We were lucky enough to get tickets and see the phenomenon that is Hamilton when it rolled through town a few years back. When it came to Disney+ last summer, I was thrilled to relive the experience from my couch. I told my family the day in advance that I had plans for the day and they were not as enthused as I was. My children, having been forced to listen to the soundtrack a few more times than they would have liked, protested. And I do mean protested. They made signs and picketed, eventually taping the signs to the TV console hoping I would change my ways. (I didn’t.)

Something strange happened, though. They heard those opening notes and suddenly I noticed they all were downstairs, two songs in they were peeking from around a corner, and by the third song they were all sitting on the couch with me. Sometime before the intermission, my daughter sheepishly went and took down the protest signs. She was hooked and her Hamilton love hasn’t stopped since then.

My daughter Maddie has read every book she can find on Alexander and Elizabeth Hamilton, even trying ones above her reading level in a quest to learn as much as she can. I have my degree in history so I’m thrilled to be raising more history nerds, even if Lin-Manuel Miranda was able to inspire them more than I could. Maddie wrote a report on Eliza for class this year and even dressed up as her for Halloween… so I was not at all surprised when she asked for a Hamilton themed birthday party.

As with all the birthdays we celebrated this past year, we decided to make them sibling-only. Even though it was just us, we still went all out with the details to make the party feel as normal and special as possible. All of our kids commented these have been some of their favorite parties so I know we hit the mark. Once we had the theme down it was an obvious choice to watch the movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s really long. Without the time constraints of needing to get kiddos home to their families I didn’t worry too much about the party length, but we did try to keep the activities simple and minimal so we could get the the main event. Here’s how it came together and sources….

The party always starts with the invitation. I had designed this for an outdoor movie viewing of Hamilton with neighbors last summer so I just reworked it to make it fit for the party. Like most our family’s party invitations, it is available in my Etsy shop. We decided each station could have a song lyric to explain the activity. We chose:

Young, Scrappy & Hungry
Write Like You’re Running out of Time
I’m Looking for a Mind at Work
You’re My Favorite Subject
Awesome, Wow
Click Boom
What Time is It? Showtime!

Young Scrappy & Hungry.

We kicked off the party with lunch. I purchased the black tablecloth, sequin runner, banners, and cake topper from Amazon. I had planned to make the cake toper and banner myself but with the low price point I couldn’t justify spending on supplies and my time to make them. The Hamilton stickers were available on Amazon at one time but by the time I was ready to buy I could only find them on Etsy. The gold stars and plates were a score at The Dollar Tree. We went for a Hamilton pun themed menu and feasted on:

A. Ham(burgers)
History Has it’s Fries on You
Three Fundamental Fruits (at the exact same time)

The paper lanterns were purchased from the Dollar Tree and accented with stars cut with my Cricut.

Write Like You’re Running out of Time.

I found some online quizzes to guess the Hamilton songs from emojis and compiled them to made them into a printable option. You can download the one I created for your own Hamilton party fun. To make it extra fun, we used quill pens that were metal not actual feathers but were nice and sturdy and wrote surprisingly smooth.

I’m Looking for a Mind at Work.

My littlest is only four so I knew the emojis quiz would be too tough for him. We laid out some Hamilton coloring pages found online for him to enjoy while his siblings worked on the quiz. The big kids didn’t spend much time here, opting to save their sheets for another time.

You’re My Favorite Subject.

This is essentially pin the tail on the donkey…. but pin the crown on King George. We printed out an image of Hamilton the Musical’s version of Kind George an my daughter pasted it to a larger sheet of construction paper and decorated it. I swear, some version of pin the blank ends up in every one of our parties. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and all my kids love it.

Colonial Games. Awesome, Wow.

We had these cup and ball games from Target that were gifted in Easter baskets that I repurposed for the party. They are no longer available for sale but these ones are similar. I also whipped up these whirley-gigs the night before the party (I forgot!) and thankfully they come together really easily. I modeled ours after a craft fair toy I had growing up, but you can also make them without a drill using a large button and yarn. We spent more time at this staton than I anticipated - challenging each other and trying to beat our own records.

Click Boom

Here’s where things got weird. My daughter was like “let’s have a nerf duel” and although my children have nerf battles with each other on their own terms all the time, the idea of “happy birthday now try to shoot your sibling” was outside of my own comfort zone. I researched other Hamilton parties and found creative ways the families had tackled the war and duel part of the Hamilton Story - one group did a water balloon fight with red balloons vs blue balloons (we didn’t have good weather), another group did a tug-o-war game between sides (we didn’t have enough kids), and another family just did a water gun fight. Since end of May in Oregon is questionable weather for running around soaking wet, we decided we’d chalk a star target onto our fence then the kids could do “duel practice” with water guns to rise the target away. Except the weather report the night before the party looked like rain so we pivoted again and I drew a star target onto an easel and the kids took 10 paces then turned and used a nerf gun to hit the target. They loved it, I was cringing.

What Time is It? Showtime!

The part of the party my daughter wanted the most was the chance to sit and snuggle and watch Hamilton with us. I created tickets for an authentic theater experience. The plan was to serve popcorn but we were all still stuffed from lunch so we just cozied up and enjoyed the show.

Teach Them How to Say Goodbye

I’m not a huge fan of birthday party goody bags unless it’s something useful. Typically we do some sort of a book so it was all too perfect to use pocket U.S. Constitutions, American flags (not historically accurate as my daughter pointed out - ha!), and these Hamilton bookmarks we made using photoshop, our home printer, and my laminators. We topped them off with tassels to make them extra special.

Overall, it was a wonderfully fun party. If you’re planning your own Hamilton bash, I found great inspiration here and here.

We bought two of the Hamilton shirts from the Etsy shop TShirtInker. We were impressed with the softness of the Bella canvas shirts and the bright colors of the printing. My son and I wanted simpler shirts so I made those myself with blank tees and my Cricut.

Because I knew my Hamilton-obsessed daughter wouldn’t mind a full uniform of Hamilton inspired shirts, I made her this sweatshirt as a birthday gift, now for sale in my Etsy shop.