You should steer clear of planning a surprise celebration on the day the family brings their child home. This can be a very emotional time – the new parents and child (especially if the child is older) will need a period of adjustment. It is very important to be sensitive to their needs. In this case, delivering care packages and planning your celebration for a later date would be acceptable and appreciated. Be sure to talk with the new parents and find out what their wants and needs are before you set a shower date.

Your shower invitations should be sent out three to four weeks in advance, and should include the time, date, and location of the shower. Don’t forget to set an RSVP date with your telephone number and address. If it is at all possible, include the child’s birth date, as well as when he or she was officially adopted or welcomed into the home of his or her new parents. This will help your guests to pick age appropriate gifts. In the case of foreign adoptions, you could also add information about the birth country to inform your guests.

As with other baby showers, the theme for an adoption baby shower should be the same. However, if the child that was adopted is older, you should tailor your party to suit their age and favorite things. For example, a small girl might love everything that involves the Disney princesses and may go absolutely crazy over the color pink. In turn, an older boy may be fascinated by soccer and anything green. Don’t be afraid to be a little creative to help make the party a special celebration to welcome the new child into your circle of family and friends!

Baby shower games are important too! However, stay away from games that are maternity-related. It’s very important that you keep in mind that you are celebrating the gift of adoption. Your games help set the tone of the party, and should be mixed in with any other activity going on. An average shower lasts about two hours, so look at playing two to three party games. If the new parents are adopting an older child, make sure your games reflect that as well. One great adoption party activity is to organize a Welcome Book for the new child. Ask guests to bring pictures of themselves and their families to assemble into a scrapbook page they will create at the shower.

All of your shower decorations will naturally depend on the style, theme, and number of people attending. Balloons and streamers are standard, but there are a lot of creative and fun ideas to make the party extra-special. You’re truly only limited by your imagination here.

If the adoption is an international one, you could use decorations that reflect the child’s place of birth, and include recipes from his or her home country. For guests, it will be a learning experience.
As with decorations, party favors should match your shower theme and party size. Your favors can be used as place settings, prizes, or they can be handed out at the end of the party. A very popular idea for adoption showers is a special program for guests to keep. Written inside should be commitments to the child from his or her new parents, poems about love, family, and adoption, and prayers for the future.
When labeling your favor, keep in mind that your party is, again, in honor of an adoption, not a birth. Your wording on gift tags should reflect that.

Adoption is a very exciting time for the new parents. A baby shower or welcome party allows friends and family members to share in on the family’s joy. When you host or even attend such a party, it is very important to know the needs and wants of the parents. Be sure to know ahead of time how old the child is. Find out if the parents have registered anywhere. Parents who are adopting should be reminded that they can actually register for older children as well as newborns.

By planning and hosting an adoption party, you are helping the new family formalize the acceptance of their child into their circle. You will be creating an occasion that will be documented for the child to look at in the future and remind them how much they were welcomed and loved from the start.

About the Author: Amanda Baker writes for All Things Pondered: http://www.allthingspondered.com – A place to learn, share and grow! Amanda also writes for To Be Informed : http://tobeinformed.com – Health, Fitness and Wellness.

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Adoption is a special experience and a great reason to celebrate! Here are some adoption celebration ideas that we hope help make the day a treasured memory for you and your family.

If you’re looking for adoption finalization gifts, please scroll down or check out our favorite adoption gift ideas.

Finalizing an adoption:

Have someone pass around a book, with blank pages ,where your guests can share their good wishes for your family.

Assign a photographer and photograph or videotape the event. You can also buy some disposable cameras and ask guests to take pictures for you to develop after the party.

Design a program that might include poems or special prayers.

If the adoption is international, display materials that help guests understand the child’s country of origin.

Think about ways that candles can be symbolically incorporated into the ceremony.

Create a memento of the day for guests to take home and to be saved for the child to cherish in the future.

Create a small photo journal so your guests can understand the process to becoming a family.

Have material available for anyone who is interested in adoption.

