Celebrating Birthdays, Whatever Your Age

 

I’ve recently thinking about birthdays. March and April are busy months for birthdays in our family at this time of year. Our kids absolutely love their birthdays. A whole day to celebrate you with presents and parties and, of course, cake. Let’s not forget the cake. Nothing says “birthday” quite like a cake whether its decorated in your favourite cartoon character or covered in frosting and chocolate. A birthday cake is an integral part of the day, and best of all, you’re actually allowed to eat it. More than that, it’s expected. In this day and age when sugar is the root of all our problems, carbohydrates are a form of self-harm and wine the downfall of all our dieting intentions, birthdays provide an excuse for some guilt-free indulgence.

My twins love their birthday so much they start planning it six months in advance. After Christmas they start talking about what kind of party they are going to have. Their birthday is in June. The date is firmly on the radar and even if the details still need to be worked out one thing is certain, there will be some form of serious celebration. They look forward to the day with eager anticipation. They rip open presents, display their birthday cards all around the house and generally revel in the attention, telling everyone we happen across that day that this day is special because it’s their birthday.

Speaking of marking birthdays, how do you celebrate yours? Do you go all out with parties, balloons, and trips away? Do you stretch it out over a week or two to get as much mileage out of it as you can? Or do you only do those things for other people, choosing instead to spend your day quietly and anonymously, not telling anyone it’s your birthday, and certainly not divulging your actual age. Because we never give that away.  That’s often a state secret only to be shared after one too many glasses of pinot grigio. We are happy to discuss ages with our kids though. It’s quite common to ask how old a child is. It’s one of the standard questions: What’s your name; What class are you in at school; how old are you? We are happy to discuss our favourite things and what we do all day. We never discuss our age. Unless our kids do it for us. I remember a trip to the dentist where they asked the standard questions, what’s your name, how old are you? Ben proudly announced “I’m Ben and I’m five, and this is Tracey and she’s forty-three!” I like to think the dentist looked surprised at this revelation, but I know it was actually amusement at Ben’s total acceptance of the numbers and lack of inhibition in sharing them. After all, age is just a number, isn’t it?

The idea of age has changed over the years. Our parents look much younger now than their parents did at forty thanks to more flattering hairstyles, younger looking clothes and a longer life expectancy. Forty isn’t so old any more. If forty is the new thirty, then eighty is the new sixty if the last party I was at is anything to go by. Sylvia, the birthday girl, defied any preconceived notions of what eighty should look like, blazing a trail in a chic black dress and dancing the night away. Maybe we should all take a leaf out of her book and throw birthday parties complete with champagne cocktails (she served rhubarb gin and prosecco – strangely moreish), fabulous food and dancing until midnight.

Have you got a birthday coming up? Why not plan something lovely, nice coffees at break time or a lunch at the very least, and load up those candles on your favourite cake. I plan to kick-start my birthday festival with chocolate muffins for breakfast, indulge in some delicious chocolate truffles for elevenses, and a slice of chocolate cake for tea washed down with some prosecco. Alright, I might throw in some vegetables at lunchtime and maybe a piece of fruit or two, but you get the picture. I’m starting the planning early; my birthday is almost seven months away.  I think my twins will approve.

 

Ribbon – the Ultimate Cake-Saver

No birthday party is complete without a good old fashioned cake to finish it all off. Birthday cakes are exciting, loaded with candles, heaped with decorations and, in my view, the more icing and flavoured butter cream the better. Birthday cakes symbolise the point of the whole occasion. They bring about the moment when the party pauses to celebrate the birthday boy or girl. Candles are lit, lights dimmed and the cake is revealed, ceremoniously placed in front of the person wearing the birthday hat or badge and we all sing “happy birthday”. The singing is usually in an unsuitable key and all out of tune, and sometimes out of sync, but it’s all part of the pageant and once it’s done we can get on with the best bit – slicing and eating the cake.

With all eyes on the cake it needs to be a good’un. So what happens when the decoration goes wrong? Icing a cake is harder than it looks and definitely takes twice as long as you think it will. All too often the icing doesn’t stretch to the bottom, the decorations won’t stick to the sides and you manage to accidentally dent the icing around the sides with your fingers. So what do you do when time has run out and your cake looks like your four-year old twins have iced it themselves? I always turn to the ultimate in cake-saving kit: ribbon.

Ribbon hides the mistakes.

For Emily’s sixth birthday cake I rolled out the icing but it wasn’t big enough for the cake. I stretched it as much as I could but it just didn’t reach to the bottom of the cake and the ends looked ragged and very unappealing.

Some white and pink ribbon covered up the rough edges and transformed the cake from a mess into a cake fit for a party.

