Sonic the Hedgehog birthday

I had all the Sonic the Hedgehog video games as a kid. I loved them. My super-fun older cousin, Greg, gave me my first Sonic game (for Sega Genesis!) as a Christmas gift one year. I must have been around 8 or 10 years old. After that, I was hooked.

Now, here we are more than 20 years later, and my own son has fallen in love with that speedy blue hedgehog.

So, when we decided to plan his 6th birthday party, he requested a Sonic theme. I thought it was a great idea, and I was excited to come up with some creative ways to theme the party.

My husband was in charge of the games because he's so good at that sort of thing. He had several great ideas but we ended up only doing about three of them due to the heat and the time.

When the kids had all arrived, Matt told them we couldn't start the party until someone found Sonic. We had hidden a small plush Sonic toy on the party field, and the child who found him got to keep him!

Game 1:  Save the baby ducks! Remember in the Sonic games how the evil Dr. Robotnic changed all the little wild animals into evil robots, and then when you destroy an enemy in the game it frees the little animal? Well that was the idea behind the first game. Matt set up a large bin of rubber ducks in the center of the field. The kids were separated into 3 groups and spaced an equal distance away from the center bin and from each other. Each group of children also had an empty bin. When Matt said "Go!" the kids had to run to the center bin and "rescue" one - ONLY one at a time - ducky by taking it back to their own bin. The group of children whose bin had the most ducks in it at the end were the winners.

Game 2: I'll get you, Sonic! In this game the children were separated into two equal groups and placed at opposite ends of the field. Matt stood on the middle - he was the evil Dr. Robotnic - and when he yelled, "I'll get you, Sonic!" all the kids began running to make it to the other side. Every child he tagged became one of his evil robots and stayed with him in the middle of the field. Next time they yelled, "I'll get you, Sonic!" they helped Matt, er, Dr. Robotnic, tag more children. This continued until one child was left and became the winner.

Game 3: Spin like Sonic. The kids were divided into 3 groups and lined up for this relay. When Matt yelled, "Go!" one child from each group had to place his or her head against a baseball bat and spin in circles 5 times (just like Sonic!). Then the dizzy kids had to run as fast as they could (like Sonic!) up and around a cone and back to the bat, when the next child would have his turn. The first team to finish was the winner.

Asher's daddy explains the games to the kids.

We gave the games' winners "chaos emeralds" as prizes. This was an enormous hit. Basically a chaos emerald is the goal of much of the Sonic games. When you complete a level you may receive one of a number of chaos emeralds, so I thought it would be fitting for the winners to also receive one!

  

 I was THRILLED to find these glass paperweights that fit the bill perfectly. The kids absolutely loved them. The first little girl to win one said, "You mean I get to KEEP this?!" 

Figuring out how to continue the Sonic theme into the party favors was a lot of fun. Here's what each child went home with:

And inside...

The breakdown:

• Blue favor box with one Sonic sticker on top
• Handmade Sonic box tags from Etsy that said, "Thanks for coming! Love, Asher"
• One sheet of Sonic stickers
• Two Sonic temporary tattoos
• A Sonic cell phone charm, which were basically just tiny little ornaments the kids could hang anywhere. They came in a cool display box of 12 individually wrapped charms, so they could also be used as fun prizes to set out.
• A Sonic mask
• Two chaos emeralds (smaller than the game prizes) in a small zip-top bag. The jewels came in a box of 12, and I included two in each favor box. Because we had 10 children in attendance, I bought two packages and then gave Asher the leftovers.
• Two chaos emeralds (diamond-shaped boxes that I had personalized to say "Sonic's Chaos Emerald) filled with M&Ms and Reese's Pieces. These were actually in the "wedding favors" section of this website, so I'm sure whoever personalized them for me must have been wondering what the heck "Sonic's Chaos Emerald" was! It makes me smile to think of that!

The chaos emeralds in the favor boxes came in a package of 12, so that was extremely convenient!

 And the highlight of the party was no doubt the positively unbelievable cake made my an extremely talented friend of mine:

 The party was a success. We rented a large bouncy castle from a local rental company for the kids to play in between activities and to keep them busy while we made preparations for whatever was happening next. Totally worth it.

And Matt had the great idea of offering a "candy bar" for the kids. I placed party bags and ribbon at one end of the table, and when a child was ready to go home, the parent helped their child put candy into a bag to take home. The kids loved being able to fill the bag themselves! Originally I wanted to offer all blue candy in keeping with the Sonic theme, but that proved too difficult so we just went with our favorites.

Sonic plates and matching napkins, cutlery, and additional plates.

Happy birthday, sweet boy. I can't believe you're six!