Ideas from our adoption forum members:

* On the day we finalized the adoption, we went out to eat with our family. It was very low key. The following month we had a party to celebrate and invited all out family and friends

* We did have a big celebration after his adoption was finalized. The following Saturday, I threw a big party in the backyard. We got him a cake that said, “________ is home for good.” I joked that the bakery probably thought that this a was a parole party. I told everyone that this was a “no gifts” occasion, but a few people brought along gifts, anyhow. Our son was only 5 months old, so he had no idea what was going on. But it made for beautiful pictures in his baby album and shows what a big deal it was to us.

* In our religion, when an adoption is finalized we take the baby to our temple to be sealed to our family for eternity. We believe that a baby who is sealed to the adoptive family is no different than a baby who is born under the sealing covenant (a biological child whose parents were sealed to each other before the baby was born). We believe that in God’s eyes it is the same. Our friends and family were there. What a wonderful feeling to know that our family is eternal and will be together forever, even after this life is over.

* Since DS was an infant placement and he came home days after his birth, we focus on his birthday. We considered using Finalization Day as a special family day, but that is too close to a sibling’s birthday and a holiday. In fact, we used that holiday to attract other family members for our celebration of the Finalization. On the actual day of Finalization, DS wore a tiny football jersey with the year on the front, our last name on the back, and “finally forever” across his shoulders. We celebrated by going to a restaurant after leaving the courthouse.

* On the day we finalized our daughter’s adoption our family totally overwhelmed us (in a good way) with how excited they were for this day!!! We had so many family members packed into the courtroom, and she got her first bracelet, ring, and necklace from my hubby’s family. That evening they had everyone over to his grandmothers house and had a little celebration dinner. My best friend gave me and my daughter, each, a gold charm bracelet. Her charm said Daughter and mine said Mother. We decided that every year, on the anniversary of her finalization we would just take a family day with the three of us, do something fun, then go pick out charms to add to our bracelets. This past year her daddy took off work and we had a fun day at a theme park, ate at our favorite restaurant, then picked out teddy bear holding hearts charms that say I love you.

* (Joanne) The day we finalized the adoption of our three, we took our case worker and guardian ad litem out to lunch. They had been such a huge support for us that we wanted to do something for them. (We also invited them to our adoption party the following month). After that we went back to the place that we all met and took some pictures. It was a great feeling to go back to the same exact spot, but this time as a family. We also had a party at The Hilton to celebrate a few weeks later.

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Are you looking for ways to celebrate or acknowledge the anniversary of your finalization day?

1: Lighting candles to honor those who made the adoption possible.

2: Family activities such as a picnic or a day at an amusement park.

3: Purchasing a gift that represents the child’s birth heritage such as the country they were born in.

4: Display or fly the flag of the child’s birth country in the front yard.

5: Reviewing a child’s life book, and perhaps adding a page to represent the past year

6: Preparing a presentation for your child’s classroom, homeschool group or scouting troop about adoption and how all families are different.

7: Remembering the children left behind, children still in foster care or orphanages by volunteering or sending a care package to a foster care group or orphanage.

8: Writing in a family journal.

9: Take a professional family picture.

10: Helping your child to write or draw something about their life, their adoption, or their past.

11: Reading a book about families and/or adoption.

12: Buying a book about adoption and donate it to your child’s school library or public library.

13: Create something to remember each anniversary.

Ideas from our adoption forum members:

** My daughter and I celebrate finalization day. She has no siblings, but I think we still would with each sibling. I take her to lunch and buy her a present.

** We don’t celebrate but we do talk about it on that day. We let him know that is the day we became a family. We tell him it was the happiest day of our lives and one we will never forget. We remind him what country he is from, and that he had to fly on an airplane to come home to us.

** We celebrate our “Family Day” on the anniversary of our daughter’s finalization. That was an important day not just for her, but for our entire family. In the words of my husband, it was the day the wagons were circled. So we’ve celebrated it now for the last few years by going to our county fair, eating too much junk food, riding crazy rides and just enjoying each others’ company. I love it. It’s like celebrating our wedding anniversary…it’s not the day our family was born, but it was the day our family was COMPLETE.

** We went on vacation for the first anniversary. It was so much fun. We do something different every year.

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Related Tags: adopt, adopting, adoption

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