In June there’s Luna’s birthday, my daughter, and this for me is the most important day of the year.
I love to organize and receive, but her birthday is for me something special, so I want everything to be perfect.
This year she’s 8 years old and except for her first birthday that we passed in our beach house, the other years we celebrated here at home in Rome because in her birthday school isn’t over.
Celebrating a birthday of kids at home is surely busy, it requires time and energies, but most of all spaces.
Luna was born in June so it’s good to celebrate on the outside and our terrace is perfect, but it needs to have an inside space. I remember a year where the forecast scheduled a summer storm, not only rain but also a strong wind. There was even a weather alert but the invites were already sent.
So, with a little effort, I changed the party around 11 and I had to organize a last minute brunch for the guests, because at 15:30 it was foreseen the famous storm. The weather was good until 15, but suddenly I remember it all became black and a rain broke loose with an incredible wind.
The invited were going away but I remember that we were running to catch the balloons and the wind was making everything fly away. But we were rescued…and it was a fantastic party.
My first advice to organize a party is to always have a plan B. Opened or enclosed place, even if sometimes this means to give up on a place you loved.
Each year we change the party’s theme and she always chooses the theme, since she was 4.
Luna loves her party, maybe because that since always it’s been handled with big love from the family and indeed we involve the gramps which each year at the end of the party chose the theme for the next year.
For 2 years we decided the details on Pinterest. We went crazy but who printed the things we liked.
My right arm is my dad, who is good with dexterity and he’s able to create anything with a picture or a project in hand. So Luna and I choose all and we make it with him. More often than not his practical wins on our Pindaric ideas.
I must say that we know the theme earlier, the winter weekends when we’re at home for the bad weather; we can do chores that will help for the making of the party.
It doesn’t matter if everything won’t be perfect, but the realization of the elements from the kids for the setting up of their party is essential.
Last year Luna chose as a theme “Alice in Wonderland” and I immediately loved it, not only for the book story but because she’s Alice.
I call her Alice sometimes, because she often has her head up in the clouds and she’s a dreamer. So this feast fits her well.
In Rome there was a display on Alice this winter and Luna really liked it. It was being held in a multimedia telling, but the beautiful thing is that when you arrive the White rabbit introduced you in the show while running inside the story, and it made kids dip into it, disappearing and appearing in the salient moments.
There was a part also playful with a labyrinth and spaces always in theme but the thing she liked the most is making tea alone with Alice. A really nice girl who was interpreting the character of Alice in the story who at the end entertained her.
We were out there with more details and some elements for the theme party, but mostly with the wish of Luna of making tea with her friends in terrace, with the entire set table.
I liked the party but it was harder and especially we already fixed a vacancy in June of almost 10 days and we would have been back close to the party that would have been at home. So I opted for the collaboration of a planner Party for kids, who helped me realize what we had in mind.
My dad already had made the elements, which she inserted in the setting and the table was wonderful with under it, a carpet of lawn.
A fundamental rule played the treats and the cake which were beautiful and enriched the table. In June is quite hot and it’s not easy to handle fondant, so I recommend talking to the person who will give you the cake and the sweets on how to conserve them to make them resist for all the feast.
The other years I always made the biscuits and the decorated muffins, even if in a very simple way, I use my magic Bimby, with easy recipes that everyone can do. And I remember last year that I spent the whole day trying to make biscuits but the pastry was crumbling in my hand for the heat, but in the end I made it… with an effort.
This year the next step was convincing Luna that there are more delicious biscuits than the one who makes Mom, and surely more beautiful, so I was able to delegate this part.
With last year experience, I was risking not to have time to prepare the sweets the day before, so it was good to delegate also because no kid reclaimed my sweets.
It’s awesome, if you have time and willing to organize your kids’ party, making it a moment for their friends who come for the birthday wishes or to eat a piece of cake.
A toast all together is the crowing of a feast, of small and big friends who want to come, because who wants to be there, there will be and who won’t, won’t be.
It’s her day, celebrate with big smile and let’s make this day extraordinary.
Remembering always that all we do, we do it for them, they’ll be happy, and what can we wish more for their birthday?
Viviana Grunert
