

The Party Elements' Year in Review
This is the last post of 2017, and so in honor of that, I would like to take a moment to talk about what The Party Elements has been through this year: 1. We started running parties in May 2017, and became an official LLC in September. 2. We have run 23 events, including a family reunion, an event at a Senior Activity Center, girl scout events, library events, and lots and lots of birthday parties! Our youngest audience was for a 3-year old birthday party, and our oldest audi


Let's Talk About New Year's Resolutions
How’re people doing this day after Christmas? Because we don’t celebrate Christmas, and it wasn’t until my adulthood that I became close with people who do, I am still never quite sure how the post-Christmas day looks. Share what you are doing today in the comments below! Since we are almost at New Year’s Day, though, let’s take a minute to talk about New Year’s Resolutions. Chances are, you’ve made them before, and chances are good that you are planning to make some New Year


Another Winter Weekend
First of all, Merry Christmas to readers who celebrate Christmas, happy holidays to everyone else. Second of all, if you are like me and my family, you are going to need activities to do this weekend, and likely, all of next week as well. While The Party Elements offers camps at a variety of other times, we are not offering any programming this Christmas vacation week. What should you do? 1. Indoor water parks. This is my favorite option, although likely to be one of the more


All About Toilet Training
The big news in our family is that as of Thanksgiving time, the youngest scientist-in-training is now toilet-trained, at just over 3 years. When I mentioned this fact to one of our relatives, the person responded with, “It’s about time.” Then I got curious, as I tend to, and decided to do some research about the average age of toilet training and how that may have changed over the years. If it turned out that children were toilet trained at a much younger age a few decades ag


Fun Winter Weekend Ideas
What are you doing this weekend, readers? Still lots of fun Boston-area activities for the holidays. Some ones that you will not want to miss include: 1. Last weekend to see the performance of The Velveteen Rabbit (website and more information here: https://mommypoppins.com/boston-kids/event/indoor/the-velveteen-rabbit). I am going to confess, I have never seen this show, but all reviews and things I have read about it look spectacular. We will be checking this out, to be sur


First Night of Hanukkah
Yesterday we lit the first Hanukkah candle, and so in honor of that, I thought we could talk a little bit about this holiday. For those who may be only passingly familiar with this Jewish holiday, you may think of it as a “Jewish Christmas,” in which we give presents to each other and have lots of parties. This is all true. We do give presents, and we do have parties. However, the main story of Hanukkah focused on the Greeks trying to convince the Jews to assimilate into Gree


Don't Stop Exercising!
So I’m writing this article right now, and because I have decided to restart my exercise routine in advance of the holiday season, I am essentially one big muscle ache, from my head to my toes. This is day 3 of exercising (out of 5 total days), and I know it is going to get better, and I know it is good for me, but for real, this hurts. so. much. How do I know all of this? Well, mostly personal experience, which in my case has consisted of four sprint triathlons, a few 5K run