40th Birthday Party

She said, “My 40^th birthday is in three weeks and I want you to throw me a party.” This is because we are good friends and good friends can make very clear demands. I hope you have a good friend or two yourself. The only thing I didn’t like about the idea is that I hadn’t thought of it.

A party for a 40-year-old is a much more pleasant thing than a party for a 4-year-old. First of all, the food and drinks are better. Second, the games don’t require anything to be thrown, dumped, crawled through or jumped over. It’s not that any of those activities are bad, but they take a while to clean up after.

I asked, “What would you like to eat at your party.”

She said, “Bacon.”

No joke. That’s all she had to say about that. So, we had bacon themed appetizers. It’s hard to go wrong there. And she wanted to make her own cake. No kidding. This was an easy birthday girl. I lucked out.

She also wanted to make fairy gardens. Have you heard of these? If you have a bunch of homeless fairies in your backyard, or you are hoping to attract some, you need to make a fairy garden. Then they’ll move right in. Actually, it was a super fun activity but, in truth, I started it way too late in the evening. It was pitch black out there while we were finishing up!

Want to do a fairy-garden activity? Go thrifting for containers. Among other things, our container options were; baskets lined with plastic, a one-gallon fish bowl, a crystal bowl, and a punch bowl. As you can imagine, fairies like variety and thrift stores have variety. We did not pay more than $5 for any container. Most were around $3.

We provided gravel for the base layer, cactus soil to fill the main part of the pot, and many succulent clippings from different people’s gardens. We actually walked around the neighborhood, eyeing the overgrown gardens of our neighbors and considering which ones might give us some clippings. It’s a fun way to meet your neighbors.

If you want to do this right, you can’t be satisfied with a few cute plants in a charming pot. No modern fairy is going to move in there. You’ll need some sea-shells, or colorful pieces of glass, or cute little mushrooms or fake ladybugs. Then and only then, will you have a satisfactory fairy garden. I don’t make these rules; I just follow them.

Other nice touches for a pleasant birthday hang-out?

The Birthday Girl Quiz:

Ask your guest of honor to be prepared to answer questions like

·         Favorite color

·         Favorite food

·         Favorite movie

·         Favorite book

·         Favorite super hero

·         What her name means

·         What her middle name is

And then, add a question or two that are totally unique to your friend. For mine, we all had to guess how many different types of tea she owns. None of us got it right. Answer: 58! Don’t judge! They’re all good!

The Birthday Blessing Jar:

When guests arrived, they were given a piece of colorful paper and asked if they would write a special birthday blessing for the guest of honor. These were tucked away and sent home with the birthday girl at the end of the evening.