2024, animals, Fantasy, Gatherings, Kids, Uncategorized

What a Character!

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One of my little next-door neighbors is turning six this week.  Since her mom will be out of town for a work trip on her actual birthday, Marie (name changed to protect the innocent) had her birthday party yesterday.

Apparently her first choice for a theme party was Ghost Spider.  I had no idea who this was – had to look it up – a Marvel friend of Spider Man.

One component of the party that had been promised was to be a visit from a real-life character.  Unfortunately there are no Ghost Spider impersonators in the Twin Cities.  Marie had a choice – Ghost Spider theme party with no real-life entertainment or a different theme. 

I got a text yesterday afternoon that said “if you want to see a princess coming up the walk, go to the window now”.  It was Tiana from Princess and the Frog.  I have to say, she was beautiful and the costume was quite luxurious.  (She also traveled with a “handler” which I thought was pretty funny.)  As she was going up the front steps to the house, you could see all the little girls crowded onto the porch, waiting to greet her.   Apparently, not only did she read to the girls, she also sang; Marie’s parents, who are both music teachers, reported afterwards that Tiana had a really nice voice.  Win win all around.

YA had quite a few theme birthdays growing up but we never had any live-action characters.  If we had, we would have had Barney, a pirate, a cat, a dog, a surfer dude, Pocahontas and a cupcake!  Thank goodness she’s past the stage where I have to keep up with the Jones’ now!

Did you ever have a theme birthday party as a kid?  If you didn’t, what would you have liked?

34 thoughts on “What a Character!”

  1. I only had one birthday party with kids from my school as guests (I don’t know why, just seemed like the thing you were supposed to do), and as I did not enjoy their company and vice-versa, I never had another one. Instead, relatives–usually my aunt and uncle from Bay City WI–would come visit; we’d go out for lunch, then have cake at home. My dad couldn’t have chocolate or caffeine, so we ended up compromising on a marble cake–if I could have had any birthday party, it would have featured a chocolate cake! Mocha, if they’d had such a thing in the 1970s, which I don’t think they did.

    –Crow Girl

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  2. If I even had a birthday party when I was growing up, I can’t remember one. I do remember when I was about to go into 10th grade, my mom took a couple of my friends and me to the zoo for my birthday. And the main reason I remember it is because I was new to the school district and I didn’t actually have all that many friends in the new school and my mom didn’t want me to invite friends from the old school. Part of the “toughen Sherrilee up for her new school situation” program.

    I was totally into Omar Sherif when I was in high school. I had three mice, one after the other and they were all named Omar. So my adult self thinks it would’ve been really cool to have a Lawrence of Arabia themed party, where we all wore long robes and pretended to ride camels. I’m thinking, though that in that time it might’ve been frowned upon.

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  3. In the 50s, we didn’t necessarily have a party every year. The only party I remember is when I turned four, and we have black-n-white photos. My mom must have seen the cake in a magazine – it was on a little turntable – a merry-go-round, with pink frosting, and animal crackers for the animals. There were three other little girls.

    For a theme? maybe Alice in Wonderland – I loved the Disney movie, and we had a little golden book and a 78 record with the Disney songs.

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  4. i had kids from school over in 2nd grade after i had missed minths die ro a sledding accident where i incurred stiches. i cant imagine why i was home months bur i was.
    bb guns and jello is all i remember but it was fun to see all my friends again

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  5. I had a birthday party when I was in Grade 1 or 2, and I was heartbroken because my parents told me just before the guests arrived that we were moving to a new house in a different part of town and I wouldn’t be one house away from my best friend anymore.

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  6. OT-This morning I asked our children what Christmas baked goodies they wanted. It looks like 12 kinds of cookies as a well as Bremer Klaben and Stollen. The excitement was palpable in their texts.

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  7. I’m struck by the fact that our collective birthday memories aren’t overwhelmingly happy ones.

    I, too, remember only one birthday party. It didn’t involve friends from school, but rather my playmates from my immediate neighborhood. It must have been my fifth or sixth birthday, before I started school, so either 1948 or 1949. My guests were Elin Andersen, the chimney sweep’s daughter, Inge and Grethe Sørensen, the daughters of an attorney who lived next door to Elin, and, of course, my ever present little sister, Randi.

    I remember this party because my uncle Leo, who was a painter and lived with us, had bought a large roll of heavy duty white paper to cover the dining room table. On it he had drawn big Disney cartoon characters we were familiar with from the Donald Duck magazine. I remember spending the afternoon happily coloring Donald Duck, Minnie and Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and others whose American names I don’t know.

    The party ended rather abruptly when someone accidentally knocked over a cup of hot chocolate on our artwork. Mom unceremoniously ripped it off the table, crumpled it up, tossed it in the trash, and sent my guest home.

