As the years add up and the birthday parties become routine and blah, or altogether avoided, how does one go about making your special day a unique and fun experience for everyone involved? Well, if you’re love of games is strong and your planning skills are sharp, you might want to glean some inspiration from this fantastic birthday-celebrating idea.
This past weekend we were invited to take part in a fun and alternative way of celebrating our neighbour’s entry into her 40’s. In an attempt to take the spotlight off of herself and give her invitees a fun and interesting afternoon, she planned and set up an Amazing Race type of game to take place. We met at the designated meeting place, at the designated time, and were given a list of tasks to complete before meeting at the ending location (we were to figure this out from a rhyme of clues) where a potluck was to take place and winners decided from the points they were awarded for each task completed.
My hubby and I raced around our little island, ticking off each item. The tasks ranged from finding the puzzle in a bookstore with puffins on it and jotting down the artist’s name, to completing a timed obstacle course where one of us led the other, blindfolded, through a series of tasks, to finding a gnome hidden (very well, I might add) in a grocery store. We built a tower out of 50 straws (connecting toys), that was supposed to be able to hold the weight of a book for ten seconds, but our alternative building style led to a very unique, yet unsupportive structure (we still got 4 points for our artistic effort). Finding a eucalyptus tree and bringing back a leaf as proof was the trickiest thing we had to do, but thanks to the ever-helpful world of the internet, a quick search of google images led us to the local fire hall where a eucalyptus was thriving.
The BEST part of the whole experience was serenading the honoured instigator with a creative rendition of “Happy Birthday” when everyone arrived at the potluck destination. I loved coming up with some funny little lyrics and coordinating with the hubs for a spectacular performance, and watching the other teams share what they had come up with. I’ll never fail to be amazed by the ingenuity of others. We have some pretty creative and talented souls, here on Salt Spring.
I really enjoyed playing along with the birthday girl’s creative game, and this is definitely an idea I’m going to lock away for future celebrating reference.