The Last Word

PARTY LIKE IT’S MY BIRTHDAY...

As I mentioned last time I have had a birthday recently, and last month my wife celebrated hers too. Despite the misgivings I mentioned about getting older, we still did the usual things, bought cards and gifts, tried to make sure we did something ‘special’ to mark the occasion and I have to say we both (I think both!) had a lovely time on our respective ‘big day’. It got me thinking though, it’s just not the same having birthdays as when you are a kid.

When I was younger my birthday was a HUGE deal. I would be excited about it for months beforehand; I’d count down the days from at least a month out. I’d have an extensive list prepared of all the things I wanted, not necessarily expensive things in all honesty, but the enthusiasm you have for things when you are a kid is so much more intense than as an adult. You simply HAVE to have it or the world will likely end.

My birthday joie de vivre was also shared by my family and peers. I’d have a cake, a party, loads of presents. The sun would shine (it always does on the righteous after all!) and we’d all have a jolly good time. When did it all go wrong?!

Perhaps it’s when you start to want to celebrate your party with something a little more grown up than a bottle of Panda Cola and an enormous bag of Smiths’ Chipsticks. Your parents and siblings take a back seat and suddenly you’re off out celebrating with your pals by going on a big pub crawl instead. It becomes far less about having an innocently good time and far

more about being the focus of embarrassing dares (I think this is more a male thing to be honest).

And when you become a parent yourself, your birthday pales into insignificance compared to the hullabaloo you make when your little carbon copies start celebrating their milestones. You spend the night before blowing up enough balloons to cover the living room floor and wrapping up a mountain of presents you hope will bring a big smile to their faces. You organise parties, you bake cakes according to the latest fad they’re obsessed with – hoping they don’t change their minds at the eleventh hour of course – and life comes full circle.

One upside I have found is that kids LOVE birthdays so much they get excited about celebrating yours. My 8 year-old takes planning birthdays particularly seriously, and likes to outdo herself year on year. She gets into cahoots with my wife planning what we are going to do and now includes a birthday breakfast… namely immortalising my face in fruit… My kids think it’s enormous fun - not egged on by my wife at all of course - to get hold of any large fruit (we’ve had pineapples and watermelons so far) and then assemble it into my face

with other fruit-based accessories – strawberries for ears, apple rings for my glasses and so on, you get the idea. Sure the joke might be on me but I’m getting pretty used to that!

“When I was younger my birthday was a HUGE deal. I would be excited about it for months beforehand; I’d count down the days from at least a month out.”

Phil Rockliffe