    In a way this party is a perfect example of memories from my childhood and youth. So many fun or blissful moments tarnished by the fear and anxiety I always felt because of mom’s inability to deal with even the smallest of mishaps.

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    1. One of YAs parties was a beach day in January theme. As her friends came in, they took off their shoes, dipped their feet in little shallow pans of paint and walked across a really long piece of butcher paper — footprints in the sand. While they were cleaning their feet and doing a couple of other activities, the footprints dried and I put the butcher paper on the dining room table and covered it with a clear plastic tablecloth so that the footprints would show through while they ate. Luckily no big spills that day!

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        1. I used to keep files of magazine articles that I thought were interesting or might come in handy at some point. I don’t have them anymore because now I’ve got the Internet. I’m not sure where my ideas come from they just kind of come to me and then I just kind of let loose.

          When I was still working, I had one coworker who thought that her birthday celebration every year was the most exciting thing. Nothing wa ever too big or complicated for her. We were a match made in heaven.

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      1. Oh, It wasn’t just spills,tim, every little thing could set her off. I remember one Christmas, I was helping decorate the tree. I picked up one of those extremely fragile, colored glass balls and accidentally put my thumb through it. That pretty much ruined the day.

        On another occasion, I recall spending several hours at a friend’s house while her mother was frantically trying to dry one of my socks (this was before anyone in Stubbekøbing had dryers), in a futile attempt to spare me a beating. I had gotten the sock wet by stepping too close to a pond trying to catch a frog. A wet sock, losing a button off a jacket, a tear in a piece of clothing, getting dirt on myself or my clothes, were all infractions that might or might not warrant a beating, depending on her mood.

        My most constant fear was not hearing her when she would call from the front door for me to come home. When this happened, there was hell to pay. I had nightmares about this for years, even after I left home. I had been working in Switzerland for six months before I finally realized I was safe from her, and the dreams abated.

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        2. Every child should have security and consistency from their parents, and it’s tragic when that doesn’t happen. One writer who wroteabout this said that the best attitude to adopt is one of mourning rather than blame. I think it was Alice Miller. If it’s worth anything, I mourn for that child you were then.

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        3. Thanks, Linda, and so do I. I forgave her a long time ago, so I no longer struggle with it. But the scars are deep, and it’s still painful to think about.

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  8. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    Not many birthdays parties. I do remember going to many, though, and being amazed that other children had so many toys. Themes? Had there been such a thing, I would have loved Annie Oakley and cowgirls.

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  9. HI- I have pictuers of a birthday party at the farm with my cousins and friends, I think for 7 and 8? Or so. I don’t remember going to other parties, which is odd…

    But turning 25, that was a big group of theater friends at a local resturant and I remember that just being a lot of fun. It had nothing to do with drinking, just a lot of fun.

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  10. I did have birthday parties in elementary school – no themes, though. Most of them were fairly small – maybe 5 guests plus my sisters and a cousin. But one party, I think 1st or 2nd grade, had 10 school friends. My birthday is close to Christmas. One year the party fell on the same day Santa Claus was visiting at the town hall so we went to see him. That was kinda special. Probably the most notable thing about my birthdays was that Mom always made a confetti angle food cake per my request.

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  12. I had one birthday party when I was 8. We had it at the lake before we built our house there, so there was only an old cabin with an outhouse and no running water. I loved the lake though. The guests were all from Owatonna, from my neighborhood and school. I don’t remember how many but it couldn’t have been more than four little girls. I had to include my much younger brothers in my party. It was Easter time, so we had an egg search and pin the tail on the donkey in the garage. Mom made angel food cakes from a box for all of our birthdays. It was a short party because we had to take all the girls back home to Owatonna.

    I don’t recall anyone having themed birthday parties when we were kids. I felt really lucky to have one at all.

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  14. I don’t recall having parties as a kid, just a cake. Or maybe cupcakes. Just the immediate family. Birthdays weren’t a big deal then.

    I was invited to a few parties for friends, but I don’t remember that happening often. I do remember one party for my friend Nicky, when we were maybe eight or nine. She introduced me to her mother by saying “…and this is the smartest girl in our class…” which pleased and embarrassed me at the same time. Years later, in junior high, Nicky and I became close friends, and when her family moved away, we wrote to each other regularly. After we graduated, we got an apartment together.

    When I was a teenager, maybe thirteen or fourteen, I was invited to a friend’s house, and she had planned a surprise party for me. It was a complete surprise – never suspected a thing. I don’t have any specific memories of the party after the intial surprise, though – I think it was in the lower level of their house, and I was walking down some steps when everyone popped out and yelled “Surprise!” And I was so startled I just sat down on the steps.

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