\u201cHis mom told him that we were going to have a birthday party at Crayola. And, his mom didn’t deliver. He doesn’t understand anything past that,\u201d Forsman told WFAA.<\/p>\n
BLUE RIDGE, Texas \u2014 Christina Forsman thought she had found the perfect place to celebrate her son\u2019s fourth birthday. The Blue Ridge mom planned Felix\u2019s party a month in advance at the Crayola Experience in Plano \u2014 more than an hour from their home. For her son, who is on the autism spectrum, she carefully chose what she believed would be a low-sensory, colorful environment.<\/p>\n
Felix woke up on February 8th excited. \u201cIt’s my birthday party! It’s my birthday party, mommy! Yes! It’s your birthday party.\u201d<\/p>\n
But when they arrived to the Plano location, the lights were off and the doors were locked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalked up, everything’s dark. There’s notices on the doors and on the window that they had been locked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Crayola Experience wasn\u2019t just closed for the day. It had been shut down. A notice posted to the front window reads, “provided tenant pays the entire amount of delinquent rent, a new key to the premises may be obtained…”<\/p>\n
Christina tells WFAA she had spoken with a party coordinator just three days earlier and paid a $75 deposit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re walking out and I’m still explaining [to Felix] as I’m getting him back in his car seat…’we’re not gonna have crayons today.’\u201d<\/p>\n
She says she tried reaching out to Crayola and corporate offices, but heard nothing back. Our team also contacted corporate and found only a closure notice posted online. That notice online reads “We’re temporarily closed. We apologize for any inconvenience and disappointment this has caused for our guests.”<\/p>\n
Also, in an email we sent to Crayola Experience, the following message was kicked back to WFAA: “Thank you for contacting Crayola Experience Plano. At this time, we are receiving a high number of inquiries and will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.”<\/p>\n
Christina tells WFAA she had to pivot immediately. She had a number of families who had RSVPd for the birthday party. She put something \u201c…together with duct tape and a hope and a prayer, that was it, that was all I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
She found a nearby Chuck E. Cheese and paid an additional $500 out of pocket to salvage the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a lot of chaos that shouldn’t have had to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Felix still talks about the party \u2014 but not the way his mom hoped.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis mom told him that we were going to have a birthday party at Crayola. And, his mom didn’t deliver. He doesn’t understand anything past that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christina says she wants the company to make things right \u2014 not just for her family, but for others who may have been affected. She says, it starts with an apology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s what I would say: Do better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHis mom told him that we were going to have a birthday party at Crayola. And, his mom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-161473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}