Ribbon helps one-cake-fit-all at joint birthday parties

Decorations can serve a greater purpose than making a cake look nice. If you have twins and don’t want to make two separate birthday cakes, entirely reasonable in my book, ribbon can help solve the problem of how to share one cake instead. My twins each chose their favourite colour and I tied both around the cake.

Ribbon keeps everything in place

Chocolate fingers around the outside of a cake look great. A great cheat if, like me, you can’t make chocolate swirls. You can go for all chocolate fingers, or alternate chocolate and white chocolate fingers for a change. But, whichever kind you go for, they don’t look so great when they are falling off and peeling away from the sides of the cake. Even with a good thick layer of butter icing around the cake the chocolate fingers can slide around and start to lean out from the cake. The last time I made one of these I tied ribbon around it to keep the fingers in place. The ribbon actually added to the decoration of the cake as well as holding the chocolate fingers in place.

So, the next time you are baking a cake for a birthday party don’t worry about spending hours trying to perfect the edges of your icing or pipe the perfect swirls. Simply break out the ultimate in cake saving kit – the humble ribbon. Ribbon can hide the roughest edges, hold together uncooperative decorations and transform even the messiest of messes into a pretty beautiful thing worthy of any party.

Recipe for a Party

Our twins turned five last week – five! I can’t believe they are five years old already. It made me think about the last five years, how good those years were, and how much life has changed from when they were born until now. It also made me think about how much more I should have done with them during those years but I reckon it’s best not to dwell on that. I also got to thinking about parties and how much fun it is to have a celebration with your friends. Birthday parties in particular can be so much fun. I’m probably fairly typical in that I prefer organising parties for other people so having twins to plan parties for is perfect!

Parties can also take a little bit of planning, but planning and effort definitely pay off in the end. They usually follow a fairly predictable recipe:

Pick a theme: Pirates Ahoy!

It can be difficult to settle on a theme that will please girls who love pink and boys who love trucks and trains. Pirates fitted the bill nicely. Turns out pirate paraphernalia comes in pink too so all tastes in colours are catered for.

Throw in Some Decorations

Balloons are mandatory and streamers are always good. You can even get pirate streamers to hang from the ceiling. Throw in a banner or two and you’re good to go.

Add in a Treasure Hunt

Every pirate party needs a treasure hunt and every treasure hunt. I bought a treasure hunt game last year and embellished it this year by adding in more elaborate clues. I bought eye patches to put on all of the kids at the start of the treasure hunt to get them fired up and got them shouting “aaargh!” like good pirates after each clue was read out – hilarous!

Include Treasure!

Every treasure hunt needs treasure and I made ours by decorating  a cool box to make it look like a treasure chest.

Step 1   Take one cool box

Step 2   Wrap in brown paper and black ribbon. Stick on some gold chocolate coin wrappers and some sea shells and draw on a lock.

Step 3   Line with red paper

Step 4   Fill with your treasure. I filled ours with goodie bags.

Don’t forget the Treasure Map

What would a treasure hunt be without a treasure map? I made this one by drawing out some pirate doodles on a large white sheet of paper. Next I painted it with tea and browned the edges with some dark brown paint.

Stir in a Birthday Cake

Who doesn’t love birthday cake?! They make a nice centerpiece and are crucial for the singing of “happy birthday”. And you can’t have a kids party without letting them try to blow out the candles on a cake! I’m always sightly amazed that anyone would want to eat it after two small children have sputtered all over it but it turns out that chocolate cake is hard to resist. This year we went for a chocolate bonanza – chocolate fudge cake, chocolate icing, chocolate fingers stick all around the outside, and Maltesers, white chocolate buttons and large handfuls of m&m’s add up to a real chocolate feast! Once it was decorated I wrapped it in pink and blue ribbon to finish it off.

Mix with Some Party Food

I realised half way through the party that I had forgotten to put out the strawberries and blueberries that I had put in the fridge, so the party food table consisted of crisps, cookies, and cake! Ooops! We also had some pizza but I think more of the mums had that than the kids….

Borrow a Bouncing Castle!

One of the twins’ friends has a bouncing castle and her dad very kindly offered to lend it to us for the party. It was fantastic! All the kids just loved it and it helped keep them outside in the garden as well as add the party atmosphere.

Finally add in a load of friends and bake for two hours

All parties need good friends to make it happen. Good friends enjoying themselves and singing happy birthday make it a party. Friends make it exciting and fun and they make you feel special for that day which is what a birthday party is all about.

 

Roll on next year’s party! Not that I want to wish the year away, I really don’t. But this year’s party was so enjoyable that I can’t wait to do it all again. And I’ll try not to forget the bowls of fruit next time!