Pregnancy trend: Gender reveal parties

Boy or girl? That’s the big question when you’re expecting. For me and my husband Jim, the answer came in a creative way: a gender reveal party.

Here’s how it went: When the sonogram tech asked if we wanted to know the sex of the baby, due in December, we had her write the gender down and seal it in an envelope. I took it (no peeking) to a baker who said she would craft a cake with either pink or blue icing as the filling inside — we wouldn’t know until we cut into it. Our idea was to share this moment with our family and close friends, instead of having a traditional baby shower.

The party came over Labor Day weekend. As people arrived, we asked them to log their predictions — there were silly black felt mustache pins for those (like me) who thought the baby was a boy, and pink ribbon pins for everyone (namely Jim) predicting girl. For the record: the mustaches were the clear crowd favorite.

When it was cake-cutting time, everyone huddled around the dessert table and roared as we pulled out a slice and discovered a shock of hot pink icing. It was outrageously fun.

Even sweeter: Having all our parents (mine live 500 miles away), siblings, nieces and nephew in the same place at the same time.