed about missing out on seeing their friends and having a party.

Birthday ideas during social distancing can also apply when snowed in or if the birthday child is sick (my son came down with a fever for his first birthday but he was young enough to not understand that we moved his party but I’m sure there are older kids who have faced this before).

Over 20 Ways to Celebrate Kid’s Birthdays While Home During Corovid-19 Quarantine

Have friends and family send video birthday messages
Ask friends and families to email you birthday messages for your son or daughter. Print these out and make a collage on a wall in your house.
Live Stream singing Happy Birthday on Facebook
‘Heart Attack’ their bedroom door – cut out paper hearts and tape them all over their door. You can write messages on the hearts for an extra touch.
Balloon waterfall – tape a garbage bag full of balloons over their door so that when they open their door the tape will rip and the balloons will fall over them
Amazon to the rescue – order gifts online (give them plenty of time to arrive)
Give them a gift card to shop online so that gifts will keep arriving after their birthday
Limited decorations in the house? Hang a string and attach printed photos of them when they were younger with clothespins
Have everyone in your house get dressed up in their fanciest clothes for a home-cooked birthday dinner
Order delivery or curbside pickup from their favorite restaurant
Family slumber party
Host a Netflix watch party
Plan a scavenger hunt around the house for them to hunt for their gift
Zoom or Google Hangout virtual party
Bake cupcakes and let everyone decorate their own cupcake. Search your pantry for candy and sprinkles. Order some pre-colored icing (grocery pickup or Amazon delivery) Birthday child gets to pick the best-decorated cupcake.
Have friends and family make a Drive-by Party Caravan and drive past your house. Play music and have them decorate their cars with balloons and signs. For decorating ideas, see our list below
Hire a yard greeting company or do it your self. Make signs and attach them to sticks so they can be placed all over your lawn.
Have a ‘yes’ day where you say yes to anything they ask to do (realistic requests only, lol). Dessert for dinner, yes. Everyone camps in the family room, yes.
Have a ‘room crawl’ where you move from room to room throughout your house for a different activity or course of a meal.
Bring the birthday adventure home. Were you planning a trip to Disney? Decorate with Disney decor, watch Disney movies and make Disney park copycat recipes. Were you planning a trip to the beach? Fill up a kiddie pool in the yard, everyone wears their suits and make some fun tropical cocktails. Camping trip? set up the tent in the back yard and roast marshmallows over the fire pit or grill (microwave works too)
Spa day at home – everyone helps to create the ultimate spa day or even you can join in and give each other treatments.

Ideas for Decorating your car for a birthday caravan

drape a Happy Birthday banner along the side of you can. You can make one or purchase from a party store. We have one that we use for all the birthdays in our house.
Attach balloons and streamers to the back of the car
Make a sign to hold up as you go by – either someone sitting in the passenger seat or through the sunroom (please, please make sure the car is moving very slow and you being safe about this)
Make a Face-on-stick of the birthday child and hold these up as you drive by (again being safe, the driver should not be doing this)
Make a birthday song playlist to play as you go by
Dress up in crazy costumes. I’ve seen a few people wearing those inflatable T-rex dinosaur and unicorn costumes and sitting on the roof or the back of a pickup (again, please be safe!)
Attach a large stuffed animal to the top of your car
Use window markers to write messages
Use a USB disco ball for a fun light show that goes along with the music. My son has two of these portable party lights in his room – they run off of batteries or USB so would be easy to use in the car.

For the parent organizing a birthday caravan, you could create car decor kits and drop them off at party guests’ homes. This would be great if you want to do something like the face-on-a-sticks so that everyone has them.

Need more inspiration?

7 ways to make birthdays extra special for tweens and teens

Have a child graduating this year? high school, 8th grade or kindergarten

How to celebrate graduation during Cornoavirus quarantine?

What about the adults? We have birthdays, too! Besides the ideas above…

I’ve gotten a lot of requests for ideas for adults, so keep checking back as we add more to this list. Have a fabulous idea? We’d love to hear from you.

Birthday toast. Pick a time for a Zoom Birthday toast so everyone can cheers together. If friends and family live nearby, dropoff bottles of booze or premixed cocktails so everyone can share together. Or create a birthday cocktail and send out the the recipe.