Birthday Parties

Back when our first child had her first birthday party, we put together a simple little party. We had only just moved to town and only knew one family, so we invited them over. We served frozen yogurt and apple-orange bread (I was really into health food for a very long time, and none of my children had a real cookie until they were two years old- except for the youngest).

I think she got a shape-sorter for her birthday, and maybe a new outfit.

When she was two years old we were doing a hard stint for the military, a really difficult job. The HM scored I mean, was deployed to a job helping out at an Air Force recreational site. Yes, a campground on a lake, with fishing and boats and other fun, er, official military stuff. The Air Force put us up on the lake in a furnished trailer for two or three months, and we found friends to rent our house for that time. I tell you, the Air Force life can be tough, very tough.

But I digress. The HG had her second birthday while we were living out at the lake, a couple hours away from anybody we knew, and an hour from any store. So I decorated the trailer with birds I cut from construction paper (I cut two shapes, one basically a wingless bird in profile, the second a pair of wings with a bridge of paper betwixt each wing. I cut a slit in the body of the first shape and inserted the wings through that. When hung from the ceiling the wings would gently move up and down with the breeze). I couldn't find any string, so I used dental floss to hang all the birds from the ceiling. It looked very festive (and yes, at the end of the day I rolled up the strands of floss for reuse).
We had a home-made cake and ice-cream.

Her third birthday we were enroute to Japan, and so we ended up celebrating with relatives in California. They took us all out to Chuck E. Cheese were we were overwhelmed by the noise, overstimulated by the games and flashing lights, and over fed with pizza.

Her fourth birthday we celebrated in Japan, and for the first time we invited lots of little kids over. We made english muffin pizzas, had homemade cake, and gave out cheap squirt guns for party favors. Then we sent the kids out to squirt each other. I had some other organized games planned, mostly variations of tag and crack the whip. But the kids preferred to drink the water in their squirt guns and run wild, so that's what they did.

I won't continue the birthday saga, except to say that the HG's 4th birthday party is the biggest, most organized and expensive birthday bash we have ever thrown. I don't personally enjoy a lot of pomp and circumstance, and I'm really not into formal occasions.

We save the same paper decorations and use them nine times a year every year. We even reuse much of the same wrapping- a cloth bag once used to hold flour, a paper bag we decorated with puffy fabric paints somebody gave us once a dozen years ago.

We buy a bag of balloons, pick wildflowers or greenery to decorate with, let the birthday person choose the birthday dinner, then we cook it at home. For fifteen years or so the Equuschick and her father (they share a birthday) chose spinach lasagna every year, so even the dinners don't get very fancy. Then we watch a movie of the birthday person's choice and play a game together and unwrap presents (mostly second hand or home-made).

OH, and every birthday there is a dime in the birthday person's slice of cake. This is a family tradition. ONly the Cherub does not keep this tradition any longer because she invariably eats her dime.

We've been invited to fancier parties. Some of them are fancier and more upscale but still quite tasteful. WE do not begrudge people with more expansive pocket books and fussier or fancier tastes than our own- so long as a family an afford it, our method of celebrating birthdays is not more sanctified than taking the family out to an upscale restaurant, giving beautiful bouquets of hothouse flowers to the birthday girl, and adding a pearl to her necklace every year. It's just different

But somewhere beyond the simplicity of our method and the graciousness of those who celebrate with pearls and petals there is sheer ostentation:

Bravo celebrates good times as the eight-part, one-hour series "Party/Party" follows the dramatic lives of 16 diverse families as they put major time, energy, and cash into the planning and preparation of the party to end all parties. Viewers will see a five-year-old's $10,000 princess party complete with a horse drawn Cinderella carriage, the inspirational wedding ceremony of childhood sweet-hearts reunited after years apart, as well as the most the most magnificent Bat Mitzvah this side of Jerusalem.

Each one-hour episode will explore the contrasting ways in which two very different families celebrate similar events. The common bond is each family's wish to throw the best party ever to create the most memorable event possible for the guest of honor. What each episode unveils is the nonstop mania over the smallest details – from the invitation list, to the most impressive venue, to the ideal party attire, to the right selection of tunes. Coming to final decisions between parents, children, spouses, party-planners and anyone else who desires to throw in their two cents can be quite the challenge. Hopefully, the end result will be a night to remember.

Among the 16 families "Party/Party" follows, the Karkoska's live a carefree life in Laguna Beach. Daughter, Kacey, is turning five and a $10,000 "princess party" where all the guests will dress as royalty only seems fitting for their little girl. The guest of honor will make her grand-entrance in a horse-drawn "Cinderella" carriage.

If this is what they do for a five year old, what can they do to improve on this at 6? What will they do for her 18th birthday, or her wedding?

A tip of my pseuod Amish bonnet to The Corner