TheBanyanTree: Birthday Bash

[Margaret R. Kramer]

We didn’t win the Powerball lottery.  I usually don’t play, but when the pot
gets big and the chances of winning get smaller, that’s when I buy $5 worth
of tickets.  Sometimes I forget and then I feel like I lost out on something
when I don’t buy at least one ticket.  I think the lottery allows me to
dream of “what might be.”  What would life be like without any debt?  What
would life be like if we didn’t have to go to work everyday?

Well, I checked the numbers in the paper this morning, and we didn’t even
have ONE matching number, so the “what might bes” will have to be put on the
back burner until the next large pot or until Wednesday if no one won this
one.

We’re getting a gentle dusting of snow this morning.  The temps have held
steady.  We’re finally having a real bit of winter.  People are sledding,
ice skating, playing hockey outside, and cross country skiing.  The birds
are hitting our feeders pretty hard now that their other food sources are no
longer so available to them.  The days are gradually getting longer.  I no
longer walk Axel in the dark in the evening.

There seems to be a lot of kids born in January.  And lots of kids means
lots of birthday parties.  Our newspaper had an article on the outrageous
cost of children’s parties last Sunday.  A group of mothers have formed a
group to prevent stress and burnout from planning children’s parties.
Whatever happened to cake and ice cream and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey?

Last summer my coworker’s son turned four years old.  I listened to the blow
by blow description of her party plan daily for at least two months.  I
heard about the invitations, the theme, the presents, the gift bags, the
food, the time, and on and on.  Over 50 people attended this party!

My mother, a social planner, had parties for us, and I think they were over
the top for the 50s and 60s.  She spent hours making the decorations and
planning the games.  I remember for one party, I think I was six or seven,
our whole basement was crammed with kids – kids I didn’t know very well, but
my mother couldn’t imagine why I only had one or two friends, so she invited
everyone in my class.  But these parties were home based and I’m sure she
had to watch how much money she spent on them.  My parents did MAKE a lot of
the decorations rather than buying them.

My son was born at the end of June, birthday parties were easy for him,
because we could do things outside.  When he was older, like around six, the
parties became less family focused and more friend focused.  He could invite
his close friends, note “close” friends, from school or sports.  One year we
had camping out in the back yard.  Another year we had a beach party.  Other
years we went to a Twins game, we went bowling, and we went roller skating.
But these parties involved just handful of kids, because that’s what I could
afford, and there were certainly no gift bags, no themes, and no parents
came – just the kids.

My older grandson was invited to a birthday party yesterday.  His friend’s
family was taking 14 kids to the Science Museum – at $10.50 a kid, that’s
pretty expensive.  I’m sure there were gift bags, food, and other things,
too.

Do these kids really get anything out of these large and expensive parties?
Do these over the top parties help their social standing at school?  Or is
it another way for today’s over involved parents to overindulge their
children?

Next week is my younger grandson’s birthday party.  He’ll be six.  My son
said he doesn’t really have any close friends at school – a child after my
own heart, so we’re just having a family party, probably at a restaurant (I
hope it’s not Chucky Cheese).  It seems meager and sad compared to the mega
parties going on around my grandsons, but my son doesn’t have the money or
the inclination to have a fabulous party for the boy.

And I don’t either.  We’ll have a nice dinner, he can open his gifts, and we
’ll sing “Happy Birthday,” and that will be it.  Sweet and simple, just like
the boy he is.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the
starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and
brotherhood can never become a reality.... I believe that unarmed truth and
unconditional love will have the final word.
~Martin Luther King