Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

October.  Aside from the obvious autumnal-ness, October seems to be choc-a-bloc full of birthdays, and not only that of my Dads’, mine or Beths’.  In the last month, we have celebrated and attended no less than 6 birthdays between us (- all from the ‘ex-pat’ crowd, mind you).  When I RSVP’d to the one invite which was being held at the ice-rink, the girls’ mom asked me if I would be ‘blogging about it’.  I jokingly said that I would not be writing about just that one party on the ice-rink, but if she didn’t mind, I would include a paragraph. I suspect she feared the possible ‘featurette’, so it will get a mention, but no photo’s will be included.

There is a part of me that feels that writing about birthday parties might seem quite mundane.  But once you have attended 6 in 4 weeks, and you get to prepare 2 of your own, it gives you something to think about.

Our parties in South Africa were festive occasions for adults- celebrating the girl’s birthdays was low-key, mostly because they were too young.  For Alex’s 4th and 5th, I did make more effort to focus on her friends, but the idea of inviting 20 children who I did not know to our house has never appealed to me, so I’d always limited it to 6 friends, followed by a light supper for family and close friends, because we had the weather and space for it.  Messy fun would always be had- some Moms would end up hovering around the little water feature in one little corner (because what child just ignores a pond of water?), the men would be hovering around the rugby on television- March and October is either Super Rugby or Currie Cup Rugby season.

But when you move country, thinking about how you conduct your future birthday parties is not high on your list of priorities.  The first birthdays to cross our paths after our move was mine and Beth’s.  At the time, we had approximately 4 sets of friends, but we lived far out of town, and were in some sort of limbo period- we were anticipating our move, but unsure of where we would be, and what we would have, so we did nothing.  Luckily, Beth was young enough to not know what she was missing, and I had made the decision to not celebrate and was content with the choice.  My friend Mme H treated me to lunch at Vapiano, and that was all I needed.

A year later, much has changed.

Firstly, I have encountered the big deal that are birthday celebrations- particularly for children.  I was very grateful earlier this year when we celebrated Alex’s 6th birthday.  Her good friend, Mme H’s son, has his birthday very close to Alex’s, so instead of fighting for a date, we pooled our resources and time, and had a joint party.  I was very grateful, as I learned those little nuances and expectations that revolve around birthday parties:  if you’re inviting almost an entire class, you can’t exclude one child because you don’t like him/her;  parties are 2 hours long- minimum; siblings are not necessarily invited, but you need to state your preference; parents of 6 year olds are likely to drop their children for the 2 hours; games are expected- kids don’t entertain themselves; don’t serve soft chewey sweets- children running around while eating a sweet could well choke on it; French children don’t eat icing, so don’t bother serving an elaborate cake full up with icing; and lastly: PARTY BAGS- if you don’t provide a party bag, then you may as well write off your child’s popularity succession.

The party bag is handed out at the end of the party, and is given to say thank you for coming. And here you should read “thank you for the gift.”

I have to get this off my chest:  this niggles me.  In my youth, and even as recently as our wedding and baby-showers, I was made (encouraged) to sit and write thank you letters to anyone who ever gave me a gift.  Obviously this memory is only as far back as I remember being able to write, and before that, I strongly suspect my Mom would sit and write those letters out on my behalf.  Those were before the days of e-mail, text messages and party bags.  More recently after our adult birthday parties, I might have stopped with an elaborate effort of hand written letters, but I did attempt a slightly more personal series of e-mails.

After Alex’s big birthday party in March, where we booked a venue, and could invite 20 odd children (and siblings) I sat down and wrote out a little thank you note, which made me feel very good about myself.  However, only one person actually commented on that, and I get the impression that party bags are the answer, so don’t bother with anything different.

So what, you might ask, have I encountered this far on my birthday party trips?  Tubi-tuba, Plumy Park and Baloos are indoor venues that could, with a little honesty, be an oversized kiddie play area at the Spur.  Ball-pens, climbing frames, trampolines, climbing walls, jungle-gyms.  For 12 euros per child you can have a room for cake and treats (which you provide yourself), and 2 hours that your guests can run amok.  Then, as mentioned, there was the party on the ice-rink.  I’m not sure what that cost, but there was a venue to set up tables, and party treats, as well as the cost of hiring ice-skates and helmets for 2 hours.  At the rink, the ice slab is mostly open to anyone who pays entrance fees, so with a bunch of novices having a party, they cordon off an area for anybody who is not really au fait with being on a pair of skates.  Here, the non-familiars are able to lean on a chair, or push a chair around the ice- much as if they were a group of young toddlers learning how to walk.  Unfortunately for poor Alex, the business of pushing a chair around a circular space filled up with dozens of other little and big kids, as well as looking up onto the edges for me caused her a case of chronic motion sickness, and after vomiting (off the ice), I took her home before the end of the party.

There have also been a few ‘at home’ parties, and this is where I headed for Beth’s last week.  I’m a ‘at home party’ kind of girl- I like having everything I need at my fingertips, so this limited the amount of guests I could invite.  As a result, I took her closest group of school friends, with their siblings, and invited them to ours when Anton was still on hernia recovery leave.  At home, instead of games, I made pizza dough and pizza sauce, and gave each child a lump of dough to roll out.   We spread pizza sauce over, and then they could choose what topping suited them- ham, peppers, mushrooms and cheese, which they did, and tossed them into the oven.  When those were cooking, I took out un-iced cupcakes, 2 bowls of butter icing in pink and blue, and a bunch of cake sprinkles.  Each child got to ice their own cup cakes and throw sprinkles on!  This was followed by tea- so they got to eat what they had ‘cooked’, and they wolfed down some crisps, slurped down apple juice, all followed with 30 minutes of turning the girls bed room upside down.  I think it was a success- something different- and I was happy when I could send them packing with their party bags, filled up with really pointless random plastic junk- sorry folks!!

 

I had a few friends comment over the years that I no longer get to celebrate birthday parties anymore now that I share my birthday with Beth.  Well, I’m sorry to confess, but I don’t plan to give it up too soon.  This year has marked a sense of placement in our lives here in France, and in order to celebrate it, I felt a party was necessary.  I did use the excuse that some of Beth’s friends parents are my friends too, so we could have an extra ‘party’ for Beth while entertaining for ourselves.  I ummed and aahed about who to invite- I enjoy cooking dinner, but I couldn’t limit myself to choosing  just 3 other couples, so I gave in to ‘apero’ (which is basically just drinks and ‘standing-around food’), though we stretched this into a raclette apero concept, and I’m not going to bore you with all those details here.  (If you remember back to May, I wrote about ‘raclette’ as a dinner theme).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a lovely evening, as you can see from the happy faces- when last did you see as many pics of me ;-).  It was rewarding that we have found a space for ourselves here, and there are some special people in our lives.  Between my family back home, my most amazing hubby and my lovely friends, I was truly spoilt,  (and not to forget the very special birthday messages via SMS/Whatsapp etc) so I had better sign this off in order to write some real thank you letters.  I might even put them into envelopes, stick a stamp on it, and drop it in the mail box.  At least WE don’t have an infernal post office strike!

And on that note, I will add some photos to this draft, and click on the ‘upload’ icon.  Who needs the post office anyway?

Cheers, to Cremant, birthday candles, new togs and special new (and old) friends,

Kisses, from the Birthday gals,

xxx