Is a young child's birthday possible without plastic?

So on Monday is was my youngest's 3rd birthday, and I continued my reducing plastic challenge in all the planning.  Here are my top tips on how to avoid plastic.

Presents
All the things that we gave him (from us and his sister) were second hand or homemade.  The beauty of second hand is that they don't come wrapped in all the packaging, as who keeps the packaging and then puts it back on to send to an NCT sale, or give to a family member or friend, and they're recycled?  So thanks to a local NCT sale, charity shops and family/friends that often give us things that their kids have outgrown as had a total success on this front.
I also made him a headboard holder for his cars/dinosaurs/sea creatures/dinosaurs etc which was a big hit!
 
(Obviously we can't influence what others give him, but some friends who know about my current downer on plastic removed packaging before wrapping their gifts, or bought things not packaged in plastic!)

Wrapping
He is only 3, so part of the fun of presents is ripping open the gift wrap.  However, he couldn't care less if it's wrapped in magical, expensive wrapping paper, or the cardboard box that it was delivered in when sent from a relative, so I left quite a lot in the boxes it arrived in, and also wrapped our bits in boxes and ribbons, and fabric and ribbons, so we can use it all again.
I've also salvaged what wrapping paper I can from other gifts he ripped open, as there are always little gifts to be wrapped throughout the year.

Party Food
The simplest thing is to make it from scratch, and he made it pretty simple with his requests for food, so we had:  

• Dinosaur shaped sandwiches
• Veg sticks
• Homemade carrot hummus
• Chunks of cheese and pineapple
• Cake
• Squash (Rocks Organic comes in glass)
• Fruit

And I made the Mum's PSB & Leek soup with bread, followed by cake and a cuppa.

 Party Games
Let's face, it at three you're just happy to play, so that was the main gist of the party, although I also did a little pass the parcel which included foil wrapped mini eggs in each layer (recyclable) and used some old maps and recycled wrapping paper alternatively for the wrapping.

Party Bags
My eldest and I had fun making little crocodiles for everyone out of old egg boxes, and then we popped a balloon, some second hand dinosaurs, stickers, more foil wrapped eggs, a foil wrapped chocolate lolly (great to see the stick was made out of paper), and a cup cake.  So probably the only thing that couldn't be reused or recycled was the cake wrapper. 

All in all a pretty plastic free affair.  Success!