The Hits: It's party time with Hi $5 present

The Hits DJ Megan Banks.

Happy Birthday to all of those lovely Librans out there!

October is certainly a big birthday month in our family. My in-laws both have birthdays a couple of days apart, my mother's birthday is in between and then I managed to fit my son in the mix too. My baby, little Raef will be turning seven soon.

When I turned 7, I had three friends over (they were the only girls my age in the farming district at the time) and I had a pink cat cake.

The cat's whiskers (not pyjamas) were made from long liquorice straps, and there was a very generous showering of desiccated coconut over the top to portray our own cat who was white, fluffy and deaf and who very sadly went missing and never came back.

So this cake was a posthumous tribute of sorts. Obviously my parents knew the cat had died but I was still holding out hope.

They were simpler times, that's for sure. I think we played a game of musical chairs, munched on some toffee apples, ran through the sprinkler and then it was time to get back out there and round up the sheep.

Oh, I almost forgot. I got a ViewMaster that year. The reels that came with it were Laverne and Shirley, and Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang. Man I loved that present.

Fast forward to 2021 and a seven-year-old's birthday is a serious business!

My son and his friend are only a couple of days apart and it's smack bang in the middle of the school holidays so they are having a joint gathering.

Cracker idea. Two mums to take charge, 10 kids to go rogue and add some trampolines in the mix and you've got yourself a party.

We decided to have a Hi $5 party which is where instead of a gift you give $5 in a card.

As a parent who buys a lot of presents, I think this is such a good idea.

It's easy and cheaper on the whole so I'm all there for it. The trouble now is that he wants to invite the whole school so he'll have enough money to buy himself a new car he reckons.

He's got his sights set on a truck like granddad's or a ride-on lawnmower with sadly not a ViewMaster in sight!