Happy Birthday

The sadness that enveloped many Canadians after the heartbreaking loss of the Blue Jays was not shared by everyone. The next day our neighbours hosted a gigantic birthday party for one of their children.

It got me reminiscing about birthday parties I have known in the past. When I was a kid back in the 1950’s, parties were pretty simple. I was allowed to have 5 or 6 friends at our house. The guests brought simple gifts like candy. One year I got a 45 rpm record – my first – Buddy Holly singing Peggy Sue. I played it till there were no grooves left.

My mom served sandwiches; the favourites were peanut butter and banana pinwheels. One year Mom got the idea to tint the milk pink. Everyone loved that milk. One girl got a stomach ache from drinking too much. Mom also used to wrap nickels and dimes in saran wrap and hide them in the cake batter. All the kids ate a lot of cake, hoping to get rich.

When my own children came along, birthday parties were becoming a little more elaborate. Parents figured out that hosting parties outside the home created a lot less mess to clean up. My kids, Jennifer and Jamie, were born 3 years apart, but both birthdays were only 2 days apart, in January. I tried hosting both birthdays at home on the same day, the older girls in the family room, and the younger boys in the rec room. It was pretty chaotic with the boys spying on the girls and the girls screaming out in protest.

The next year I took them all, 2 sets of 6 kids each, to Chuck E Cheese; the location that was recently featured in the Toronto Star. I also persuaded a couple of other parents to join us and help supervise. They must have been very good friends. The kids all got their share of “coins’ to use playing various games. They could run back to our table periodically to grab a slice of pizza or a drink. The party worked fairly well and we didn’t lose a single child. But one tiny girl somehow got back to the car with only one boot on. Everyone waited as I ran back to the restaurant, and crawled around on my hands and knees until I found the other one.

Chuck E Cheese

Another year I rented a Toronto Parks and Recreation pool for a hour. It wasn’t very expensive, maybe $50 back then, and it was an activity the kids couldn’t normally do in January. Twelve kids in a huge pool meant there weren’t any territorial arguments, and there was a lifeguard so nobody drowned. But there was a lot of sorting of wet clothes in the dressing rooms. And then they had to go back to our house for the food anyway.

I have to say that I was relieved when Jen and James grew old enough to sort out their own birthday arrangements with friends. I tried to pretend they were celebrating in a nice restaurant instead of drinking beer in a rowdy pub.

But last Sunday our neighbours hosted a party beyond belief. The front yard was already decorated to the max with Hallowe’en stuff: ghosts, spider webs, skeletons, a pumpkin family, a motion-activated scary-looking guy at the door yelling ” Beware!!” Then along came a large truck that began spewing out parts and blowing them up.

A huge structure began to take shape in their driveway. Was it a bouncy castle? I went to have a closer look. I found a maze of towers and balls that led to blow-up stairs. At the top of the stairs was a double slide as high as the second storey of the house. The view up there must have been amazing. The neighbourhood kids came to have a look too. They lined up to try out the slides. I was tempted to join the line, but then more birthday party kids began arriving in cars.

I retreated to the safety of our front window where I could watch; and think back to the good old days when parties were a lot simpler. All you had to do was tint the milk pink.

Sue