I had some incredibly elaborate, themed birthday parties growing up, thanks to my parents, in particular my mother.  Here are a few of the ones that stand out in my mind:

When I turned five my mother had a ballet-themed birthday party (I was doing the obligatory one-two years of dance and ballet that all little girls do between the ages of four and seven).  We’d rented a room at the JCC to have plenty of space.  All the girls were asked to come to the party wearing little leotards, and everyone received a tutu, a feather boa, and a tiara upon arrival.  My mother had a dance teacher friend, who taught us all a little dance to what I think was a Paula Abdul song, but I might be wrong.  Toward the party’s end, all the parents came back, and we performed our hastily-learned dance routine for them.  Afterwards cake and ice cream happened.  The cake had a ballerina on it.

I was totally over the ballerina thing a year later, and I was starting to settle into my adult likes and dislikes, so for my sixth birthday I had a ghost-themed party with ghost-themed games.  This would have been a better Halloween party, but I didn’t care; my birthday was in March, and I wanted a ghost party.  Everyone had to come dressed up as ghosts.  Most people came in sheets, myself included, but I remember this one girl–we’ll call her Sarah K.–who was always beautiful and put together (she grew up to be beautiful and put together, and i think she might have gone to Harvard?  That bitch).  She showed up to my party in this elaborate, beautiful ghostly flower-girl and makeup costume and I was so jealous of her and also sort of hated her for looking better than I did at my party (I had some intense emotions for a six year old).  Anyways, this party was awesome.  We had a mummy-wrap toilet paper game, and this game where my mother strung our playroom with yarn, and we had to navigate it as a “spider’s web” maze.  The cake was a ghost, of course.  This was probably the best birthday party I ever had ever.

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